abscondences

Lancelot's "abscondences," with or without madness, are too many and too prolonged. [

A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800

After one of the abscondences or disappearances brought about by his madness, he was found dead -- hanging to a balcony, or outside stair, or lamp-post, or what not, in one of those purlieus of Old Paris which were afterwards swept away, but which Hugo and Méryon have preserved for us in different forms of "black and white."

A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century