The Yellow Poppy

14–15 January 1797

Battle of Rivoli

CHAPTER IV

And these proceedings had been entered into against M. de Carné’s wishes; another had overborne that strong will of his. To this day Roland could not quite understand how it had been done. For a moment he lived again through the episode of his quasi-abduction from Kerlidec last February;—that strained interview (at part of which he had been present) between his grandfather and the tall, commanding visitor who, turning out, to Roland’s surprise and delight, to be the Marquis de Kersaint, the hero of the lost day of Rivoli, enlisting likely young men to fight for the King later on in Finistère, had asked M. de Carné if Roland might come with him——provided Roland himself were willing. Of Roland’s willingness—rather, rapture—there could be no question, but M. de Kersaint had insisted on the Baron’s formal consent; and this, on the understanding that Roland was to be regarded strictly as a loan, and returned, had been given . . . but given with such palpable, almost venomous hostility that the youth could not imagine why it should have been vouchsafed at all.

CHAPTER IX

So he chatted unrestrainedly about the little band in Brittany. Chiefly he dwelt upon M. de Kersaint, and manifested astonishment when he learnt that his hostess did not know of the heroic part that gentleman had played in the great Austrian defeat at Rivoli two and a half years ago.

CHAPTER IX

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the Duchesse again, less interested in the battle of Rivoli (on which this young man seemed to be an expert) than in something else. “I mean—what name—whom did you say you overheard? . . . M. de Brencourt?”

CHAPTER II

The Comte’s glance lit for an instant on the scrap of ribbon on the speaker’s breast. It was Schnitterl, the Marquis’s Austrian body-servant—not long ago serving their meal—who, as he was never tired of relating, had found his master half-dead on the battlefield of Rivoli.