Francezka

Excerpt.....There are fractious men everywhere who dispute the plainest facts. With these unfortunates I am willing to argue for a time, but if they grow impudent about Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, or any of those men who have made a noise in the world, I bring against them one invincible argument—my sword. I am no great lover of the pistol. My sword is enough, and it never misses fire. I am the most peaceable creature alive, and never but twice did I lose my temper over the matter of Count Saxe’s greatness. Once was when a bragging rascal of a pseudo-nobleman from the marches of Brandenburg dared to call this greatness into question, and with offensive words. I gave him his choice of taking a hundred kicks in the stomach or having his ears cut off. He chose the latter, and I sliced one of them off; he begged so hard for the other one that I let it stay on his head.

The second time was with young Gaston Cheverny, who afterward became a devoted adherent of my master—and whose strange story will be told in these pages. I will say, however, it is pretty generally understood when Babache, captain of Count Saxe’s body-guard of Uhlans, sometimes known as the Clear-the-way-boys, or the Storm-alongs, and also as the Devil’s Own, is in the neighborhood, that Count Saxe is the greatest man that ever lived.....