Emma Orczy

I Will Repay Emma Orczy

It's 1783 and wealthy Paul Déroulède has offended the young Vicomte de Marny by speaking disrepctfully of his latest infatuation, Adèle de Monterchéri. Déroulède had not intended to get into the quarrel but has a tendency to blunder into things - "no doubt a part of the inheritance bequeathed to him by his bourgeois ancestry." Incensed at the slur on Adèle, who he sees as a paragon of virtue, the Vicomte challenges Déroulède to a duel, a fight which Déroulède does not want - for he knows and respects the boy's father, the Duc de Marny. The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo of agonised humiliation. The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing his balance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with a convulsive movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress the tears of shame which were blinding him."Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly, nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to mutter: "Coward!"The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed, quite prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the only possible ending to a quarrel such as this. Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Déroulède should have known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adèle de Montchéri, when the little Vicomte de Marny's infatuation for the notorious beauty had been the talk of Paris and Versailles these many months past. Adèle was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly arrived from its ancestral cote.