Then came the picture, with a mien attractively
debonair, a pleasantly smiling mouth, and a sympathetic pair of eyes,
and in due course, the tale. I clutched at the flapping ends of the
paper and read on:
Of all the scandals to which the present war has given birth, none
has stirred France more profoundly than that implicating
Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier, Count of Druyes, Marquis of Beuil and
Santenay, and Duke of Raincy-la-Tour. This young nobleman, head of a
family that has played its part in French history since the days of the
Northmen and the crusaders, bears in his veins the bluest blood of the
old regime, and numbers among his ancestors no fewer than seven marshals
and five constables of France.
A noted figure not only by his birth, his wealth, and his various
historic chateaux, but also by his sporting proclivities, his daring
automobile racing, his marvelous fencing, and his spectacular hunting
trips, the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour has long been in addition an amateur
aviator of considerable fame, and it was to the French Flying Corps that
he was attached when hostilities began.
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