Publisher's Synopsis
It's 1783 and wealthy Paul Deroulede has offended the young Vicomte de Marny by speaking disrepctfully of his latest infatuation, Adele de Montercheri. Deroulede 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 Adele, who he sees as a paragon of virtue, the Vicomte challenges Deroulede to a duel, a fight which Deroulede does not want - for he knows and respects the boy's father, the Duc de Marny
