He had carried an order across an infernal fire, after three
messengers, trying to accomplish the same feat, had fallen dead. He
had been the first to attack many trenches and had saved many of
his comrades by means of the blows from his bayonet and hand to hand
encounters. Whenever his superior officers needed a reliable man, they
invariably said, "Let Sergeant Desnoyers be called!"
He rattled off all this as though he had witnessed it, as if he had
just come from the seat of war, making Dona Luisa tremble and pour forth
tears of joy mingled with fear over the glories and dangers of her son.
That Argensola certainly possessed the gift of affecting his hearers by
the realism with which he told his stories!
In gratitude for these eulogies, she felt that she ought to show some
interest in his affairs. . . . What had he been doing of late?
"I, Madame, have been where I ought to be. I have not budged from this
spot. I have witnessed the siege of Paris."
In vain, his reason protested against the inexactitude of that word,
"siege." Under the influence of his readings about the war of 1870, he
had classed as a siege all those events which had developed near Paris
during the course of the battle of the Marne.
He pointed modestly to a diploma in a gold frame hanging above the piano
against a tricolored flag. It was one of the papers sold in the streets,
a certificate of residence in the Capital during the week of danger.
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