The Scarlet Pimpernel #6: I Will Repay

This was the second Scarlet Pimpernel novel written, however it would be sixth in the series if read chronologically. It should be read after SIR PERCY LEADS THE BAND and before THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL. The story starts before the French revolution. It's 1783 and wealthy Paul Déroulède has offended the young Vicomte de Marny by speaking disrespectfully 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."