A PIECE OF BREAD

BY FRANCOIS COPPEE


The young Due de Hardimont happened to be at Aix in Savoy, whose waters he
hoped would benefit his famous mare, Perichole, who had become wind-broken
since the cold she had caught at the last Derby,--and was finishing his
breakfast while glancing over the morning paper, when he read the news of
the disastrous engagement at Reichshoffen.

He emptied his glass of chartreuse, laid his napkin upon the restaurant
table, ordered his valet to pack his trunks, and two hours later took the
express to Paris; arriving there, he hastened to the recruiting office and
enlisted in a regiment of the line.

In vain had he led the enervating life of a fashionable swell--that was
the word of the time--and had knocked about race-course stables from the
age of nineteen to twenty-five. In circumstances like these, he could not
forget that Enguerrand de Hardimont died of the plague at Tunis the same
day as Saint Louis, that Jean de Hardimont commanded the Free Companies
under Du Guesclin, and that Francois-Henri de Hardimont was killed at
Fontenoy with "Red" Maison. Upon learning that France had lost a battle on
French soil, the young duke felt the blood mount to his face, giving him a
horrible feeling of suffocation.

And so, early in November, 1870, Henri de Hardimont returned to Paris with