Accounts of chivalrous deeds had an especial charm for her.

Hume was still her favorite author.

And it happened that, while the gallantry of the loyal champions of Charles I.was fresh in her memory, a casual conversation threw in her way an opportunity of doing honor to the self-devoted heroism of a French soldier whom the proudest of the British cavaliers might have welcomed as a brother, but whose valiant and self-sacrificing fidelity had been left unnoticed by the worthless sovereign in whose service he had perished, and by his ministers, who thought only of securing the favor of the reigning mistress--favor to be won by actions of a very different complexion.
In the Seven Years' War, when the French army, under the Marshal De Broglie, and the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were watching one another in the neighborhood of Wesel, the Chevalier d'Assas, a captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was in command of an outpost on a dark night of October.

He had strolled a little in advance of his sentries into the wood which fronted his position, when suddenly he found himself surrounded and seized by a body of armed enemies.

They were the advanced guard of the prince's army, who was marching to surprise De Broglie by a night attack, and they threatened him with instant death if he made the slightest noise.