The Vicomte de Serizy chanced to be the lieutenant-colonel of this regiment.

At the affair of the Makta, where the field had to be abandoned to the Arabs, Monsieur de Serizy was left wounded under a dead horse.

Oscar, discovering this, called out to the squadron: "Messieurs, it is going to death, but we cannot abandon our colonel." He dashed upon the enemy, and his electrified soldiers followed him.
The Arabs, in their first astonishment at this furious and unlooked-for return, allowed Oscar to seize the viscount, whom he flung across his horse, and carried off at full gallop,--receiving, as he did so, two slashes from yataghans on his left arm.
Oscar's conduct on this occasion was rewarded with the officer's cross of the Legion of honor, and by his promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

He took the most affectionate care of the Vicomte de Serizy, whose mother came to meet him on the arrival of the regiment at Toulon, where, as we know, the young man died of his wounds.
The Comtesse de Serizy had not separated her son from the man who had shown him such devotion.

Oscar himself was so seriously wounded that the surgeons whom the countess had brought with her from Paris thought best to amputate his left arm.
Thus the Comte de Serizy was led not only to forgive Oscar for his painful remarks on the journey to Presles, but to feel himself his debtor on behalf of his son, now buried in the chapel of the chateau de Serizy..