Twenty-four hours after the simple little ceremony at old St.Roch, she had told him the story of how, inadvertently, she had spoken of certain matters connected with the Marquis de St.Cyr before some men--her friends--who had used this information against the unfortunate Marquis, and sent him and his family to the guillotine.
She hated the Marquis.

Years ago, Armand, her dear brother, loved Angele de St.Cyr, but St.Just was a plebeian, and the Marquis full of the pride and arrogant prejudices of his caste.

One day Armand, the respectful, timid lover, ventured on sending a small poem--enthusiastic, ardent, passionate--to the idol of his dreams.

The next night he was waylaid just outside Paris by the valets of Marquis de St.Cyr, and ignominiously thrashed--thrashed like a dog within an inch of his life--because he had dared to raise his eyes to the daughter of the aristocrat.

The incident was one which, in those days, some two years before the great Revolution, was of almost daily occurrence in France; incidents of that type, in fact, led to bloody reprisals, which a few years later sent most of those haughty heads to the guillotine.
Marguerite remembered it all: what her brother must have suffered in his manhood and his pride must have been appalling; what she suffered through him and with him she never attempted even to analyse.
Then the day of retribution came.