2871 Under Two Flags, by "Ouida" [Louise de la Ramee] (read 26 May 1996) I was bowled over by this book! It is so intensely melodramatic that one overlooks the impossible events therein. Cecil Bertie is the second son of an English lord who is in the Guards. He is a spendthrift and a wastrel but the soul of honor--though not about dalliances with married women--and he is a great rider and loves his horse King. There are several magnificent horse races. Then an enemy poisons King so that he has to drop out of a race. Cecil's worthless younger brother forges Cecil's best friend's name at a place where Cecil wasn't but since Cecil was with a married woman Cecil cannot or will not say where he was. Cecil with King escapes to Algeria where they join the French Foreign Legion. They are there twelve years and Cecil learns both his father and his older brother have died and it being believed Cecil is dead his younger brother succeeds to the title. Cigarette is a French woman who loves Cecil. Things get really involved and I confess this extravagant story moved me deeply often in its telling. I really ate this book up, despite its old-fashioned melodrama. ( )

The Ur-French Foreign Legion novel, written before there even was a French Foreign Legion! Ah, for the days when the hero could be nicknamed "Beauty" with no cost to his manliness... ( )

"To have the dreams of one's youth in one's youth." ( )