PART IX
SATAN AND DEMON
CHAPTER I
There was a notorious troop with Napoleon's army, the sixth Italian regiment, which was called the "Legion of Demons."
The troop was made up of worthless members of society—idlers, highwaymen, outcasts, and desperate characters, who had lost all sense of respectability and morality. The majority of them had sought the asylum of the battle-field to escape imprisonment or worse.
When their commander led his "demons" to an attack, he was wont to urge them thus:
"Avanti, avanti, Signori briganti! Cavalieri ladroni, avanti!" ("Forward, forward, Messieurs Highwaymen! My chivalrous footpads, forward!")
A division of this legion of demons had made its way with the vice-king of Italy thus far through the belt-line, and had been intrusted with the mission mentioned in De Fervlans's letter to General Guillaume. The marquis commanded this body of the demons, he having, as Colonel Barthelmy in the Austrian army, become thoroughly familiar with that part of Hungary.
Lisette and Satan Laczi's little son were living alone at the Nameless Castle.