Bardelys, the richest and most fashionable man at Louis XIII's court, wagers his estates that he can marry a lady in Languedoc who has refused the King's favourite — and arrives in her country under another man's name, wounded, and is taken for a rebel. Sabatini spoke five languages and wrote in English by choice; this 1906 novel is the purest of his swashbucklers, and the wager turns out to be the least of his problems.