Customer Reviews (1)

A rollercoaster ride of romance, revenge, and Revolution
Alice Roussillon is a surprising heroine considering this book was published way back in 1900. Living in the then French village of Vincennes, Alice is all for turning over the city to the Americans. She even helps sew an American flag and brashly climbs to the top of what serves as town hall to plant it.

But then those pesky villains, the British army, come and take the city away from the fledgling American presence. Alice just keeps getting in deeper and deeper trouble. First she hides the flag and refuses to surrender it to the British commander. Then she shoots (but doesn't kill) a British officer (who strangely enough goes on to fall in love with her.) She helps her French foster father escape, wounding another British soldier with her sword, which she handles expertly by the way. Enough is enough and the commander finally imprisons Alice and threatens to execute her.

Alice's American boyfriend flees to try and find help. He's chased by a band of Indians who want his scalp. He's captured, abused, and forced to go through the gauntlet, but he's able to get away and hook up with the legendary George Rogers Clark and his small band of men.

Meanwhile, Alice is told that her boyfriend has been scalped. She attempts to flee her captives and in the course of events she's shot! But don't worry. Through an extreme set of circumstances she survives and is reunited with her boyfriend who still has all his hair.

If there's one main nitpick it concerns the character of Father Beret, a Jesuit priest. One moment he's a kind old man trying to guide Alice to Catholicism. But when the situation calls for it, he's a strong defender with a good right punch who can also wield a sword with the best of them. Early in the book he receives a mysterious letter but we the reader never do get to learn what it says. It's obvious Beret has an interesting back story, but author Maurice Thompson never goes into it. A wasted opportunity if you ask me.

Another missed opportunity is Alice's background. She was found as a child living with Indians and was placed in the care of a French family. At the very end of the book we're simply told that she finds out who her family is but we're not told how. How did she end up living with the Indians? What happened to her birth parents? Again, Thompson just drops the subject.

One last thing: don't expect any politically correct language when it comes to the Native Americans in this book. Keep in mind the era when this book was written. ... Read more

Product Description
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format.Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship. ... Read more