Description

The Foreign Legion Novels Part A contains The Wages of Virtue (1916), Wren's first novel of the French Foreign Legion, and Sowing Glory (1931), a novel supposedly only edited, not written, by Wren. The Wages of Virtue is the story of Sir Montague Merline in the French Foreign Legion. Merline (known as John Bull) joined the Legion after recovering from his apparent death in combat while serving in Africa. Upon regaining his memory several years later, he was told that his wife had married again. In an act of selfless denial, he joined the Legion to keep his identity a secret. The second novel, Sowing Glory, tells the story of a woman who joined the Legion. If it were not for the fantastic ploy of a woman being in the Legion, this book would be one of Wren's most accurate descriptions of the Legion. Both the romance and the reality of the Foreign Legion are described in these novels by the man who popularized the French Foreign Legion. As John Bull states to a recruit: "But we are the cheapest labourers, the finest soldiers, the most dangerous, reckless devils ever gathered together. . . . You're a ha'penny hero now, my boy, and a ha'penny day-labourer, and you're not expected to wear out in less than five years-unless you're killed by the enemy, disease, or the Non-coms."