Mistress of the Revolution
This memoir, spanning ten years of the life of an impoverished noblewoman before and during the French Revolution, recounts Gabrielle de Monserrat's journey through hardships and betrayals by three men in her life, before she reaches at last for an impossible happiness.
Gabrielle is only fifteen when she meets her true love, a young physician. But her brother forbids their union, forcing her to marry an aging, wealthy relative. A widow and a mother at seventeen, cursed with startling beauty, she arrives at the opulent, decadent, turbulent court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Resolute and inquisitive, she survives in the midst of the gathering storm, maintaining her humanity and sense of decency.
As a new order rises, she glimpses her first love, Pierre-André Coffinhal, as he ascends from obscure patriot to one of the most merciless architects of the new order.