A young man in 1789 who has been beaten by his lord's servants becomes a lawyer of the Revolution, and rises with it — until the Terror asks him to sign the death of the woman he loves. Sabatini wrote in English because, he said, all the best stories are told in it; this early novel is his coldest look at revolution, and it declines to pick a side that is clean. Fifty-six plates of painting by Fragonard and Vernet, from park fetes to castle ruins, give the old regime's grace and its falling stones before the Tribunal takes the stage.
