This 4th volume of the Marie Antoinette Romances begins several years after the close of "The Queen's Necklace." It describes the events leading up to and including the storming of the Bastile. Past plots of Count Balsamo (aka, Cogliostro) to destroy the French monarchy are resurrected by the mysterious Dr. Gilbert – a student of Balsamo's occult arts and the Enlightenment philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Considered by many critics to be a highlight of the Marie Antoinette Romances, Dumas tells this quintessential story of the French Revolution through the lens of the people. As Dumas writes, "The Bastile was the seal of feudalism on the brow of Paris … the monument which had for five centuries weighed like an incubus on the breast of France—a rock of Sisyphus. Less confident than the Titan in her power, France had never thought to throw it off." Here, history shows us the Titanic power that a people can wield!
