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'Her mother executed for witchcraft, her father dead at the hand of a noble, Victoire Charpentier vows to rise above her poor peasant roots.
'Forced to leave her village of Lucie-sur-Vionne for domestic work in Paris, Victoire is raped and threatened by her Marquis master, and must abandon her newborn, Rubie, on the church steps.
'Accused of a heinous crime, Victoire is imprisoned in La Salpêtrière mental asylum, where she bonds with fellow prisoner, Jeanne de Valois - conwoman of the infamous Necklace Affair that brought down Queen Marie Antoinette. She dreams of escaping the asylum but wonders if the price of freedom – losing Jeanne – is worth it.
'Enmeshed in the fervour of the 1789 Bastille storming, Victoire hears the name ‘Rubie’ called. Could her foundling daughter be alive, and living in Paris?'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Epigraph:
The people are like a man walking through a pond with water up to his chin. At the slightest dip in the ground, or the merest ripple, he loses his footing, sinks and suffocates. Old-fashioned charity and new-fashioned humanity try to help him out, but the water is too high. Until the level falls and the pond finds an outlet, the wretched man can only snatch an occasional gulp of air and at every instant he runs the risk of drowning.
The Origins of Contemporary France, Hippolyte Taine.
