Robert Tournay

In the early summer of 1789, Robert Tournay serves the wealthy Rochefort household while thinking about the rights of man. His education and ambition sharpen his resentment of the rank that separates him from Edmé, the baron's daughter. Her arranged engagement to the self-regarding Marquis de Lacheville brings private feelings into a world governed by family wealth and inherited position. William Sage begins this historical romance with tennis, courtship and the tensions beneath an aristocratic estate's comfortable surface.

The story also moves into revolutionary warfare and political suspicion. As a colonel, Tournay commands troops at Wissembourg and earns General Hoche's praise, yet must return to Paris to answer a challenge to his loyalty. Personal attachment, military service and the demands of the revolutionary authorities give the novel its competing pressures. Readers interested in the French Revolution through fiction will find a story linking social inequality with the uncertain rewards of public courage.