A man of the world

"I have no merit whatsoever, if not for a certain audacity. I have not invented anything. It is life that has made me." A young nobleman's gilded youth and a passionate love at the court of Versailles are shattered by Revolution and the looming threat of the guillotine. When letters incriminating Marie Antoinette fall into his hands, he faces a perilous choice between the crown and his own life. A daring escape lands him in Regency London, where he must reinvent himself, armed only with good manners, elegance and wit. He ventures into the glittering circles of Beau Brummell and the Duchess of Devonshire. By chance, he reunites with Eliza, an old friend from Versailles, who introduces him to her new husband, Henry Austen, and the murky world of commerce and finance. He meets Henry's sister, Jane, and a lively correspondence begins between Chawton and London. At eighty, he looks back over the journey from French nobleman to English gentleman: "Oh yes, my life has been amusing," he writes. But the past-and an unforgotten love-can never be completely left behind.