Based on a true story, this novel follows the experiences of the Jullien family before and during the early years of the French Revolution—Rosalie Jullien, a sensitive and educated frenchwoman, her husband Marc-Antoine Jullien, bourgeois man of letters, and their precocious son, the teenaged journalist who would become known to history as an acolyte of Maximilien Robespierre. It is also the story of their servant Marion, and her own experience of love and loss. In short, it is an intimate tale of a family swept up in the drama of Revolution, as much as it is an exploration, through them, of the nature of Revolution itself.