Substance: An alternate-history WHAT-IF? suggesting that the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette survived the Revolution and, at thirty, fell back into the hands of the Royalist who engineered his escape. The book follows the life of Florence La Salle, much better at intrigue than painting, an cynical but passionate opponent of Robespierre's opportunisic henchmen. The conclusion is satisfyingly sentimental without being syrupy sweet.
Style: Sabatini likes to use obscure words (for today's readers anyway), and the asides to the reader are no longer in vogue, but he basically tells a ripping good story and has a fine grasp of the inner-workings of mankind. He takes pains to be historically accurate, which results in name-dropping lots of no-longer-recognizable names, but that can be ignored without detriment to the narrative. ( )