Paoletta: An Eye for an eye
Exiled to a Caribbean island, Paoletta Cadoville and her family cling to the hope of one day returning to their Parisian home. But in a single, devastating moment, that dream is shattered. Alone and horrifically scarred, Paoletta embarks on a perilous quest to uncover the truth behind her family’s tragic fate, only to become entangled in a web of political intrigue, secret societies, and dangerous alliances.
In a Paris overshadowed by the guillotine, Paoletta must decide how much of her humanity she’s willing to sacrifice in pursuit of vengeance. Will she achieve justice for her family or lose herself to the darkness that threatens to consume her?
Paoletta – An Eye for an Eye is a gripping historical thriller set during the French Revolution and a stark reminder that in times of upheaval, innocence is the first to fall, and revenge demands a price paid in blood.
Paoletta opens in the spring of 1792, on the fictional French Caribbean colony of Île de Domaine, somewhere east of Dominica. Only three years earlier, France had been left virtually bankrupt, its finances strained in large part by its costly involvement in the American War of Independence, and its populace seething with discontent.
At the start of 1789, French society was rigidly divided into three estates: the First comprised the clergy; the Second, the nobility; and the Third, everyone else, from the wealthiest educated merchant to the poorest beggar in Paris. The Third Estate held no real political power, no voice in how their country was governed, and bore the burden of taxation while the privileged estates above them paid none.
King Louis XVI called a meeting of the three Estates in May 1789 to drum up some cash for the country, primarily through new taxes, but the Third Estate had other ideas. Frustrated by entrenched inequality and a voting system that favoured the clergy and nobility, they broke away and proclaimed themselves the National Assembly. Tempers flared in the meetings, tensions grew, and, one day in June, the representatives of the Third Estate arrived to find themselves locked out of the meeting halls. They rallied in the royal tennis court near the Palace of Versailles and swore an oath to establish a constitution. The situation was not much better in Paris. Alarmed by the growing presence of the King’s troops deployed to maintain order, an anxious crowd looted the Hôtel des Invalides for muskets and other weapons before storming the Bastille in search of ammunition on the now infamous 14th of July.
Outside Paris, poor harvests across rural France stirred rumours that royalists and the clergy were conspiring to starve the populace into submission. Mobs of peasants attacked manor houses and burned documents affirming feudal rights. The unrest prompted the National Assembly to abolish feudal privileges in August and, a few weeks later, it issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, laying out the principles of liberty, equality, and national sovereignty.
In October, amid riots over soaring bread prices in Paris, a crowd of market women marched on Versailles and compelled the king and his family to move to Paris, further binding the monarchy to the revolutionary government. Over the course of 1790 and 1791, sweeping reforms reshaped the state – church lands were confiscated, and France’s administrative and legal systems were entirely remade. These changes, compounded by inflation and religious conflict, only deepened the political fractures already spreading through the country.
By June 1791, Louis XVI was ruling under a fragile constitutional monarchy, but his attempted escape with his family that summer would ultimately prove fatal. Caught in Varennes and escorted back to Paris, the royal family returned in disgrace. By autumn, the new Legislative Assembly had become dominated by factions increasingly convinced that war was necessary to defend the Revolution. International tensions escalated as émigré nobles sought aid from foreign monarchies, and Austria and Prussia issued threats of invasion.
And here we meet Paoletta in the spring of 1792. The King and his family are confined within the Tuileries Palace, and France stands on the brink of war with Austria. Like many families, by no means all of them noble, Paoletta and her kin languish in exile, uncertain of what the future holds.
Thanks so much for hosting J.R. Powell today, with such a fascinating post linked to his new novel, Paoletta: an Eye for an Eye.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club