"Fiction demands verisimilitude; reality forces no such exigencies." So states the author of this curious amalgam of history and imagination that asks you to believe that a nineteen-year-old peasant from Savoy can travel to Paris in 1778 and become not just the boy toy of madame de Polignac, Marie Antoinette's favorite lady-in-waiting, but also secretary of Voltaire, the 18^th Century's most celebrated philosopher. That the bumpkin irrupts into a household animated by one of history's oddest societies also stretches the fringes of the credible. Yet, the characters were...

"Fiction demands verisimilitude; reality forces no such exigencies." So states the author of this curious amalgam of history and imagination that asks you to believe that a nineteen-year-old peasant from Savoy can travel to Paris in 1778 and become not just the boy toy of madame de Polignac, Marie Antoinette's favorite lady-in-waiting, but also secretary of Voltaire, the 18th Century's most celebrated philosopher. That the bumpkin irrupts into a household animated by one of history's oddest societies also stretches the fringes of the credible. Yet, the characters were truly there,...