PATRIOT'S DAUGHTER

In 1798 a wedding of an aristocratic French girl and a privileged young man took place. It was a simple wedding, almost shabby, but to Anastasia Lafayette it marked the end of a terrible ordeal. In flashback the author tells of the Lafayette family, their luxurious home in Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette's inspired association with the American Revolutionaries and his intense loyalty to the French monarch. Caught in the deluge of French popular antagonism toward the aristocracy, he is arrested. For many months, Anastasia, separated from her parents, fears the worst, and when she is permitted with her mother and sister to share the grim prison in Austria where her father is being held, she does so gladly. Months of deprivation follow. Her mother, gravely ill, refuses to leave the unhealthy atmosphere of the jail. With the help of a sympathetic doctor the family is finally freed and shortly before they return to France Anastasia marries a courageous young man who has loyally stood by her family during its ordeal. Using Anastasia as a pivotal character, this romance manages to impart a generous amount of historical detail, casting the Marquis do Lafayette in the ironic role of a man who jeopardized his life, on one hand for a revolutionary movement across the sea and on the other to maintain the status quo of the reigning order at home.