Her Own Legacy (Château de Verzat)
Joliette de Verzat, a young noblewoman just before the French Revolution, loves her family’s vineyard and wants to continue her late grandmother’s legacy of winemaking. Her parents have no interest in the winery and insist that Joliette go to Versailles and become a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. At Versailles, she hates the strict etiquette and the court intrigues. She meets a young baron who shares her love of winemaking but cannot marry him because he is beneath her station. A parallel story follows Joliette’s half-brother, Henri, who was brought up by a laundress in a poor neighborhood in Paris. When he learns of his noble birth, he has to decide whether to accept his new status or live as a commoner and help the people of his district. Then revolution breaks out and turns the two siblings’ world upside down. Their noble birth endangers their lives. Will they have to flee the country and put the vineyard at risk from peasants who are burning the nobles’ estates?
This is a beautifully written novel. Borchert draws you into the center of some of the most famous events of the French Revolution, including the storming of the Bastille, the Women’s March to Versailles, and the attack on the Tuileries Palace and the fall of the monarchy. Joliette and Henri are both strong, sympathetic characters. Joliette is an unconventional woman of her time, preferring running a winery to marrying a nobleman of her parents’ choice. She is willing to fight when the people she loves are in danger. Henri has a great sympathy for the poor, but hates the violence of the revolutionaries and feels a strong bond with his aristocratic half-sister. The ending leaves you hanging, but this is the first in a series, and Borchert makes you want to read the next book.
