The Third Estate by Marjorie Bowen is a delicious historical romance about M. de Sarcey and the luminous Pelagie de Haultpenne. Excerpt: "M. de Sarcey was indeed at this time at the zenith of his unusual beauty, and there was not a woman who looked at him who was not secretly stirred with admiration. The face was almost flawless: only, perhaps, slightly too dark and swarthy in the skin; the nose was arched, the lips curved, the chin slightly cleft, the dark brown eyes sparkling and magnificent and arched by thick black brows..."