My Sword's My Fortune: A Story of Old France

1650. France teeters between civil war and the young king Louis XIV's fragile grip on power. Into this treacherous world steps Albert de Lalande, a young man whose family estate was stolen by a ruthless baron and whose threadbare clothes mock his noble birth. With nothing but his sword and his ambition, he answers a soldier's call to seek his fortune in Paris - a city swirling with plots against Cardinal Mazarin, noble families jockeying for power, and enemies hiding behind every silk doublet. Albert's mother warns him of the dangers awaiting in that glittering, corrupt capital, but his dreams of reclaiming Vancey and restoring his family's honor prove stronger than her fears. What he finds in Paris is a world of dangerous alliances, political conspiracies that can end in the Bastille or the scaffold, and secrets that will determine whether he rises to greatness or dies in obscurity. For readers who relish swashbuckling adventure wrapped in the opulence and danger of 17th-century France, this is a tale of one man's fight against fate, privilege, and the cruel indifference of a society that measures worth in gold.