The Rebellion in the Cevennes, an Historical Novel. Vol. I.

In the shadowed mountains of southern France, a kingdom burns with holy fury. Ludwig Tieck transports readers to 1702, when King Louis XIV's dragon soldiers hunt Protestant families through the Cevennes, and a scattered people called the Camisards rise in desperate armed resistance. At the center stands the Lord of Beauvais, a father watching his son Edmond drift toward revolutionary zeal, and a mysterious hermit arrives at their estate rumored to be a prophet-leader of the insurgency. Tieck weaves family fracture against national chaos: Edmond's youthful conviction collides with his father's desperate caution, while faith becomes indistinguishable from sedition. This is historical fiction at its Romantic peak: not mere period recreation, but an examination of what happens when belief in God becomes belief in rebellion, and when loyalty to family fractures against loyalty to conscience. The storm gathering over the Cevennes is both literal and metaphorical, a world about to ignite.