Scaramouche

"Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving an audience of Rennes to anger; on this Wednesday he was to move an audience of Guichen to mirth..." Once he was Andr -Louis Moreau, a lawyer raised by nobility, unconcerned with the growing discontent among France's lower class-until his friend was mercilessly struck down by a member of the aristocracy. Now he is Scaramouche. Speaking out against the unjust French government, he takes refuge with a nomadic band of actors and assumes the role of the clown Scaramouche-a comic figure with a very serious message... Set during the French Revolution, this novel of swashbuckling romance is also a thought-provoking commentary on class, inequality, and the individual's role in society-a story that has become Rafael Sabatini's enduring legacy.