Between the cover and the blurb about this, I was so excited to read this book. I hate panning books, but I just found this to be overly verbose and almost purposefully pompous. I was actually intrigued by the story and adore French history, but it was so muddled by the random musings of the main character, who was extremely full of herself and totally elitist. It was a real struggle to finish. I found the phrasing purposefully obtuse as well.