The Face in the Moonlight
Summary
Bourbon twilight bleeds across the château terraces: Ambrose, powdered and damned, trades the trembling flesh of Jeanne Mailloche—hay-scented, sun-burnished—for the genealogical iron of cousin Alice, sealing estates like embalmed butterflies under glass. Jeanne’s pulse stops in a frost-bitten attic; her infant, spirited away by cackling gutter-wolves, becomes Rabat, a scar-lipped revenant prowling the Paris sewers. Two decades of cannon-smoke later, Victor—curled, perfumed, epauletted—parades the King’s cobblestones, ignorant that his own face, stripped of lace and conscience, stalks him through the fog. Lucille, niece to the ledger-obsessed Munier, wears innocence like a thin chemise, soon torn on the thorns of mistaken moonlit identity: one silver beam, one dagger, one gasp, and she believes her betrothed a killer. The guillotine’s shadow twins itself: Rabat for murder, Victor for politics, both queued for the same dawn. Yet love, armed with blackmail, wrings a last-minute signature from a fleeing Bonaparte; the brothers meet in a stone throat of corridor, exchange the solemn nod of men who share a skull-shape if not a soul, and the blade descends only for the outcast. Empire drums roll, wedding bells answer, and the aristocracy pretends to forget the night it saw its own reflection in a bandit’s eyes.
Synopsis
During the latter part of the reign of Louis XVIII, in France, Ambrose, an aristocrat, loves Jeanne Mailloche, a peasant girl, but is compelled to marry his cousin, Alice de Fontelles, to preserve their respective estates. Jeanne dies soon after, leaving a son, who is kidnapped and raised by a band of ruffians. Alice's son, receiving every advantage, is raised as an aristocrat. Twenty years later, at the time Napoleon was in exile, the young aristocrat, Victor by name, becomes a captain in the King's army. His half-brother, Rabat, son of Jeanne, has degenerated into a criminal, with a price on his head. Strangely enough, they look exactly alike, though neither knows of the whereabouts of the other. In fact, Rabat is ignorant of Victor's existence. The young Captain is told of Rabat's existence by his father when the latter is on his death bed. Victor is engaged to Lucille, the niece of Munier, who is Victor's father's secretary. Munier becomes associated with the conspirators, who are seeking to place Napoleon on the throne of France. In Munier's endeavor to steal the funds of the conspirators, he becomes associated with Rabat, the criminal. Victor is called to the army, and arranges with Lucile for their final adieu at the diligence office. Being unaware of the existence of Rabat. Lucile believes her lover guilty of the murder which she sees Rabat commit at the meeting place appointed by Victor. Rabat's face in the moonlight almost causes Lucile to abandon all faith in Victor. Victor is arrested for the murder, but before his execution, Lucile learns the truth concerning Rabat and forces her uncle, who has acknowledged his connection with the murder committed by Rabat, to intercede. This stays Victor's execution as a murderer, but as Napoleon has returned to power. Victor is arrested as a political prisoner, and ordered to be shot. Victor's release as the murderer has caused the arrest of Rabat for that offense. He is to be beheaded. Both Rabat and Victor's executions are scheduled for the same day. Lucile, knowing of her uncle's part in the actual murder, forces him to intercede with Napoleon, thus saving the life of Victor. Later, Victor meets Rabat, his half-brother, for the first time, and inspires him with the necessary confidence to face his death. Munier escapes from the country and with Napoleon's pardon for his political offenses, Victor and Lucile are happily married.
