Verosvres

Part One: The Child of Hautecoeur.

Margaret was born on the twenty-second of July, sixteen forty-seven, in the hamlet of Hautecoeur, in the parish of Verosvres, in the rolling green hills of the Charolais region of Burgundy.

It was a quiet country of cattle, stone farmhouses, and small chapels, though the quiet was deceptive.

The King of France, Louis XIV, was a boy of nine, and the kingdom was about to be torn by the civil wars of the Fronde.