Other editions of book Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution

The passionate Andre-Louis Moreau makes an unexpected entrance into the French Revolution when he vows to avenge his best friend's death. His target: Monsieur de La Tour d'Azyr, the aristocratic villain who killed his friend. Andre-Louis rallies the underclass to join his mission against the power of the nobility, but soon the rebel leader must go underground, disguising himself as "Scaramouche" in a traveling group of actors.

When the aristocratic Lord of La Tour d?Azyr murders Andre-Louis?s best friend ? a young man who is politically active during the French Revolution ? Andre-Louis vows to take up his friend?s cause and avenge his death. He takes refuge as an actor in a traveling troupe, performing under the name Scaramouche. His adventures are pulse-pounding, his heroism is the stuff of legend ? but it is his destiny that we remember. Scaramouche?s fate is the destiny of a nation, the crusade of an age: this is the story of the events that made France a modern nation. The fate of Scaramouche is the fate we all still share. (Jacketless library hardcover.)

He fanned the fires of revolution, struck terror in the heart of France with his sword, and risked a traitor's destiny to avenge the death of a man he honored and the debasement of the woman he loved. Scaramouche is the stirring adventure of fiery romance in which Andre-Louis Moreau, bastard son of a noble, embarks on the odyssey of vengeance to destroy the decadent M. de La Tour d'Azyr and to save the ravishing Aline De Kercadiou from a fate worse than death. "Super Sabatini!" - Time

"Scaramouche" is an historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1921. A romantic adventure, Scaramouche tells the story of a young lawyer during the French Revolution. In the course of his adventures he becomes an actor portraying "Scaramouche" (a roguish buffoon character in the commedia dell'arte). He also becomes a revolutionary, politician, and fencing-master, confounding his enemies with his powerful orations and swordsmanship. He is forced by circumstances to change sides several times. The book also depicts his transformation from cynic to idealist. The three-part novel opens with the memorable line: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." This line was to become Sabatini's epitaph, on his gravestone in Adelboden, Switzerland.

Scaramouche BOOK I: THE ROBE CHAPTER I. THE REPUBLICAN He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad’s rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau--as the lad had been named--and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below. Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of Louis Le Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making provision for his future.