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those who stand between order and chaos,

and to those who possess the courage to unmask:

their truest selves,

their deepest emotions,

the most earnest love within.

In a time
when revolutions were fought and won in France and the Americas, radical forces gathered in Regency England. A secret class of men stood between order and chaos--special informants to the king--lurking, listening, affecting the fate of nations--shadowy, nameless men who controlled the course of history--the
agents provocateur
.

Chapter One

April 1803

Paris, France

Seven months after Ritter’s discovery

of ultra-violet rays----

One month before the Peace of Amiens was broken,

and the French Revolutionary Wars resumed—

A provocative, thirty year old theory, lured Dulcie Selwyn’s father, a man of reason in the ghost of an age of reason, to Paris. Across the churning, green watered Channel, under skies that promised change, he took his seven year old to the
Rue St. Honore'
.

“This is the house where Dr. Mesmer lives?” In broken French he asked the woman who answered his knock. She waved a bony hand, her English better than his French, “No longer. Gone. To Switzerland.”

“I’ve come all the way from London. Monseiur Mesmer’s students? Do they still practice?” The weary voice spoke of his desperation. For Dulcie. The lines on his face—worry for his daughter.

The woman shrugged. “Once the whole world came to Monseiur Mesmer. The Princess de Lambelle, Marie Antoinette, Lafeyette--everyone must be magnetized.” She gestured, fingers like a flower opening. “A different time, no?”

“What happened?” Dulcie dared ask.

“To France,
mon petite
? Revolution. To Monsieur Mesmer? The Academies of Medicine and Science.” Her hands clapped together like flashing blades. “He ran, from Madame Guillotine.”

Mr. Selwyn’s shoulders sagged.

The woman peered at Ducie. Dulcie peered back.

“Mesmer’s students still practice the
magne’tisme
. In Buzancy. So serious she looks, monsieur. Is she very ill?” She wore a gray cloud. Death lurked in her eyes, in her lip’s pallor.

Dulcie tugged at her papa’s sleeve. When he bent to her, gaze swimming with concern, the child whispered, “Tell her no, papa. And that I am very sorry she is.”

Buzancy, France

Mr. Selwyn tried to sleep on the way to Buzancy.

Dulcie watched the world whip by, light and dark, the setting sun flashing golden through grasping trees. A massive elm dominated the village green. From its limbs, cords dangled. Clinging to the cords the halt, lame and ill. Desperation marked their faces. She tugged her papa’s coat, waking him, his face a pale reflection on the pane.

He threw down the window, leaned out. “What madness, this?”

“
Magne’tisme
,” the coachman bellowed as he drew the team to a halt. “They believe the tree will heal them. Fools! You are not believing Puysegur’s nonsense, eh,
monsieur
?”

Papa helped his daughter down and slammed the door. She ran to keep up through waving grass, shadow long-legged. Her father stopped to ask a crippled lad who held one of the ropes. “Puysegur? I am looking for the
Comte Maxime de Puysegur
.”

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