So here’s where we begin, back in a time when women wear bustles like bellflowers, men wax their whiskers to a wicked shine, and children are sent down mines and up chimneys, without so much as a prayer. In that year of 1887—a time when the old faith-wars are cooling but the new flag-wars are catching—Maud Gonne lies awake before dawn in the French spa town of Royat, sobbing, full certain that her life is over.