Trollope's third novel, and his only excursion into historical fiction, takes place during the French Revolution. Agatha de Larochejacquelin has two suitors: an aristocrat and a revolutionary peasant leader. The latter, ironically, is killed while fighting for the very restructuring of society that would have permitted him to marry an upper-class woman like Agatha. In this uncharacteristically violent novel, Trollope reveals more sympathy with the Royalist cause than with the revolutionaries.