Chapter 1: Paris Summary

Ella Lynch is an aspiring socialite living in Paris in 1854. She is also a good friend of Princess Mathilde, who supposedly has relations to Napoleon. A parrot feather falls from her hat, and Francisco Solano Lopez stops to pick it up. He is only twenty-six years old and an ambassador to Europe, and his father is president of Paraguay. Ella takes no notice. She is living with a Russian Count named Dimitri and not looking for someone else. Ella has servants and pretends to be wealthy, but in fact she hasn't paid her servants in a month. She left Ireland at age ten after changing her name, married a French army officer at fifteen and was already divorced and living with the Russian Count at nineteen. Her servant Marie is a French gossip, which helps in Paris.

Francisco, nicknamed Franco, notices...