Sophie De Tott

The extraordinary life of Sophie de Tott, an artist, writer, musician and secret agent who witnessed the French Revolution first hand. Born in Constantinople, she came to France as a young woman and suffered agonies when her father would not allow her to marry the man she desperately loved. She was adopted by the Comtesse de Tessé, who held a leading intellectual salon in Paris, until they had to flee the country during the revolution. De Tott lived in Switzerland and Germany where she earned her living as a portrait painter before coming as a refugee to England. She wrote a tragic novel that mirrored her own unhappy love-life. She knew many of the most famous people of her time, including the French monarchs and Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. This biography becomes a detective story in seeking to unravel the truth about her secret love-child and the lengths she went to in order to avoid scandal.

Julia Gasper is the author of "Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European".