Marie-Joseph-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie.

Known as Rose, she is fourteen as the story opens and bemoaning the fact that she has yet to be offered a marriage contract. Rose is a passionate young woman, filled with ideas and hopes for her future happiness. Fearing that the happiness might be illusive, she seeks out a fortune teller who predicts that Rose will wed but not happily, and that she will someday be queen. Seeking out the fortune teller earns Rose the anger of her mother and days in the cellar, but she holds to the idea of her future greatness. Rose soon learns what the prediction of an unhappy marriage means and finds herself married to a young man who cannot be faithful and who is constantly involved in affairs and fathering illegitimate children. Rose considers her father's urging to return to her home but remains in France...