" She read about their descent into decadence, their lavish lifestyles, their fashions, their affairs, their huge gambling debts, their war debts, their parties, their illegitimate children. Then she read about their demise. The trials. The executions. She read about all the chances they were given by the revolutionaries to save themselves, and about how they squandered those chances. She read about their unquenchable belief in their own rights, their total ignorance of or refusal to believe what was happening right in front of their eyes. "

― Fiona Mozley , Hot Stew