In 1797, Lucia, a beautiful statesman's daughter was married off to a powerful Venetian, only to be caught up in the turbulence of Napoleon's march. This is her story, from dazzling young hostess in Habsburg Vienna, lady-in-waiting at the court of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais in Milan, single mother in Paris during the fall of Napoleon's Empire to Byron's hard-fisted landlady during the poet's stay in Venice.