Curzon sympathetically presents the life stories of the princesses, but perhaps with too much sympathy and not enough admiration for the overall gumption shown by these women, and amazing inventiveness given the highly public constraints of their life style.

The bizarre hitch to the story is that largely due to George III’s bouts of mental illness during the crucial years of the six princesses’ debuts, only one of the six, the oldest, actually did manage to marry during the king’s lifetime. The other five continued to live with their mother, Queen Charlotte, in a frustrating perma-Princess existence which they referred to as “the nunnery.”

By all means, let us consider possible villainy, but let's cast a wider net when we look for all of the different things Lady Jersey might have been up to.

The phrase “you can’t make this stuff up” was never more relevant.

We all know about the Hero Quest, but what does the Female Hero get herself up to, and what is the shape of her story?

The Lost Dauphin was back in the news most recently in 2001, when two separate DNA labs analyzed tissue taken from a heart which had been preserved since 1795, which was claimed to have been wrested as a macabre souvenir from the chest of the Dauphin during his autopsy.

But what role does the novel itself play in our life’s journey? It is a MacGuffin? Like every Grail-seeking Templar Knight ever, I have to scoff at the question and keep moving.