Sophia Rostopchina and Eugene de Sepore, the Decembrists and their wives and lovers - Russians and French, followed them to hard labor, to harsh Siberia, Ekaterina Dolgorukaya and Alexander II, Eva Ganskaya and Honore de Balzac, Lydia Zakrevskaya, Nadezhda Naryshkina and Alexander Dumas Jr., Dumas the father who kidnapped the daughter of the Cossack chieftain in the mountains of the Caucasus, Polina Viardot and Turgenev, Maria Bashkirts and Guy de Maupassant - all of them were destined to know the charm, happiness and triumph of deep feelings.