About the book: 2016 / The book tells about the famous sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet, who created a masterpiece monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg. On the pages of the novel, readers will meet outstanding personalities of the era of enlightenment, among them: Voltaire and Montesquieu, Empress Catherine II and Denis Diderot, Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin, Quesnay and Turgot... They all talk about the eternal questions of power and existence. In the center of the story - Falcone's fate, refracted through the comprehension of the Christian idea and the understanding that the fate of a person is the result of his awareness of the moral path. At the same time, the author, who narrates the story on behalf of the character Louis, together with other heroes of the book, makes it clear that great enlightened rulers like Peter I are a gift of fate, which is not at all accidental... The book is dedicated to the wonderful sculptor N. A. Shcherbakov, amazing whose similarity - both external and internal - with the famous E. M. Falcone inspired the author to write this book.