Born in County Clare, Ireland, in 1800, Harriet is left in the care of a kind but elderly priest and is brought up on Lamb's Shakespeare, lime-sherbet sweets, and prayer. A child of traveling players, her inheritance is Drury Lane, London, the green room, and the theater's rough magic." With the arrival of Charles Kemble's English Theatre troupe in Paris in 1827, the Odeon Theatre is awash with the drama and music of Shakespeare. Harriet is Ophelia. The French Romantics swoon, traffic stops, and the high-society women plait straw in their hair in honor of Harriet's portrayal of the mad scene. The fiery composer Hector Berlioz falls in love.