I am greatly indebted to the recent scholars who have prepared the groundwork for this study, unearthing the millions of facts that transform into the structure of this long ignored period of French history, including Eric Anceau, Michel Carmona, Pierre Milza, and especially the extensive works of Roger Price, e.g., The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power. As usual I am equally indebted to numerous librarians and archivists, including Helen McGinley at the Trinity College Dublin library, the Rothschild Archives, London, the Southampton University Archives, the Library of the University of California, Berkeley, in France at the Archives Nationales, St.-Denis and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée Carnavalet, Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine, Musée de l’Armée at the Invalides, the Vincennes Archives of the Service Historique de la Défense, the Musée de la Marine, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Library of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and of course the Bodleian Library, Oxford—Mr. Alan Brown in particular. Friends and colleagues have helped with their comments and advice at various stages, including the late Eugen Weber at UCLA, who had first encouraged this project years ago, my late colleague and dear friend at UCSB, Alex Deconde, a perceptive Colonel John Greenwood, RA, Commander Phil Ingham, RN, Général de Division, Bruno Chaix, Professor Emeritus David Ellis, University of Kent, Steve Kenis, Françoise Comenisle, Rob and Madette de Warren Sanner—the best of France—my late father-in-law and distinguished Oxford historian, Richard Leslie Hill, the late Bruce McCully, FRCS, for his amazing faith in my work over the years, my late aunt, Rose Ellison, Thornton Wilder, who decades ago instilled his own unique understanding of history when I was writing my study of Émile Zola, and last but not least my most able editor at SMP, Daniela Rapp.