Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

The Bonaparte Family Tree

  1.  Prince Louis Napoléon

  2.  A Son and His Father

  3.  Auguste de Morny

  4.  Gentlemanly Pursuits

  5.  Return to Arenenberg

  6.  Romance and Ructions

  7.  What Hath God Wrought

  8.  Farewells and Asylum

  9.  “This Grand and Glorious Undertaking”: Boulogne or Bust

10.  Funeral for an Emperor

11.  To Ham, with Love, Tosh, and Toil

12.  Marking Time

13.  A Pure New Holy Republic: 1848

14.  President of the Republic Bonaparte

15.  The Élysée

16.  Countdown to Empire

17.  The Rubicon File

18.  The Sphinx of the Tuileries

19.  Violets and Wedding Bells

20.  Birth of an Empire

21.  Georges Haussmann

22.  Prefect of Paris

23.  Crosses, Candlesticks, and Swords: The Crimea

24.  A Very Special Relationship

25.  A Child of France

26.  An Italian Opera

27.  Return of a Carbonaro: Italy, 1859

28.  Four Seasons

29.  Inquisition at Baden: 1860

30.  Offenbachland

31.  Fields of Empire

32.  An Arab Kingdom

33.  Bismarck: War Watch

34.  Ebb Tide

35.  Count Bismarck’s War: 1870

36.  To Berlin!

37.  “Were You at Sedan, Henri?”

38.  Elegy for an Emperor

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Photos

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Also by Alan Strauss-Schom

About the Author

Copyright