A Spy of Napoleon

Paris, 1868. Gérald de Lanoy is a wealthy, apparently idle aristocrat whose careless movements bring him under suspicion of plotting against Napoleon III. Faced with imprisonment and possible execution, he accepts an extraordinary bargain: he will marry Eloise, an illegitimate daughter of Louis-Napoleon who has been recruited by the imperial police, place his name and fortune at her disposal, and then disappear so that she can enter the salons of the old aristocracy as his widow.

Eloise is expected to discover which royalists and republicans are conspiring against the Second Empire, while Gérald is sent under another identity to infiltrate revolutionary exiles in Switzerland. Their nominal marriage becomes entangled with genuine loyalty and affection as both agents discover that the state treats people as expendable instruments. The novel uses surveillance, false identities and competing conspiracies to examine the insecurity beneath the glittering court of Napoleon III.