A humiliating military defeat by Bismarck's Germany, a brutal siege, and a bloody uprising Paris in 1871 was a shambles, and the question loomed, "Could this extraordinary city even survive?" With the addition of an evocative new preface, Mary McAuliffe takes the reader back to these perilous years following the abrupt collapse of the Second Empire and France's uncertain venture into the Third Republic. By 1900, Paris had recovered and the Belle Epoque was in full flower, but the decades between were difficult, marked by struggles between republicans and monarchists, the Republic and the...

Mary McAuliffe's Dawn of the Belle Epoque took the reader from the multiple disasters of 1870-1871 through the extraordinary re-emergence of Paris as the cultural center of the Western world. Now, in Twilight of the Belle Epoque, McAuliffe portrays Paris in full flower at the turn of the twentieth century, where creative dynamos such as Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Proust, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan set their respective circles on fire with a barrage of revolutionary visions and discoveries. Such dramatic breakthroughs were not limited to...

This book traces the profound transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III's Second Empire, as he and Georges Haussmann completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades. Their breathtaking-and brutal-achievement was mirrored by dramatic social, cultural, and political changes, all brought to life through McAuliffe's evocative narrative.