France's last monarchs— Napoleon III and Eugenie—were two powerful, passionate people whose story rivals that of Nicholas and Alexandra in scope and fascination. This is a dual biography of those eccentric personalities—who can only truly be understood in terms of each other.

Though appallingly mismatched sexually, emotionally, politically—the scheming nephew of Napoleon I and his headstrong Spanish consort had each cultivated in childhood a dream that so jibed with the ambitions of the other that one is tempted to suspect it was divine predestination rather than mere fate that brought them together. The remarkable collusion of happenstance and ingenuity that carried them to the throne makes an unforgettable story. Once in power, Napoleon III and Eugenie set out to revive a glittering and decadent Napoleonic gloire in a city where, as Mark Twain reported, "assassins were hired for seven francs a day," while fashionable women changed costumes seven times a day; where young officers in the Garde Imperiale were passed around as male prostitutes, and popular actresses and society women dabbled in lesbianism.

But while they were designing the Paris of today, with its magnificent parks, boulevards, and architectural wonders, they were also dreaming up the Mexican fiasco responsible for Emperor Maximilian's death. They to direct the course of our own time as well, for their disastrous foreign policies contributed to the rise of a Germany that would cause two world wars. Combining abundant wit and insight with solid scholarship Alyn Brodsky has succeeded in creating a dual biography of rich color and power.