Resources

Here are the books, articles, websites, and videos that were most helpful to me when I was writing Hearts at Dawn. I hope you'll find them fascinating and helpful, too.


Websites and books that are available for free online include links; published books are listed and can be purchased via your bookseller of choice, or checked out from your library.


Rather than following a standard academic bibliography format, I’ve decided to list them in a way that facilitates online searches. Whenever possible, I’ve credited the author and, for recent books, the publisher.

On separate pages of this site, you’ll also find:

~ photos and links to images of people, places, objects, and events mentioned in Hearts at Dawn

~ a list of historical figures who appear in the book


~~~~


General information about life during the Siege of Paris

~ La vie à Paris pendant le siège 1870-1871 by Victor Debuchy.The book that inspired the history of my story.


~ La Chronologie du Siège de Paris – This impressively thorough Wikipedia entry gives a day-by-day account of what was happening both inside and outside the city every day of the Siege. (only available in French, although the English Wikipedia entry on the Siege of Paris is also worth a read).


~ Le siège de Paris : journal d'une Parisienne by Juliette Adam (also called Juliette Lamber or Juliette Lambert)

This book was especially helpful to me for its incredibly detailed eye-witness accounts of events like the storming of the Assemblée Nationale and the night that the Parisians learned of Napoleon III’s capitulation. I wanted to feature Juliette in a scene in Hearts at Dawn out of gratitude, and also because she inspired Joseph’s climb to the top of the Sainte-Chapelle to see the aurora borealis; her account of it makes some strange sort of reference to wishing she’d done just that. Instead, as in my novel, she was busy tending to the sick in her ambulance.


~ Tableaux de Siège by Théophile Gautier

If you only read one contemporary account of the Siege of Paris, this should be it. Emotional, vivid, and downright weird at times, it definitely reflects its author’s poetic prowess and attraction for strange and entertaining stories. My favorite part is probably Gautier’s reflection that riding the Petite Ceinture train through a tunnel that passes below Père Lachaise Cemetery means that the condensation that might drip on you if you’re in the impériale has been distilled through the bodies of the dead.

There’s also a heartbreaking account of how dogs changed their behavior towards people as they began to be snatched up for food. I’m not sure if the latter is absolutely accurate, or if it’s simply a reflection of Gautier’s way of seeing the world and experiencing the Siege, but it definitely gives readers a lot to think about.

In addition to a wonderful reading experience, I’m also indebted to him for his extremely detailed account of a ride on the Petite Ceinture, not only for how helpful it was when I was doing my research for Hearts at Dawn, but because La Petite Ceinture is site I’m fond of in general and it was wonderful to feel it come to life.


~ Camp, Court, and Siege: A Narrative of Personal Adventure and Observation During Two Wars: 1861-1865, 1870-1871 by Wickham Hoffman. Assistant to US Ambassador Elihu Washburne during the Siege, Hoffman gives an extremely detailed account of the Siege from a personal/everyday life point of view, as well as that of someone with insider knowledge of the US and, to an extent, French government of the time. Wickham experienced a number of other historical events in both the US and Europe, including, as the book’s title shows, the American Civil War.


~ Elihu Washburne: The Diary and Letters of America’s Minister to France During the Siege and Commune of Paris. Compiled and edited by Michael Hill. This book was extremely helpful for everything from an American perspective on the Siege, to smaller details like the weather on a particular day.


~ En ballon ! : pendant le siège de Paris, souvenirs d'un aéronaute by Gaston Tissandier -- This book is an amazing, thorough first-person account of balloon flights during the Siege, the evolution of the balloon post, and so much more.


~ Diary of the besieged resident in Paris by Henry Labouchere -- Despite his French last name, Labouchere was actually an English politician and journalist who found himself in Paris during the Siege. His extremely detailed accounts are invaluable, including what it was like to stay at the Grand Hôtel during that time. Sadly, the connections he made with people from so many different walks of life while in Paris don’t seem to have led to universal acceptance; he’s also the author of the Labouchere Amendment, which made male homosexual activity illegal in the UK and caused the suffering and deaths of countless people, among them Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing.


~ The Goncourt Journal by Edmond and Jules Goncourt -- Written over a span of 40 years by brothers Edmond and Jules Goncourt (Jules continued the journal after Edmond’s tragic death in 1871), the Goncourts’ journal is a valuable source of information about life in 19th century Paris. The unusual, classics-inspired name of Aunt Honorine’s maid, Euphraisine, is an homage to the name of the Goncourts’ beloved maid Pélagie.


~ Journal du Siège 1870-1871 par un bourgeois de Paris by Jacques-Henry Paradis - This book gave lots of interesting details from the perspective of a sort of “everyman”, who most certainly wasn’t. Among other things, Paradis writes about being in the Garde Nationale and spending cold nights on the city ramparts, as well as worrying for his family, who had escaped the city before the Siege and were in the countryside.


~ “Le siège de Paris par les Prussiens” - This post from the blog Paris à NU is a great way to get a quick glimpse of a few aspects of life during the Siege. It features some iconic images of the Siege, from paintings to photographs, as well as a menu from a restaurant that features exotic animals from the Jardin des Plantes (these were somewhat typical for restaurants to print at the time, and show the joking-through-the-tears mentality of so many Parisians during the Siege), a contemporary song, and a news feature about marriages being on the rise.


~ Les ambulances de Paris pendant le siège (1870-71) by Alexandre Piédagnel – In this guidebook, available for free online, Piédagnel visits most, if not all, of the ambulances in Paris over the course of December 1870 and January 1871, and gives detailed observations and features interviews with various people working there, and sometimes some of the wounded. He reluctantly admits that the ambulance at the Grand Hôtel isn’t the best, although he provides some excuses and explanations as to why.


~ You can find a number of contemporary resources, including newspapers, available for free online at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s free online book and document library, Gallica. The site has an English version (although not all resources have been translated into English). You can also check for free Siege-related resources, including ones written in English, at Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, and similar sites.

Basic information on the Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War is mostly in the background in Hearts at Dawn, but it was a dramatic and tragic conflict. The sources here provide an extremely brief and a still-brief, but slightly more in-depth introduction to this conflict, which killed over a million French and German soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians.


~ “Franco-German War” - This online Encyclopedia Britannica entry is an excellent summary of the causes and effects of the Franco-Prussian War.


~ Paris 1870-1871 : L’Année Terrible (Mémoire en Images) by Jérôme Baconin (pub. Editions Sutton, 2007) -- This book gives brief descriptions of the battles that took place around Paris during the Siege, as well as a brief description of life in besieged Paris.

Life in Paris during the Second Empire (1852-1870)

~ La vie parisienne sous le Second Empire by Henri d’Alméras . This book offered so much information about everyday life and fun during the Second Empire. It’s thanks to d’Alméras that I learned about the eccentric pencil seller Mengin, who Claire and Rossignol reminisce about in Hearts at Dawn. D’Alméras also cracked me up with his very blunt distaste for gaudy early 1870’s fashion trends.


~ Paris Illustré en 1870 ; Guide de l’étranger et du Parisien - This guidebook was created and published before the Siege, and was an extremely helpful resource for capturing details about the city.


~ Victorian Paris is a website run by author Iva Polanski. Polanski blogs and shares information about life in Paris during the Victorian era, including details like how people bathed when living on high floors in apartment buildings with no running water. Her site is delightful and diligent, and an incredible resource.


~ Paris sous le Second Empire: Au Temps de Charles Baudelaire by Marc Gaillard (pub. Presses du Village, 2002)


~ Paris et les parisiens sous le second empire by Michel Cabaud (pub. Belfond, 1991)

Lighting during the Second Empire and during the Siege

~ Lumière de l’Oeil is a shop selling antique lamps. It doubles as a wonderful museum, le Musée des Éclairages Anciens (the Museum of Old Lighting Methods), where you can ask owner Monsieur Ara questions and see demonstrations (by appointment) of different types of gas lighting. The museum and shop are in Paris at: 4, rue Flatters - 75005 PARIS – FRANCE. You can contact Monsieur Ara via his website to set up an appointment for a demonstration.


I had the pleasure of visiting Monsieur Ara’s shop and museum a few years ago. The experience taught me so much, and Monsieur Ara’s kindness brought some light into a difficult time in my life. The lighting shop (mostly closed, due to the Siege) on the ground floor of Claire and Orin’s building is an homage to this wonderful place. If you’re interested, you can read about my experience (and see photos) in this blog post.


~ The Lumière de l’Oeil website, also run by Monsieur Ara, is an amazing resource for information about lighting techniques from the 18th to the 20th century. It includes a multi-lingual lighting glossary, lots of helpful images, and links to additional information and resources. (In French, English, and German.)


~ Les Douze Heures Noires : La nuit à Paris au XIXe Siècle by Simone Delattre (pub. Albin Michel, 2004) – The evolution and influence of lighting methods in 19th-century Paris.

What people ate during the Siege

Many of the other resources here talk about what the Parisians ate (or didn’t) during the Siege. But this fascinating pamphlet provides actual recipes that those who couldn’t rely on restaurants, the black market, or marauding, might have concocted.

~ La Cuisinière Assiégée ou L’Art de Vivre en Temps de Siège -This is a short book of recipes using items that were available during the Siege. The book’s author is called, simply, une femme de ménage (a cleaning lady/domestic servant). The publishing date of 1871 and its short Forward imply that it was published after the Siege, as a souvenir of sort. Added to this is the fact that the title page mentions a portion of sales would go to help orphans and widows of those who defended Paris.

The idea of souvenirs from the Siege is a fairly common one (you can find a few more examples on the “Images” page of this site’s Hearts at Dawn section). Whatever the case, the recipes here do seem to be genuine, and give a good idea of what many homes had to work with during this time. Are they worth re-creating? Maybe a few. Definitely not the ones that call for rat, cat, or dog, though. (Available in French only, although many of the recipes are simple enough that they could probably be translated with your translation software of choice.)

Magic lanterns

~ Images of and information about magic lanterns and slides

~ Various models of magic lanterns and slides

~ The first part of this video shows two models of magic lanterns in use, even how the candle sits inside of them. But I personally don’t like the magic lantern show itself – the sound effects are jarring and as far as I know, there’s no proof they would have been done that way.

~ For a lovely magic lantern show, projected by yet another model of magic lantern, I recommend this video.

Robert-Houdin, Cleverman, and other magicians and magic tricks

- Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, ambassador, author and conjurer by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin – A charming autobiography.

~ A 20th-century performance of Robert-Houdin’s famous orange tree trick.

~ A video of Antonio Diavolo, Robert-Houdin’s famous automaton

~ A blog post that describes and features images of a few more of Robert-Houdin’s famous illusions

~ Some information about Cleverman (François Lahire), including images of some of his tricks, as well as a photograph of the magician

New York in the 1850’s to early 1870’s

~ Lights and Shadows of New York Life by James D. McCabe. This incredibly thorough guide depicts New York in the 1860’s and early ‘70’s. One of my favorite things about it is that the author often transcribes dialogue or ways of speaking. It’s fascinating to “hear” old New Yorkers! (available for free online)

~ The Bowery Boys Podcast – An amazing, fun way to learn about New York history and culture.


~ A bit of information on New York brownstones, the type of building the Rushes live in.


~ The Hatching Cat: True and Unusual Animal Tales of Old New York – a blog written and researched by Peggy Gavan - I forget how I found out that there were once sparrows who were housed in charming little pagodas in Union Square Park, the park near where I used to live in New York. It sounded too whimsical to be real, but my research brought me to an article on this delightful history blog, which has since become one of my favorites.

~ The Ephemeral New York blog is always a wonderful read. This article on the development of apartment buildings in New York, which shows, among other things, that despite how iconic New York’s tall buildings are to us today, when Orin was growing up there, high residential buildings weren’t really a thing, was particularly helpful when it came to researching Hearts at Dawn.

Barnum’s American Museum

~ A great overview of Barnum’s American Museum

~ An episode of the Bowery Boys Podcast devoted that was devoted to the museum and the fires that destroyed it.

~ Images here include an engraving of the lecture room where Orin and Joseph liked to sit and plan Orin’s act that would never be.

The Grand Hôtel

~Le Grand Hôtel, 110 ans d’hôtellerie parisienne, 1862-1972 by Alexandre Tessier - An impressive thesis paper on the history of the Grand Hôtel. Pages 177-178 specifically cover the role of the Hôtel during the Siege.

Life in a typical Parisian apartment building in 1870

~ In this blog entry, an elderly woman recalls what it was like to live in a building with a cordon (today, Parisian apartment buildings either have an entry code or an intercom).


~ An American journalist describes how different floors of Parisian apartment buildings had different sorts of inhabitants. As his report suggests, this phenomenon was especially fascinating to Americans because apartment living was more or less unknown in the United States at that time. Although the text dates to 1852, the general idea of this hierarchy of floors continued for decades. The post also includes a typical illustration of the floors of a Parisian apartment building, with a peek inside the dwellings of its different inhabitants. Not all Haussmannian or Parisian apartment buildings in general were exactly the same, of course. Among other things, some, like the one Claire and Orin live in, had a photography studio on the top floor!


~ “Révolution Haussmann” -This segment from French show Des Racines et des Ailes gives an excellent overview of how Haussmann transformed Paris, and an unusual peek inside an Haussmannian apartment that’s remained relatively untouched since it was built.


~“FIGURE ET MÉTAMORPHOSES DES CONCIERGES”, a paper by Jean-Marc Stébé and Gérald Bronner, explores the evolving role of the concierge/gardien(ne) , with information on the cordon.


~ More information about the cordon and how it worked.


~ Pot-Bouille by Émile Zola is considered an excellent, nearly firsthand account of life in early Haussmannian apartment building (it was published in 1882). You can read the novel for free online in either the original French or in English.


~ The website Victorian Paris is a fantastic English-language resource about life in Paris in the 19th century. This blog post explains the hierarchy of a typical Parisian apartment building in the mid- to late 1800’s.

Cartes de visite and the wet collodion photography process

~ “How to Spot a Carte de Visite” – This article is a great intro to cartes de visite and how to identify them.


~ Un atelier en maquette (Model photography studio). Exhibited online and on-site at the Musée Suisse de l’Appareil Photographique Vevy, this model of a 19th century photography studio shows the step-by-step process involved in making wet collodion photographs.


~ Information about the multiplying camera, used to take multiple photographic images at the same time, so that an entire sheet of photographs could be produced and cut into individual cartes de visite.


~ An excellent short history of the carte de visite and an in-depth look at a multi-lens camera.


~ An absolutely fascinating article in which a Civil War reenactment group tested different colored fabrics and old photography methods (including wet collodion) to see how the colors would show up.


~ These two short, informative, and beautifully narrated videos explain the wet collodion process and show the process of taking a photograph this way, step-by-step:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MimSMblu64M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyQ0nfMsxo


~ A slightly longer (about 6-minute) video about the wet collodion process, including the steps involved.

Women’s fashion ca. 1870

I looked at countless fashion plates, photographs of contemporary clothing in museum collections around the world, sketches, paintings, and caricatures to become familiar with clothing from this interesting transitional (and, as Henri d’Alméras frankly states, kinda tacky) era.

I’d recommend looking at Pinterest and the official sites of fashion museum websites to get started.

These sources were also helpful:


~ A brief overview of the evolution of fashion from the 1860’s to the 1870’s (at the beginning of the article), and several images of clothing around 1870.


~ “Dressing up a Victorian Lady” –This YouTube video from Prior Attire doesn’t exactly represent how Claire would get dressed; for one thing, she didn’t have a maid. But it gives an excellent idea of just how many layers were involved in getting dressed around 1870. That said, Claire’s clothing is less embellished (even though frills and frippery were the style in the early 1870’s). I also imagine that she wore a more functional hairstyle. Although Claire isn’t an upper-class woman, she does dress reasonably within the fashions of the time, at least to look respectable for business. That said, if she lived in the UK, I believe she would have been influenced by the Artistic Dress movement.


~ You can see some images of Second Empire hat styles here.


The Bal Mabille

~ The history of the Bal Mabille, featuring several paintings and posters of it. This source is in French but if you want to read a basic history in English, this Wikipedia entry is helpful.


~ A brief but good intro to the Bal Mabille’s history

The Petite Ceinture Railroad

~ Théophile Gautier’s account of riding on the Petite Ceinture during the Siege is descriptive, informative, and even a bit morbid. You can read just that chapter in his book Tableaux de Siège, or read or download the entire work, via the link.

~ I wrote a blog post a few years ago that includes relatively recent photos of a stretch of the Petite Ceinture, as well as links to a number of Petite-Ceinture-related resources. Feel free to check it out.

The popularity of Japan in France

After more than 200 years of isolation, Japan reopened its borders to the outside world in 1853. The Japanese village at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris was a way for Europeans and other visitors to see Japanese clothing and certain customs (like a tea ceremony) in person for the first time.


~ You can read more about the history of japonisme (the love and study of Japan) in France, including a mention of the role of the Porte Chinoise, in this article.

The aurora borealis seen in the sky of Paris on October 24, 1870

It seems impossible, but now and then you can see the aurora borealis in the Paris sky, although it doesn’t happen all the time. The most recent appearance I know of was in 2015, and with all of the light pollution today, plus a sky that’s often overcast, it wasn’t as noticeable as it would have been in the Arctic Circle!

The appearance of the aurora borealis in the sky over Paris on October 24, 1870, was well documented and described in several memoirs as well as newspapers. It was one of my favorite things to research, as going into it I didn’t know what exactly it looked like, and by the end I had a vivid picture in my mind’s eye of something that happened more than 150 years ago.


~ You can read about the aurora borealis in Juliet Adam’s Le siège de Paris : journal d'une Parisienne. Her idea of watching it from the roof of the Sainte-Chapelle, even though, as far as I know, this wasn’t something easily done, and certainly wasn’t attempted by her that night, inspired Joseph’s experience of the aurora in Hearts at Dawn.


~ You can also read a detailed account if it in the paper Le Monde Illustré, available for free here; keep scrolling till you get towards the end and see an engraving of beams in the sky. The article starts on the page just before that.


~ There’s another very vivid description on p. 172 of this source, Chronique du siège de Paris, septembre 1870-janvier 1871: avec cartes et plans . The account is slightly different from the previous one - for example, it doesn’t talk about the aurora starting up again towards midnight, but generally consistent with it, especially considering things like different vantage points, who went to bed and who stayed up, etc.

Christmas in Paris, 1870

~ Here’s a firsthand account of the sad Christmas in Paris, 1870, as well as several interesting images of events that took place during the Siege.



Book cover designed by Natasja Hellenthal of Beyond Book Covers