Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, Vol. 2 of 2

In the smoldering aftermath of Sedan, when the Second Empire lay in ruins and Prussia remade the map of Europe, Britain needed eyes in France. Lord Lyons was those eyes. This volume follows the diplomat through the most volatile years of the Third Republic's birth, watching as royalists, Bonapartists, and republicans tore at each other while Thiers desperately tried to stabilize a nation in defeat. Newton compiles Lyons' dispatches to reveal a Britain grappling with a transformed continent, one where old alliances crumbled and a resurgent Germany loomed ever larger. The correspondence crackles with the anxiety of empire: Would France collapse entirely? Would the monarchists restore the Bourbons? Could war come again? For anyone who believes diplomacy is boring, these pages offer a front-row seat to statesmen improvising under catastrophe, writing their letters by candlelight while Paris burned with Commune flame.