Lillie Greenough left Cambridge, Massachusetts, married Charles Moulton and found herself singing for the Second Empire. Her letters home, written between 1858 and 1875, describe house parties at Compiègne, the Emperor and Empress Eugénie, lessons and encounters with Auber, Liszt and Mérimée, the fall of the regime, and later years in Cuba.
Gossipy, warm and full of first-hand detail, it is one of the liveliest outsider views of imperial Paris. Download the free EPUB.