The years before the First World War have long been romanticized as a zenith of French culture—the “Belle Époque.” The era is seen as the height of a los

When Maude Pichon runs away from provincial Brittany to Paris, her romantic dreams vanish as quickly as her savings. Desperate for work, she answers an unusual

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

“In this entertaining academic history of these rival magazines, Mesch . . . explores the emergence of the working woman in France.” —Publishers Weekly At