One error, however, I have allowed myself. In this novel, Ernest Hemingway attends the Paris Olympics on July 21, 1924. In fact, ignoring the games, he left for Pamplona on June 25 and did not return to Paris until July 27. But I feel he should have been at the games, even if he wasn’t! At other times, he certainly liked to visit the Vélodrome d’hiver, as related in the story.

While I have undertaken extensive research in writing this book, I have also been aided by the fact that, though I am of British origin, I have a large number of French cousins whose homes have been my own, in Paris, Fontainebleau and other places, ever since I was a child. And while none of those cousins, or my many French friends, make any personal appearances in this story, my familiarity with them, and my memory of many stories heard, were a great help to me in imagining the tales of French families interacting through the days of the Belle Époque, the two world wars and the French resistance.

To thank all these many people would take too much space. But I should like to record my particular debt, both for their hospitality and their historical and cultural advice in the preparation of this book, to Isabelle, Janine and Caroline Brizard, and to the late Jacques Sarton du Jonchay, whose memories of the interwar years were invaluable.

Similarly, rather than record my thanks to all the curators of the many museums and cultural institutions in Paris I have come to know down the years, I should like to recommend just two that readers might possibly overlook. The Musée Carnavalet in the Marais quarter takes one through the history of Paris magnificently. And the charming Musée de Montmartre is full of fascinating surprises.

Despite the fact that, even nowadays, I always finish each project with an enviable collection of printed books to add to my library, I have never thought it appropriate as a simple storyteller to supply a detailed bibliography for each novel. However, having enjoyed his books ever since I first read The Fall of Paris, his masterly account of the Siege and Commune of 1870–71, I could not fail as a reader to record forty years of gratitude to Sir Alistair Horne, whose books on France and on Paris continue to be such a delight.

Once again, my many thanks to Mike Morgenfeld for preparing maps with such exemplary care and patience.

And finally, as always, I thank my agent, Gill Coleridge, for her constant guidance and wisdom, and my two exemplary editors, Oliver Johnson at Hodder and William Thomas at Doubleday, for their vision, unstinting support and creative responses to the many challenges of a complex project of this kind. I also owe great thanks to Coralie Hunter at Doubleday, to Cara Jones at RCW and to Anne Perry at Hodder for their help in guiding the manuscript through its various stages.