A few times in the tale, I have made some tiny adjustments to historical detail where absolute precision would have been confusing to the reader. For instance, the great minister of King Henry IV is called Sully, the name by which he is best known to history, although this was actually a title he gained two years after his appearance in the narrative. Insofar as possible, I have sought to avoid the use of more than one historical name for each given place or street. All named places are real with the sole exception of the little Chapel of Saint-Gilles. The saint is real, but his chapel is invented.

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.