L’été en enfer, Napoléon III dans la débâcle (in French)

 
From the publishers:
August 1870, the imperial army is defeated, the regime collapses, France is invaded.
 
The sudden collapse of the Second Empire shook the whole of Europe and ushered in one hundred years of unstable decline for France. Much has been written about this “debacle”, this “annus horribilis”. However, in all these writings, there is nothing about Napoleon III, except the eternal refrain of a sovereign wandering the battlefield in search of a death to save him from dishonour.
 
The futility of a leader dispossessed of power, then stripped of military command, could justify this lack of attention. The impeccable reserve which his companions in misfortune imposed upon themselves is even more understandable. And yet for an author, Napoleon III is the perfect embodiment of a hero of classical tragedy. There is the premonition of disaster, but also its acceptance, there is the physical suffering that he endured and the cruelty of his relationship with the empress; there is a dramatic tension right from the beginning of the crisis.

Nicolas Chaudun presents the reader with an exciting and well-documented dramatised account of the closing days of the Second Empire and Napoleon III's long ordeal, exhausted by illness. Written with great accuracy and poetry, this book does justice to the Emperor.
 
This work has been awarded the Fondation Napoléon Second Empire history prize for 2011.