French Fashion Forefather

After reading Emile Zola’s La Curee (“The Kill”), I became most intrigued about the French Second Empire epoch. At one of the Vancouver Public Library periodic book sales, I spotted John Bierman’s Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire and lost no time in grabbing it.

In La Curee, I had read about the heroine’s lavish addiction to her “Worth” gowns. From B…