The Agent & the Aeronaut is the first book in a trilogy about the Siege of Paris and the resulting Paris Commune.
Set in the early months of the Siege of Paris in 1870, the novel tells the true story of those trapped inside for months as Prussian troops surrounded it. Emperor Napoleon III had been captured and France was on the defensive. After 19 years ruled by an emperor and his police state, the people of France were hungry for a brighter future. Some yearned to see royalty restored and others demanded a republic. While the Prussian bombs fell, tensions inside the city grew. Out of the ruins of the siege, Parisians felt abandoned and betrayed by their countrymen. Resisting efforts to be placated and disarmed, revolutionaries inside the city instead banded together to form a government of the people. It flourished for six weeks, until the members of the Paris Commune were massacred.
It’s 1870. Paris is besieged by German invaders. Two million starving people are trapped inside the city walls during the coldest winter in memory. The only connection between the city and the rest of Europe is a fleet of balloons piloted by brave French aeronauts.
This is the true story of the flight of the Ville d’Orléans, the two men on board, and their mission to save the city. Leo Bezier, the agent, carries communiques that could change the course of the war, if only he can escape his own dark past. Paul Rolier, the aeronaut, yearns to return to his wife outside the city and thinks a balloon flight is all that stands between him and their happy reunion. Though they share the same mission, events threaten to turn the men against one another.
Both in France and on board the balloon, stark, internal rifts become an even greater danger than the foreign invaders. Long before revolutionaries occupied Wall Street in New York demanding economic equity, the Siege of Paris gave birth to the Paris Commune—with French workers demanding self rule at gunpoint.
Available from Levellers Press.
1.4 lbs
9 × 6 × .8 in
293 pages
$18.00
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