Book excerpt: Despite not speaking a word of French, the intrepid Dr. Evans left his native Philadelphia for Paris. His professional qualifications as a dentist did not seem to indicate that his life be filled with the adventures that he gleefully threw himself into. Within a short period in Paris, he became renowned for his medical skill and enjoyed the confidences of Kings, Princes and no less a person than the Emperor Napoleon III. He acted as a go-between among the crowned heads of Europe with his engaging manner. As the American consul-general William Seward wrote: “IT SOMETIMES HAPPENS when the crowned heads of Europe wish to communicate with one another without any responsibility they send for Evans to fix their teeth. As you are not likely to send so far for a dentist, I need only add that the messages of this sort, which he bears, are always communicated to him by word of mouth and in the presence of no witnesses.” His memoirs of the second Empire read both an engaging personal narrative and a secret view of the life of the court through tumultuous times including the diplomatic problems surrounding the Civil War, attempts at Coups d’état, numerous political plots, and disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.