The Boys of Boulogne

[jo_graham]

In my upcoming book, The Emperor's Agent, Elza goes to Boulogne in the summer of 1805 on the Emperor's business. I thought I'd share some lovely pictures of Elza and "her handsome boys", the lifelong friends she makes that summer.

Comments

[jo_graham]

It really is awesome to see their actual faces!

Subervie is Sigismund and Kos, yes. Glaukos/McDonald is someone else. You're pretty well sorted! :)

[m_nivalis]

I wanted to ask you how the presence of "real" people, with a known history affects your writing? How do you work with the information in biographies and other documents - I assume they are both a limitation and a guide, in that the road is so to speak already mapped out.

After all, if you're dealing with the Bronze Age, you can fill in the blanks yourself and no-one can tell you different. For the 19th century someone can always come later and point you to an (obscure?) document in a language you don't read which contradicts what you wrote.

[jo_graham]

They are both a limitation and a guide, yes. And it's true that in the ancient world you can read every single source that exists. And then that's it. Ok, once a generation there may be an archaeological discovery that bears, but it's very rare. Mostly a nineteenth century biography is based on the same sources as one written five years ago. So I read the sources and then everything else can be painted in

[jo_graham]

She would be. And she would absolutely be older Elza, the peerless spymaster!