PROLOGUE

The miracle of my birth became legendary in our family.
Over the years, the story was retold many times.
No one ever tired of hearing it.

In the year 1864, Queen Victoria sat on the British throne; Americans were fighting a bloody Civil War and Europe was in the midst of an epidemic. Such plagues occurred with regularity every summer. Scarlet fever this time, sometimes dysentery or diphtheria. Once infected, few survived. Those with means abandoned the cities for country retreats. The Emperor Napoleon III deserted the Tuileries Palace adjacent the Louvre and took up residence in Versailles.

— From Channeling Josephine, by Judith Goldberg