1885

Napoleon IV reigns in Europe while in the East, the Russian Empire is plotting to overthrow him.

Revolt is brewing in Venice, where a secret emissary of Tsar Nicholas II seeks to turn the city against France. Three French agents are at work there: a scientist, an assassin disguised as a priest, and an android who can take on the faces and the memories of his targets. But the robot's memory has been tampered with, and he actually believes that he is the man whose form he has appropriated. His folly puts their mission in danger.

A tribute to 19^th-century adventure and travel literature, this novel is a frenzied cavalcade of intrigue, manipulation, and elaborate twists and turns. It is a James Bond story ahead of its time, an epic trip that takes us from Venice to the Carpathians, from Russia to Mongolia via the Orient Express, an investigation that will put its heroes on the roads travelled by emblematic literary characters.