The plot around which The Emperor’s Conspiracy is set is true. Napoleon did try to cause an economic collapse in England by smuggling out all of its gold. There are several letters by him to his brother and his officials, outlining the plan, and the French port of Gravelines did exist—a small town set up by the French for accepting the smuggled guineas.

For those readers interested in learning more about the economics of Napoleon’s plan you can read Eli F. Heckscher’s The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation, which was published in 1918.

For more details on the actual smuggling, and information on Gravelines, and where and how many smugglers hid the guineas, letters, and newspapers they were smuggling across to France, I found a lot of useful information in The Historical Journal 50, 2 (2007) article “Napoleon and the ‘City of Smugglers,’ 1810–1814” by Gavin Daly.

In this book, I take the reader both to the dangerous back streets and rookeries of London and to the glittering balls of the ton. To learn more about the darker side of Regency London, I highly recommend The Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low. For me, the stark contrast between the stews and the elegant streets of Mayfair is too interesting to pass up, and I enjoyed melding the two worlds together in the character of Charlotte Raven.