The time is a lazy summer evening in August 1894. The place is an empty office in a nondescript

building in Paris, dimly lit by the setting sun. A cleaning woman by the name of Marie Bastion

enters and begins to tidy up.

But Marie Bastien is no ordinary cleaning woman.

She is an agent of what is coily called the Statistical Section,

but is actually the French counterintelligence agency.

And this is no ordinary office. It is the office of

Maximilian von Schwarzcholpen, the German military attaché. The statistical section already

knows that Schwarzchopen is employing spies to collect information on the latest generation of French artillery.

That is why part of Madame Bostien's duties is to collect the contents of Schwartz-Caupen's

vased paper basket every night and deliver them to the statistical section.

On this particular summer night,

she will make the most important find of her career,

and what she finds will all but tear France apart,

exposing bigotries and hatreds that have been simmering for a hundred years.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 8, Jacques

Paris in August 1894

Center of Arts and Culture, capital of a world-spanning empire.

The five-year-old Eiffel Tower dominates the city skyline.

Claude Debussy is putting the finishing touches on his masterpiece, prelude to the afternoon of a fong.

Pierre de Coubertin is busy organizing his International Olympic Committee.

And underneath it all, Paris is seething with right-wing resentments that are about to shake

...