This is a new collection of 12 French proto-science fiction tales penned between 1757 and 1924, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From a pioneering venture on the exploration of "inner space" by renowned Swiss philosopher Emerich de Vattel to visions of Paris in ruins being explored by future antiquarians; from interplanetary communication with the planet Mars to the discovery of a spaceship from Mercury, which crashed in the Antarctic, and the moving saga of the Earthmen who tried to save its alien pilot, this fifth collection provides an unparalleled view of the evolution of French scientific romances. In the title piece, Quebec helped to make up for France's lack of female genre writers with Emma-Adele Lacerte's 1917 sequel to Jules Verne's classic tale, Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea.