Always ready to launch a brief history of sugarbeets that began with the birth of the beet sugar industry in France barely twenty-five years earlier, Lyon’s account began with a description of how Napoleon Bonaparte, after assuming control of France continued the French tradition of threatening England with war. In keeping with his bellicose intentions, Napoleon placed an embargo on English shipments effectively barring English ships from nearly all European ports. Before Napoleon could exclaim “Oops” that decision cut off access to the English ports that France depended on for the transshipment of cane sugar from the West Indies. Consequently, while sugar stocks accrued on English docks, the people of France suffered because sugar, a primary