These plates, titled Détails des travaux romains à Alésia, are taken from volume II of the Histoire de Jules César. Without referencing them,Napoléon III included in his biography the results of the excavational work carried out at Alise-Sainte-Reine by members of the Commission de Topographie des Gaules (1861-1862) and later by Eugène Stoffel, one of his ordnance officers (1862-1865). 
The high level of detail in this representation of Roman fortified lines was reproduced in the model on display at the musée gallo-romain in the room dedicated to the Roman conquest.