Though the Tuileries Palace was vast, it was not so large that they needed to risk splitting up.
There were surprisingly few servants in the palace. Perhaps they were all busy watching the young noblemen and women playing tennis in the garden.
Pomona remembered this. She had heard that Napoleon had once issued a ban forbidding commoners, and even princes and nobles, from playing tennis. She did not know who these young people were, chattering and laughing as they played, but the spectators were so engrossed that no one noticed the three strange-looking visitors who had entered the palace.
They made their way to a Baroque hall on the second floor with a soaring domed ceiling and white walls adorned with gold. A woman in an Empire-style gown was playing the piano.
Before the French Revolution, women wore corsets to win men's favor, dressing themselves to look frail, delicate, and soft. But once those clothes were on, never mind playing tennis—even walking or breathing could make one faint. One careless moment could lead to death by suffocation, so women and men alike often carried smelling salts for emergencies.
Between freedom, death, and beauty, men chose to die for freedom, while women chose to die for beauty. Each, at least, died as they wished. Josephine's dress was simple in style. Perhaps because the weather was cold, she wore a cloak over her high-waisted Empire gown. There was no fire in the hearth. Not far behind her, on a green velvet sofa, a handsome youth dressed like a court page lay sprawled in boredom, idly playing with an intelligence puzzle called a Maya Ring.
Pomona recognized the woman. She was Napoleon's empress, Josephine—a widow six years older than Napoleon, with two children. She possessed all the bearing of an aristocrat from the