While the men plotted a coup, the women and servants played tennis in the garden.
At first, Pomona truly did not recognize the young girl playing tennis.
Later, she learned from the servants' gossip that she was Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's most favored sister—a woman whose reputation would not be very good in the future.
Catholics often had many children. Napoleon's mother bore thirteen, and Pauline was the sixth, eleven years younger than her second brother, Napoleon Bonaparte.
From a woman's perspective, Pauline was lively and somewhat frivolous, not at all like a mother who had given birth.
A maid stood beside the tennis court holding her child, who was a little over a year old. The child's father was named Charles Leclerc.
According to intelligence provided by Severus, he had met Napoleon during the Siege of Toulon. Later, Leclerc was appointed commander-in-chief of French forces in Italy by Napoleon. After France occupied Milan, Napoleon disregarded his sister's objections and personally arranged her marriage to Charles.
Because of poor health, Leclerc was forced to resign from the military and was transferred to Paris. Later, he was sent to Brittany to defend the Rhine River, but Pauline and their son did not go with him.
She was still playing with the ladies now, yet from every indication, Pomona could almost be certain that Pauline would take other lovers.
Pauline did not love Charles, so she had no awareness whatsoever of being a married woman. Even after having a child, she did not restrain herself.
It was said that she had met the Governor of Marseille through Napoleon's introduction, and he was the one she loved. Yet whether for political reasons or to win people over, her second brother had forcibly married her off to someone she did not love.
Napoleon might be