Across the Seine, directly opposite the Paris Botanical Garden, stood the Bastille.
Pomona stared blankly at the construction workers using stones from the Bastille to build a bridge.
The French Revolution had begun here, and it had been filled with chaos and misunderstandings.
If they had not encountered a vampire, Pomona's understanding of the French Revolution would have been limited to what she knew from books.
Scenes of disorder and chaos were terrifying. Even if someone cleared Louis XVI's name now, no one would clear the name of a prison warden.
The power of words was a strange thing. When people did not know what sort of man the Marquis de Sade was, they heard him roaring in prison and assumed he was an innocent member of the public being held captive, so they acted on his instructions. If they had known what the Marquis was really like, they would only have found him disgraceful and would not have deigned to listen to him.
Harry had once said Voldemort had returned, but no one believed him. Instead, they treated him as a liar, and Dumbledore as a fool.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, however, people believed everything he said, including his vindication of Severus.
If Madame du Barry claimed that a national hero was a corrupt smuggler, the citizens would only think she was mad.
But if Montesquieu said these people were hungry wolves in sheep's clothing, the citizens would be half-convinced.
A person's identity and reputation determined her prestige. If Pomona, as a mistress, ordered some petty man to arrest people everywhere, others would think it was another new round of persecution—that Napoleon had become muddleheaded and incompetent, allowing a foreign woman to stir up trouble in France. The Royalists would not even need to do anything; the citizens