What was an ordinary woman supposed to do on the second day of her marriage?
Georgiana had Matilda accept the bouquet of dahlias sent by Sieyès, President of the Senate of the Directory. The multicolored flowers looked very beautiful.
Both the Senate of the Directory and the Council of Five Hundred were at Saint Luke. If the president was not there, what was left to debate?
French courts were divided into ordinary courts and administrative courts. Ordinary courts handled civil and criminal cases, while administrative courts handled administrative cases. Under the French Constitution, no government official could be prosecuted in an ordinary court without prior approval. The assassination attempt on the First Consul did not fall under the jurisdiction of an administrative court, so it would ultimately be handed over to a special tribunal.
The judges of the special tribunal had all been appointed by Napoleon himself. Tomorrow would basically be his personal performance. Louis XVI had once faced a vote on the death penalty. When the Jacobins were in power, the other parties had only two choices: vote in favor, and the Jacobins would take responsibility for it; or vote against it, and the Jacobins would accuse them of Royalist leanings. Thus, the Girondins did not hesitate and voted in favor. All 683 deputies found the king guilty. Only Jean-Denis Lanjuinais cast a dissenting vote, because he was a legislator, not a judge. Later, he introduced a motion on punishment, leaving it to the people to decide what sentence the king should receive.
This time, the motion had been rejected by 423 votes to 281. Then every deputy had to appear in court and state his opinion.
If this had been the royal council, one order from the king would have sent Plande's head rolling. Why all this fuss?