Napoleon hoped Pauline would take her son, Dermide, and settle permanently in Saint-Domingue with Leclerc, who would serve as Governor of Saint-Domingue.
The scholar who had come with Napoleon and Granet was named Larrey. He was an army doctor, and this time he had come to vaccinate Pauline and Dermide against smallpox.
Vaccination was not Larrey's specialty. He was better at surgery, but how difficult could vaccination be?
Perhaps Napoleon remembered what had happened when he returned from Egypt and launched his coup. He did not want Leclerc to go through the same thing, which was why he had settled Pauline in the Grand Trianon.
He had thought Pauline would not make him lose face in front of outsiders. In truth, he had underestimated his sister. At first, lunch remained reasonably civil. Then Napoleon said, "If you're afraid you won't adapt to life in Saint-Domingue, you can make requests," and Pauline flew into a rage, arguing directly with Napoleon. The lunch ended unhappily, wasting an entire table of delicacies Georgiana had prepared.
After Pauline left, Napoleon told Granet that within forty-eight hours of the peace treaty being signed, he could ban the import of all raw and processed goods. He could also issue a navigation decree allowing only French ships into French ports. Then he left as well.
Leclerc was like a taciturn German. Not long after Pauline and Napoleon left, he left too.
Larrey and Madame Tallien exchanged a glance after they departed, then left in perfect unspoken agreement. Only once Granet was the sole person left at the dining table did he begin explaining the cause of this "family dispute" to Georgiana.
In 1713, the Principality of Orange was annexed by France. In 1795, the Netherlands became a republic, and the House of Orange, its former rulers, was