Other than saying, "The people need religion; you are not the people," Napoleoni had also told Georgiana, "Do not forget that we rule thirty-six million subjects, at least eighteen million of whom are pedantic scholars and old women who merely echo whatever they hear."
Even as a "dictator" and "tyrant," Napoleon could not completely ignore public opinion. While negotiating a peace treaty with Britain, the newspapers were abuzz with discussion of the "Concordat of 1801."
Compared to those legislators who refused to let the Church return to France, Napoleon, who had declared his faith in Islam in Egypt, seemed far more endearing. Women were the easiest for these clergymen to control, fortunately Georgiana was a witch.
She could sense that Caprara wanted to manipulate her. Even mild-mannered clergymen would unconsciously display their strength before a frail and docile woman; it was a man's nature.
Whether women would be intimidated by them depended on their own knowledge—or rather, whether they had seen enough of the world. How could someone without ability become the Pope's envoy and refute Napoleon's high officials one after another, until even the former Director had to personally step in?
Sometimes, troops needed quality rather than numbers. When Versailles had been besieged, there had been seven or eight thousand women and several hundred men, while Duke of Broglie had gathered twenty-five thousand soldiers to defend Versailles. Yet those soldiers would not lay hands on women; no matter how numerous they were, they were merely for show.
During the Nika riots, Belisarius's steppe horse archers and barbarian mercenaries had dared attack the crowd gathered in the Hippodrome. At the time, the people had chosen a new emperor and placed a golden necklace upon him as a crown.
Amid that chaos, the new emperor Hypatius could only flee by his