After graduation, many people hardly ever saw each other again, but Napoleon's classmates often appeared at the First Consul's "court."
When Georgiana needed to find a doctor at the ball, she first ran into Colonel Lorisdon, Napoleon's classmate from Brienne Military School. After learning why Georgiana had come, he summoned a young doctor named Chabert.
The doctor had once gone to Egypt with Napoleon and was highly skilled in surgery. However, his medical case was in his quarters, so Georgiana immediately sent him to fetch it, then hurried off to find the two men who were dueling.
Lyon had suffered riots and a siege during the French Revolution. The violent repression that followed reduced its population of 150,000 by a third. Many businesses and factories in the city were destroyed, leaving it desolate.
Yet Lyon truly was an economic city. The countryside had an abundance of cheap labor, so simple tasks like producing imitation silk thread were handed to villages near Lyon, while the city retained the more technically demanding weaving processes and the jacquard looms.
Jacquard looms allowed silk to gain varied patterns through more than printing and dyeing; threads of different colors could be combined during weaving itself.
Italy also had a silk industry, but Italian craftsmen copied Lyon silk samples, reproducing them almost perfectly. Yet by the time the imitations reached the market, the fashion-conscious customers already considered their patterns outdated, no longer suitable for fine clothing.
The barracks were surrounded by walls and could not be entered or exited freely, especially with so many sentries. Guided by a lieutenant, Georgiana found them at the edge of a thicket.
The two former comrades now looked like enemies ready to draw swords on each other at any moment. William Pitt the Younger had also fought duels over political