The French were under siege, though the vast majority of them had not yet noticed.
Across from the Louvre Museum stood the Paris Botanical Garden. Kléber's bronze column was still under construction; only the pillar had been erected last year, and craftsmen were now applying plaster to its exterior. It seemed unlikely to be finished within a year or two.
Kléber and Desaix had died on the same day, one in Egypt, the other on the battlefield of Marengo. Desaix was said to have been a very cultivated man, perhaps precisely what that expeditionary army, so eager for victory, lacked most.
Georgiana took a sip of wine. With bread costing four and a half sous inside Paris and seven sous outside the city, even a fool knew what to do.
Smuggling would quickly exhaust what food supplies were originally sufficient, and prices would rise afterward. Fortunately, as many bakeries as possible had been retained, and they had granaries attached to them. They should be able to keep selling bread cheaply for a while.
If the authorities set a fixed price, tax collectors could perhaps do as people had in ancient times and allow farmers to pay in goods instead of money. That would also secure a channel for food supplies, preventing them from hoarding grain while waiting for prices to climb further. Of course, tax revenues would be lower as a result.
Georgiana set down her wineglass, returned to the table, and began writing a letter on the typewriter.
Napoleoni was like that. Unless necessary, he rarely went to extremes, always searching for a balance amid chaos, just as he could not completely separate love from the world. Perhaps Napoleon's own war had not yet ended, but for most ordinary people, it was already over. "Turbulent freedom" had lasted ten