Compared to foolish Georgiana, what Josephine sought was far more "practical." She had always been a very responsible mother. After her husband died, she had not abandoned her two young children to go live a more comfortable, carefree life on her own.
Hortense was about to give birth, and this was a very severe trial for both mother and child.
In Egyptian mythology, baby baboons that knew how to socialize had higher survival rates, but that did not necessarily work in human society.
A pillow or a faulty blanket could take the life of a tiny infant in swaddling clothes, and this child was the key to Josephine preserving her position.
Ney married Hortense's schoolmate, Aglaé Auguié, in June of that year. Not long after the wedding, he was sent to Switzerland.
During Josephine's absence, Georgiana did not replace a single person in charge of palace affairs. Georgiana had no use for the usual "palace infighting" of ordinary women. She merely restored the court confessors—the very people the Marquis of Pombal had driven out of Portugal.
Josephine had her own little court. Georgiana, as a British woman, would have to be mad to establish such an organization in the court of France.
Because she was so "above worldly disputes," Bonaparte felt embarrassed instead. He granted her a special authority—the right to sign. Part of the Sèvres Porcelain Factory's revenue would go toward technological innovation and training talent. After the second industrial exhibition ended, Sèvres also fired a batch of limited-edition porcelain bearing the patterns of Leonardo da Vinci's bronze horse and lighthouse lamps as emblems. They could be collected as collector's items.
Though industry in France lagged behind Britain's, it was not so backward that it could not develop and manufacture even a single steam engine. While sorting through old