If a person killed someone, whether deliberately or accidentally, what they usually thought of first was not confessing and accepting punishment.
For example, if a man caught his cheating wife and her lover in his own home, under the Napoleonic Code, he could kill them both without bearing any responsibility. With that in mind, he could wait for the police calmly, then recount what had happened as the victim.
But in other countries, a husband could not kill his wife and her lover in such circumstances. He had to handle it "calmly." If he failed to remain "calm," such as by shooting them, then he had to forge the scene and create an alibi for himself, pretending nothing had happened and making an appearance at the opera house or some other public place.
Hortense was Louis Bonaparte's wife. If she was about to give birth, Louis should have been the most anxious one. What did it have to do with Napoleon?
In an ordinary family, it would have been enough for Louis's brothers to come and offer congratulations with their wives. Napoleon had no need to go in person, yet taking his mistress out for pleasure instead seemed far too irresponsible.
The bang she had heard that night might not have been a gunshot, but a ceremonial cannon salute. When a king had a prince or princess, cannon were fired in celebration—101 shots for a prince, 80 for a princess. But Louis Bonaparte was neither king nor crown prince. Why would the birth of his son be celebrated with cannon fire?
If it was the custom of the age for Napoleoni to associate with sixteen-year-old Miss Georgina, who did not look sixteen, then being with Hortense and having a child with her was a violation of ethics.
Such rumors were