"Are you still corresponding with the Prince of Wales?" Georgiana asked Napoleoni.
He gave her an inscrutable smile, then asked in return, "Aren't you going to ask what I came to the Louvre Museum for?"
Georgiana looked at Denon some distance away. He was chatting with the ladies.
"I asked the Prince of Wales who his greatest enemy was," Napoleoni said. "Can you guess what he answered?"
Georgiana could not imagine how the people of Britain and France would feel if they learned that these "pen pals" were still writing to each other.
"He said it was his wife." Napoleoni stopped keeping her in suspense. "Is this your British sense of humor?"
"I think he answered your question honestly," Georgiana said very seriously, though the Prince of Wales had also avoided certain sensitive matters with that answer.
"If he weren't the heir to the throne, he would certainly be Europe's greatest comedian." Bonaparte looked down the corridor lined with oil paintings.
"You've said that before," Georgiana said. "Do you think he was born to rule?"
"In 1793, it was not only Louis XVI who was sent to the guillotine. The people of Paris also stormed the Basilica of Saint-Denis, smashing every tomb, statue, and church decoration with hammers. Bronze statues were melted down and cast into cannons and coins. Two months later, an even more thorough band of vandals descended the dim stairs into the church crypt with torches in hand. Their targets were the corpses of kings and nobles," Napoleoni said. "Henry IV was still relatively well preserved, but Louis XV's body gave off such an unbearable stench that the accompanying soldiers had no choice but to fire their guns, using the smell of gunpowder to cover it."
"I know about that," Georgiana said. Including Robespierre, she added silently.