The Imperial Guard was chasing Red Cap with baguettes.
Georgiana could not bear to watch and turned away. She had only told them what the book said: that Goblins like Red Cap could be beaten with sticks. Yet the Imperial Guards laughingly pulled out the baguettes from the saddlebags on their horses.
As everyone knew, this kind of bread became hard enough to serve as a weapon after being left out for two days and drying out. The principle was much the same as with The Mummy. When Napoleon and the others were in Egypt, they had faced the same predicament: wheat but no ovens. They could only roast the wheat or boil it in water, and naturally, it tasted terrible.
So they invented this hard bread. When they wanted to eat it later, they soaked it in water and warmed it beside a fire for a while, and it became soft again.
When the nearby villagers heard that this passing army had rid them of the terrifying hellhounds and wandering vagrants, they were overjoyed. They brought out fine wine, roast meat, and cheese to entertain them warmly. At last, their dinner was not just a single roast chicken as it had been before.
These villagers knew of Napoleon, but they did not know that the man drinking and chatting around the bonfire with them was Napoleon himself. Some had gone to watch the hellhounds being cremated, while others, carrying rakes and other farm tools, marched murderously toward the cemetery.
Perhaps the people of Brittany were still living two centuries in the past. They had no objection to lynching; it was simply another part of the local customs. When vagrants and bandits gathered in gangs, villagers would agree to their demands to keep their villages from being destroyed. Now that