Beneath Normandy Castle lay a Roman amphitheater. According to the castle steward, after Philippe Augustus entered Rouen in 1206 and destroyed the original Normandy Castle, he built his own castle atop the ruins of the Roman amphitheater.
Around the same time, the old Rouen Cathedral was destroyed, and construction began on the Gothic Rouen Cathedral. In 1791, it was listed as a historical monument by the architectural museum established in Paris, but in 1792 it was looted clean. Later, it became Rouen City Hall, where the Halloween welcoming ceremony would be held.
The merchants' welcoming reception would be held at the newly established art museum. Though its collection was not as vast as the Louvre Museum's, it rivaled Venice's. Once merchants became wealthy, they often bought art in large quantities to give themselves an aristocratic air, dressing like Renaissance women as they wandered galleries filled with Renaissance works, as though figures from paintings had stepped into "reality." It would have been even better if the event were held there on Halloween itself, but the merchants' reception had to come after the municipal officials'. Even after the bourgeois revolution, merchants generally remained low in social standing. Besides, Napoleoni seemed somewhat inclined to suppress them.
That hussar rumored to have had an affair with Josephine came from a merchant family. Whether Josephine had truly sent Charles to gather information for Napoleon or not, the misunderstanding had already taken root.
The citizens liked her, perhaps not only because she had put on a show of accompanying Napoleoni through the streets to speak with workers, but also because she did not spend extravagantly. Even if she wanted to squander money, after all, it would be Napoleoni's money, with nothing to do with the treasury or taxes.
Yes, they had learned what the people wanted,