Many people had fantasized about what Cleopatra looked like. What kind of woman could captivate Caesar?
Even if she was not as breathtakingly beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, with violet eyes to boot, she should at least have had a curvaceous figure, like Marianne, the Statue of Liberty with the Gallic rooster perched atop her head.
Going by Bonaparte's usual "taste," the type he liked should have been like the Medici Venus: blonde, slender, with fiery red lips.
Other than being a little shorter than him, Georgiana did not match any of those descriptions. And judging from his correspondence with the Prince of Wales, his assessment of her was "a reckless little shrimp." He did not mention at all how sweet or gentle she was.
Usually, she kept a low profile and rarely went out, fully aware that people might suspect her of being a spy. Those who had seen her in person had not felt any "witch's magic" either. Instead, the ministers of her faction all wore emerald olive-branch brooches on their chests. They were said to be based on the proclamation issued by the French army in Italy: a sword of victory in one hand, an olive branch in the other. Now, like men's beards in the army or the badges on their hats, it carried political significance and was no longer merely an ornament.
Many of the merchants who donated money to build the Saint-Martin Canal were from Lyon. Everyone knew how much favoritism Lyon had received. Shipping costs were closely tied to insurance, and insurance was tied to safety—war, pirates, and so on. If the world was at peace and there were fewer pirates, insurance costs would fall. Then shipping costs would fall as well, and when shipping costs fell, fewer people would engage in transport.
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