Georgiana regretted having been so "free and easy" just now.
If Georgiana had been a commoner, she would not have minded using that grandmotherly handkerchief at all. At most, people would have called it "motherly warmth." But she had been brought along on a state visit, and she could not use the sort of handkerchief Paris fashionistas would mock.
Before rules were established at the Tuileries Palace, anyone could claim to know the Bonapartes and force their way in even if they barely knew them. A shoemaker had nearly barged into the room where Josephine was receiving guests, only to be driven away by the attendants.
Craftsmen of the old era all knew that serving the royal family was practically a path to wealth through luxury goods, like Louis Vuitton.
But that had been on their own turf, where they could throw people out. Now they were on someone else's turf. Even if that female vendor had chosen the wrong moment to make her pitch... in short, if Georgiana had had a seasoned noblewoman beside her rather than a young girl like Alice, someone could have stepped in to stop the vendor.
Marie Antoinette, meanwhile, had had a noblewoman who misunderstood her. When she relayed a message to the Duke of Lauzun, she made it sound as though the Queen wanted that beautiful feather.
Georgiana had no desire to cause a similar "pink handkerchief" incident over an "egret feather."
She had never paid much attention to the maids, treating them more like students.
The dresses Parisian women wore were so sheer that they were almost like wearing nothing at all. To put it bluntly, they were window curtains. She had seen them before when she had sneaked off to a salon to steal food, and she had been so furious