"Do you believe God exists?"
After dinner, Georgiana asked as they walked barefoot along the shore.
It was actually getting a little cold to be barefoot in this weather. Bonaparte had not taken off his boots, perhaps because he was not as childish as she was.
"I only need bishops, priests, and curates," Bonaparte said.
Georgiana looked at him.
"The monks once organized militias for the Pope. Other than him, they recognized no other sovereign, which made them more frightening to the government than secular officials," he explained.
"My question was whether you believe God exists. Who asked about those priests?" Georgiana asked.
"Why did that question suddenly occur to you?" He deliberately changed the subject again.
"If I cannot prove that God exists, and you cannot prove that God does not exist, neither of us can prove the other wrong." Georgiana said, "Does that count as a kind of fairness?"
He fell into thought.
"When Abel became the wager between God and the Devil, he went through so much. Did he ever doubt that life was unfair?" Georgiana said.
"When I was thirteen and began to experience the ways of the world and think about them, my faith began to waver and become uncertain. But it was not the hardships you mentioned that shook me. It was where I came from, who I was, and where I was going," Bonaparte said.
"Ha, Plato." Georgiana mocked him.
"We once welcomed religion because nature drove us to do so. But the arrival of education made us stop and think. Education and history are religion's greatest enemies, especially when religion has been made ugly by human flaws."
"I am not as grand as you think." Georgiana said, "What did you feel when your father died?"
He looked at her.
"Let me tell