The sudden clatter of hoofbeats came from outside.
She and Fargeon went to the window to look and saw that members of the Guard had arrived. Not long after, Bonaparte, dressed in the First Consul's ceremonial uniform, entered the courtyard, a Mamluk sword hanging at his waist.
For a moment, Georgiana wanted Fargeon to hide. But then she reconsidered. What was there to hide about an old man in his eighties? Then she noticed someone following Bonaparte. She had seen him at a reception before; he seemed to be a general who had accompanied Bonaparte to Italy.
There was not much time for them to stand around in a daze. Soon, she heard the two men's footsteps.
Madame de Staël had written in her novel that hearing his footsteps would make one's heart leap with joy. Georgiana was not in that mood now.
She was thinking of Zorro—more precisely, a fight scene in The Mask of Zorro between him and Elena, the governor's daughter, in a stable. In fact, the governor's daughter was not truly his daughter, but the daughter of the previous Zorro. The previous Zorro was old, so he trained a gifted young peasant, Alessandro, to become the new Zorro. He then rescued a large number of miners and Elena from the Spanish governor. At the time, however, Elena did not know her true identity. She believed the governor was her father and tried to stop Zorro from stealing documents from her father's office.
While her mind was wandering, Bonaparte appeared. She rarely saw him in ceremonial dress. This uniform resembled one of his everyday outfits: black, with gold-thread embroidery along the edges. But this one had a red stand-up collar, and his trousers were dark gold, exactly like the portrait David had painted of him crossing the