From Georgiana's office, she could see Milan Cathedral.
Marino Palace was actually not far from Milan Cathedral. Cross a bustling commercial street and you were there. The café where the Dalmatian Literary School gathered should be nearby.
She was in no mood to look at maps now. She had guessed it when she appeared at Saint-Cloud, but hearing it from Murat still left her deeply frustrated.
After Napoleon went to Egypt, the Directory fought many battles, but the results were far from ideal. He saw the news in the newspapers, then returned to Paris with the other Brumairians.
However, he had not launched a coup immediately upon returning. He spent some time preparing first, and Cicognara should have met him during that period.
Before that, Georgiana had spent some time with the people of Lyon, who were very familiar with the genoese. There had been a genoese diplomat. At the time, Genoa feared both pressure from Austria and the French Republic, so the aristocratic oligarchs advocated "neutrality." Yet that diplomat supported France, because he had begun to believe that the world had entered a new age—an age in which interests were no longer determined by the ruling party, but by national interests. Only an alliance with neighboring republics could form an effective defense.
He did not seek out the Jacobins then in power. Instead, he found Captain Bonaparte, the rising Nova of the Battle of Toulon, who was then still in Nice. Before that, Napoleon had carried out a mission for Robespierre, assessing Genoa's defenses. At the time, the French had only just invaded Liguria, while war debts were piling up in Genoa like a snowball.
He feared that Genoa would be sacrificed in a future war, so his condition for allying with Bonaparte was that they would provide supplies