The person who wrote to Georgiana was a jeweler. Before leaving, she had seen a very unusual gemstone called zoisite. Its color reminded her of the wine-dark sea in Homer's writings, shifting between blue and reddish purple in the sunlight.
But he had not known where the stone came from or why it bore that name. Now he had found out. The gem had been discovered in Carinthia, Austria, where there was a remarkably clear lake that had long been a beloved summer retreat for both the Austrian royal family and commoners. It was said that the gemstone had been found by the lakeside.
It was named after someone called Zoe von Gemstone. She was not the discoverer of the gem. Since 1790, illness had left her unable to walk, confined to her home, yet she remained passionate about collecting minerals. She therefore funded Slovenia's scientific society to explore Austria's mineral resources.
Zoe was usually a woman's name; for instance, the Empress Dowager of the Byzantine Empire had borne that name. Yet the Zoe mentioned in the letter was a gentleman.
Slovenia was not far from Trieste, but the thought vanished from her mind in an instant.
The kings and generals at war cared only about strategy and deployments. No one cared whether the refugees lived or died, and history books spared no space to record them, even though there had been as many as forty thousand.
Before Napoleon returned from Egypt, he had sent others back to France ahead of him. A man called Brooks arrived in Toulon in May to provide supplies for Masséna in Liguria, but Britain quickly caught wind of his movements. Yet his main purpose had not been to deliver supplies to Masséna. He was intercepted at Brest on August 3, while Bonaparte's two frigates