According to legend, the Huns would marry their own mothers and sisters-in-law after their fathers and brothers died, even if those women had not borne them. Such ethics were unacceptable not only to monogamous Western European countries but even to Easterners, yet Maria Theresa was matchmaking for Hun nobles at a banquet held by the Huns, seeking suitable marriage alliances.
Perhaps the ancient Huns truly had such a custom. After Wang Zhaojun married into the Huns, she was first married to the chanyu, then to his son. But after so many years, the Huns may have changed that custom. After all, the Eastern European steppes were not as bitterly cold as Siberia and were comparatively more suitable for human habitation.
Georgiana had not arranged the breakfast gathering so that everyone sat tensely around the dining table. That would have reminded her of the Death Eaters and the Malfoys' dining table. After the war ended, Narcissa had disposed of that great table and moved the dining room elsewhere in the castle, so as not to recall those unpleasant memories. After all, not everyone could watch a giant snake swallow a person without being left with some psychological trauma.
She did not need to worry about how the table was set. Both Italy and France were culinary powers. Though she found it a little hard to accept that ice cream had been prepared so early in the morning, she ate it anyway.
Magenta sat among a group of state councillors from the South-of-the-Mountains Cisalpine Republic, looking somewhat restrained... Bonaparte, meanwhile, had already been sitting at negotiating tables and haggling with Austrians when he was even younger than Magenta.
It was understandable to redraw administrative divisions after treaties altered territory and borders, but the new divisions had not only broken Croatia and Slovenia