"Please convey my gratitude to His Holiness the Pope! As long as my husband and I remain on the throne for even one day, France will never forget the friendship of the Pope State!"
Empress Augusta responded firmly, knowing well that the reason Pope Pius IX was willing to travel all the way from the Pope State to personally offer blessings to his godchild was simply to hope that the French Empire would continue to protect the interests of the Pope State on the Apennine Peninsula.
The current French Empire, having achieved its glorious feats, could be said to have done so over the corpse of the Russian Empire. In the eyes of Pius IX and others, even if her husband Jerome Bonaparte was not as capable as his uncle, he was certainly many times more formidable than the previous two generations of Bourbon.
Therefore, they were eager to maintain the friendship between the French Empire and the Pope State by currying favor with her and her children.
