After visiting the University of Naples, the trip in Italy came to an end. During the trip, Joseph and the others were warmly welcomed in whatever city or country they were in. Every city or country gave Joseph various medals representing the highest honors, and even the Papal States, which were busy with the death of the Pope and the accession of a new Pope, gave Joseph a precious golden rose.

The Golden Rose is the highest level gift from the Holy See for the Catholic royal family, and each golden rose is made of pure gold, usually decorated with precious jewelry. What's more, each golden rose is a holy cassette containing fragments of a true cross.

The Holy See often gave such gifts to royal nobles who had supported the Catholic Church in recognition of their patronage and service to the Church. Now that Napoleon was the Roman Emperor, and Joseph was also the vice-governor of the Roman Empire, it was only fitting that such a thing should be issued to him.

Theoretically, there are fragments of a true cross in the Golden Rose, which are limited in number and of great significance, so anyone who gets it should be sincerely afraid. In reality, however, this is not necessarily the case. For example, King Henry VIII was clamoring to divorce the wife of the Spanish princess. The request for divorce was rejected by the Pope at the time, but in order to appease Henry VIII, the Pope presented him with a golden rose. As a result, after Henry VIII got the Golden Rose, he created an Anglican Church.

Joseph won't also get an Anglican church out though, (to be honest, the French Church is much more hateful than the Anglican.) But like Henry VIII, he didn't take the so-called highest honors of the Holy See too seriously. He put the golden rose and all the other medals in a small box, and gave it to little Alice as a toy.

It is said that later, a friend of Joseph's came to his house and found little Alice playing with the golden rose of the Holy See as a toy, and hurriedly asked: "You should know what a high honor it is to receive a golden rose from the Holy See, how can you play with it as a toy for your child?" Joseph replied disapprovingly: "I want my children to know that honor is like a toy, it can only be played with, and it must not be kept forever, otherwise nothing will be accomplished." ”

Of course, whether this legend is reliable or not is really not certain. Anyway, there is no relevant record in the memoirs of Napoleon or in the memoirs of Joseph's students. But the story is still very popular.

After a few days of rest in Naples, Joseph and his party boarded a French steamliner and returned to Marseille escorted by a steam-powered cruiser of the French Navy.

When he arrived in Marseille, Joseph noticed that little Alice was a little tired after a long voyage at sea, so he rested in Marseille for another day before boarding the train and returning to Paris.

Napoleon took Lucien and other Roman nobles to the train station to greet Joseph and his party, but neither Napoleon nor Joseph made a speech at this time. But Joseph, when he came up to Napoleon, whispered: "You, and Lucien, come to me in the evening." ”

Napoleon's movements paused slightly, but he quickly stabilized his mood—it was originally planned—and whispered, "Okay." ”

That evening, Napoleon took Lucien to Joseph's house.

"Ah, Napoleon, Lucien, Joseph in the study." Fanny said to them. Her lower abdomen was visibly bulging.

"Sister-in-law, eldest brother, he ......" Lucien hurriedly inquired.

"Joseph was trying to pretend to be angry, but in reality, he wasn't that angry." Fanny laughed.

When Napoleon heard this, he quickly said to Fanny: "Thank you." ”

Fanny smiled slightly, "Okay, let's go, Joseph is trying to find the feeling of being angry, you go early, maybe he hasn't found the feeling yet." ”

Fanny knew that Joseph was really not angry, but for the sake of face, he tried to make an angry appearance. To be honest, this brotherly and brotherly relationship between the brothers of the Bonaparte family often made Fanny feel particularly amused.

Napoleon stopped talking, and led Lucien to the study with the determination and momentum of Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon.

Napoleon knocked softly on the door.

"Come in!" Joseph's voice came from inside. The voice was already calm, and Napoleon's heart sank: trouble, Joseph was ready.

But at this time, no matter what, I can only rush up. So Napoleon stretched out his hand and pushed open the door and led Lucien into the small drawing-room.

Joseph was sitting in a chair behind his desk, with a document on the desk in front of him, and Joseph was flipping it by the light of a lamp.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, he glanced up at the two brothers, and then said, "Sit down." ”

Napoleon and Lucien sat down in their chairs.

"Napoleon, if this treatise is really written by you, then you really deserve the position of an academician." Joseph said, "This paper on complex variable functions does deserve the evaluation of 'extreme importance' and 'a few generalizations.'" ”

Napoleon smiled awkwardly and remained silent. The main part of the dissertation was completed by Laplace, with the help of Monges and Messrs. Lagrange. Remember that they made great efforts to make Napoleon understand all the ideas and deductions contained in this treatise in preparation for Joseph's inquiry. Napoleon had thought that after such adequate preparation, he would be able to convince himself that this treatise was written by himself. But now, when Joseph directly suspected that he had asked the gunman to write it, he did not immediately refute it.

"There is such a paper, and it is not completely impossible to put your name in the list of academicians. However, this paper should have been written by several people for you, and it was also considered that it should be written by yourself, so although there is no problem with the argument of this paper, the ideas in some places are not coherent enough, and the methods used are also a bit cumbersome, not concise enough, and lack of beauty. Joseph continued, "I have some suggestions here for this paper. You take it and look at it, and then you can fix it yourself. Don't go to the sycophants of the Paris masters, I'll help you build the big shelves, you can do it yourself, anyway, it doesn't matter at any time. Well, no problem, right? ”

"No problem, no problem." Napoleon hurried. Since Joseph was willing to give him this step, of course he had to come down on it. Moreover, he has already studied this paper very well. Joseph gave the revised outline, and Napoleon felt that with his somewhat passable talent in mathematics, he should still be able to accomplish the task.