The next day, the morning of June 11, although the morning fog had not yet cleared and the dew was falling, the Champs-Élysées and the Champs-Élysées were already bustling with people, and it was known that it was the day when Laurence Bonaparte left Paris for Italy.

A large number of citizens, journalists, aristocrats and bureaucrats spontaneously gathered in the streets at dawn to catch a glimpse of His Excellency Bonaparte's expedition.

Even nearly half of the ministers of the entire cabinet had come to Paris from Versailles for this purpose.

The entire core of the street was cordoned off by the royal guards before dawn, because His Royal Highness the Dauphin, as always, came to the Champs-Élysées to see off His Excellency Bonaparte, and even Crown Princess Marie came with him this time.

The crown prince and his wife, as well as several cabinet ministers, arrived at the Corsican embassy early and had breakfast with Lawrence Bonaparte in the mansion.

And when they walked out of the Corsican embassy, the guards outside the door, the reporters, and the nobles and the Privy Knights who had also come to see them off could clearly see the obvious loss and sadness on the faces of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

The sentimental Crown Prince knew full well that his best friend would not be able to stay with him until the war, which no one knew when, would end.

Still, Crown Prince Louis restrained his sadness, took out the prepared speech, and made a short public speech in the open space outside the Corsican embassy.

On behalf of the entire royal family, he once again emphasized the legitimacy and justice of the Corsican Kingdom's participation in the civil war in Naples, and in his speech he made public for the first time the existence of the Order of the Privy Council, an organization of officers directly subordinate to him.

Most of the audience was surprised by the sudden formation of this group of officers, especially the cabinet ministers, who immediately realized that such a group of officers who would be directly loyal to the king would most likely replace the Choiseul faction as the largest force in the French army.

Of course, the ministers did not believe that His Royal Highness the immature Crown Prince would have such ambitions and means, and when people saw Lawrence Bonaparte standing silently behind His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, people could understand who inspired His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's handwriting.

And after the public speech, Crown Prince Louis and Lawrence also followed the predetermined process in front of the Privy Council in front of the waiting Privy Knights.

Crown Prince Louis took a red silk tray filled with sterling silver medals from the official beside him and handed it to Lawrence with his own hands.

Lawrence, as the Grand Master of the Privy Council, solemnly accepted the tray, and then came to the surprised Knights, and personally put the silver medals on the chests of each of them.

Immediately after all the members of the Order had been ordained, Crown Prince Louis announced to the public that he had hereby conferred the title of Honorary Knighthood on all members of the Privy Council in the name of the present King, Louis XV.

Hearing the decision of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, not only the audience present was amazed, but even the people of the Knights were in disbelief, and they all looked down at the medals shining with bright silver on their chests, and many people's expressions were already extremely excited, and even tears welled up in their eyes.

To be personally honored by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and His Excellency Bonaparte on the Champs-Elysées in the morning breeze, although only the lowest rank, was already a great honour for cadets who were mostly from civilian backgrounds.

Governor Berthier also immediately led the entire Order of Knights to curtsy Lawrence and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and once again swore allegiance to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince in public.

Lawrence looked at the excited Knights and nodded with satisfaction. The idea of awarding the Order of Knights was not proposed by Lawrence and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, but Louis XV, as soon as he learned of the formation of the Order of the Privy Council late last night, ordered that the officers be honored en masse on the eve of the expedition as a way to strengthen their loyalty.

Lawrence could also see the hint of Louis XV's move, and His Majesty was showing his support for Lawrence's move to establish a direct officer corps for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

After the knighthood was finished, Lawrence and his party were about to set off from Paris.

Crown Prince Louis was very reluctant to hold Lawrence's hand, and the introverted Royal Highness the Crown Prince also became talkative today, but almost every word he said was telling Lawrence to take care of himself.

Finally, Crown Prince Louis took a simple and luxurious gold-sheathed saber and handed it to Lawrence, indicating that it was the command sword worn by Louis XIV, the Sun King, during his conquest of the Dutch lowlands

The inscription of the "Sword of the Sun King". His Royal Highness the Crown Prince gave this saber to Lawrence, hoping that this sword could bring the courage and martial prowess of the former King Louis XIV to his closest friend, and Lawrence did not shirk, and accepted the gift from Crown Prince Louis with a solemn expression, and directly tied the saber to his belt.

At this time, Crown Princess Mary also took two steps forward and handed Lawrence a beautiful gilded envelope: "It's a pity that a good man like you is leaving Paris again, Monsieur Bonaparte, I heard that you are going to fight in the Kingdom of Naples this time, my sister is now the queen of Naples, I have had a good relationship with her since childhood, if she knew that you are my friend, she should be able to give you more care, so this letter of introduction may come in handy for you." Lawrence solemnly took the envelope, and after a moment's thought, he remembered the matter of the Queen of Naples: "Your sister... Is it that Maria Carolina, I really bothered Your Highness. "Carolina and Crown Princess Marie were sisters, both daughters of Maria Theresa and princesses of the Habsburgs, and they had a close relationship when they were at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Three years earlier, in 1768, at the age of sixteen, Carolina had left Austria to marry Ferdinando IV, the current King of Naples, and became Queen of Naples.

Austria had a long tradition of interfering in the courts of various countries through marriage diplomacy, both in France and in Naples.

Compared to Crown Princess Marie, who had not yet taken control of the French court, Carolina, who was already the queen of Naples, was only nineteen years old at this time, but she already had considerable influence within the Kingdom of Naples.

Moreover, Austria had a pact with the Kingdom of Naples when it married that as long as Carolina gave birth to an heir for Ferdinando IV, she would be eligible to enter the king's private parliament, and such a treaty also made Queen Carolina's political status more prominent.

In addition, King Ferdinando IV of Naples seemed to have the same strict temperament as Louis XVI, and had little resistance to the Habsburg princess, so the king was willing to leave some of the affairs to King Carolina later.

As a result, Queen Carolina can definitely be regarded as a political figure in the Kingdom of Naples who is no less influential than the king, and she can even influence the appointment of some ministers, and support her henchmen and favorites to the top.

The historical Queen Carolina, the de facto ruler of the late Kingdom of Naples, was a loyal supporter of enlightened autocracy and implemented a number of progressive reforms that made Naples the cultural and artistic center of all of Italy.

However, after the outbreak of the French Revolution and the execution of Louis XVI and her own sister Queen Marie, Queen Carolina also completely turned into an ultra-conservative and stood firmly in the anti-French alliance.

Lawrence thoughtfully put away Crown Princess Mary's letter of introduction, and thanked Princess Mary once again, which should still come in handy if she really needed to deal with Queen Carolina at that time.

Finally, Duke Charles also stepped forward to say goodbye to Lawrence, his expression was the same mixed taste, mixed with obvious loss, there were not many young talents in Paris and Versailles who could be appreciated and recognized by him, not to mention that Lawrence was a supporter of Rousseau like him.

And although he was also a member of the Privy Council, as the heir of the House of Orleans, not to mention Lawrence, not to mention Lawrence, even Duke Charles himself knew that he could not go to the dangerous Italian battlefield with everyone.

However, Lawrence did intend to keep Duke Charles in Paris, and the Duke could only maximize his value if he stayed in Île-de-France.

Now the two are also close friends, and there are many coincidences between the two sides in terms of political opinions, so Duke Charles also gave Lawrence a lot of trust.

With this connection, as long as the Duke of Charles was in Île-de-France, Lawrence was sure that he would be able to win the support of the Duke of Orleans, the regent, in all political matters during the war.

And this is undoubtedly quite important for Lawrence, after all, war is a continuation of politics. The Neapolitan Civil War was not only a sword on the battlefield in Italy, but also a treachery in the Île-de-France, and Lawrence naturally did not focus all his attention on Italy.

Finally, after a brief chat with several dignitaries who had come to see him off, Lawrence got into the embassy carriage and drove quickly south in the warm summer breeze under the watchful eyes of the crowd of onlookers.

...... More than 10 days later, on June 24, in the Corsican capital, Ajaccio's French couriers and merchants brought the recent movements of Paris to Ajaccio yesterday, and the Corsicans soon learned that they had been drawn into an Italian war.

Although Corsica is far from Sicily, the core battlefield of the war, the citizens of Ajaccio are also prepared for the war to reach their homeland because Corsica and the neighboring kingdom of Sardinia are at war.

Since the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica received news of the start of war at about the same time, the armies of both sides were immediately mobilized at the same time.

The Kingdom of Sardinia seems to have anticipated the entry of the Kingdom of Corsican into the war, and has already deployed a large number of troops on Sardinia, which began to mobilize immediately after receiving the official declaration of war.

According to the preliminary information of the Corsican army, the total number of troops gathered by the Kingdom of Sardinia on the island is likely to be close to 10,000, and this exaggerated figure also proves that the Kingdom of Sardinia entered the war with the ambition of completely annexing Corsica.

After all, in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1744, the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was invaded by the 60,000 combined forces of France and Spain, only pulled out a regular army of more than 20,000 people.

Although the king of Sardinia, Carlo Emanuele III, has been expanding his armaments, the nearly 10,000 troops deployed on Sardinia are probably one-third of the standing army of the entire Kingdom of Sardinia, and this force is undoubtedly the absolute main force of the Sardinian army.

The top brass of the Corsican army also agreed to transfer the main force of the Wehrmacht to Bonifa in the south to prevent the Sardinian army from crossing the channel and invading Corsica northward, since there was already information that an indefinite number of Sardinian troops were massing in northern Sardinia.

However, the commander of the French garrison in Corsica, Major Serurier, expressed strong opposition to this plan.

He believed that the enemy's build-up in northern Sardinia was most likely a feint aimed at attracting the main forces of the Corsican army.

In this way, the capital city of Ajaccio will inevitably be emptied, and the only troops left in Ajaccio will be his garrison and the central gendarmerie to maintain order in the city, and once the Sardinian army launches a landing offensive directly on Ajaccio from the sea, it will be difficult to stop it alone.

As for the consequences of the fall of the capital city of Ajaccio, it was undoubtedly catastrophic. Since the main force of the Wehrmacht is all stationed in Bonifacians in the south, the loss of Ajaccio means the direct fall of the entire central and northern Corsica, and the Corsican army in Bonifacians will not have any strategic depth to speak of.

And that's just for strategic reasons, but when you consider the political implications of Haut-Ajaccio as the Corsican capital, the importance of the seaport city is self-evident.

Still, senior Wehrmacht officers considered the French general's fears to be completely unfounded. According to their experience, the Sardinian army invaded Corsica by attempting to cross the strait to capture the important town of Bonifac, and never launched a naval offensive.

After all, in the eyes of the Wehrmacht's top brass, the naval strength of the Kingdom of Sardinia was no better than that of Corsica.

Although their de jure capital was Cagliari in Sardinia, the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose actual capital was in Turin, was essentially a landlocked country, and it was for trade that they forcibly demanded from the Republic of Genoa a narrow outlet to the sea, which was naturally not enough to support the Kingdom of Sardinia to build a large fleet.

As for Sardinia, it has only been 40 years since the Kingdom of Sardinia acquired this island, and the kingdom only uses Sardinia as a relatively close overseas colony and trading base, and does not rely on Sardinia to strengthen its navy.

It was also true that King Carlo Emanuele III of Sardinia did not pay much attention to the navy, and his military focus was still on strengthening the army in order to defend himself against France's ambition to seize Savoy on the mainland.

In response to the analysis of the naval strength of the Kingdom of Sardinia by the high-level of the Ministry of National Defense, Major Seryr also repeatedly emphasized that the Kingdom of Sardinia is very likely to receive assistance from Great Britain in this war, and perhaps Britain will secretly lease some warships to the Kingdom of Sardinia for use.

However, the senior echelons of the Wehrmacht did not agree with Major Serire. They believed that since Britain had reached a bilateral agreement with France not to interfere with Italy, it would inevitably not support the Kingdom of Sardinia in its naval invasion of Corsica, and that the war would be purely an internal struggle between several Italian states, without the participation of other powers.

Major Serier's fears seemed to them to be nothing more than the natural hatred of the French towards the British.

As a guest general, Major Serreier naturally had no right to interfere with the deployment of the Corsican army, and he had no choice but to accept the main force of the Corsican army to be stationed in Bonifa.

The only thing the major could do was to order his garrison to be on increased alert and to maintain communication with the Corsican navy at all times.