Curse Not the King (41 page)

“Does he trust you?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he answered. “He trusts me. And he thinks I'm a fool. I lost the war, Marie, but I believe I've won the peace. Oh, I know what's being said here! That I'm a coward; that Bonaparte made a fool of me; that I've betrayed my allies and dishonoured my country. I know that some of them are measuring Catherine Pavlovna for my crown … I know, Marie, I saw signs of it at Tilsit. Ouvarov, Novossiltsov, God knows how many others; so stupid they can't see there's a time for caution as well as courage. Sometimes it's necessary to
play
the coward, and that needs as much courage as facing death on any battlefield.”

“What will you do?” she said at last.

“Go to war again. But not till I'm ready, Marie, not till I know I can win.”

There was silence between them then and the room began to grow dark.… “I'll have the candles lit,” she said.

He turned in the chair and caught her. “No. Leave them; not now.”

He stroked her cheek with his fingers; she stayed very still while his hand travelled downwards over her throat, then she began to tremble as she always did when he touched her. He pulled her down into the chair and kissed her; she knew that he'd broken her necklace, and the action was immediately symbolic of her own capitulation. Her passion for him blazed up, mixed with the intolerable pain of her love for him and the knowledge that he was changed, changed as a man and as a lover. The room was very dark.

“Marie,” she heard him whisper. “Marie, I love you … Marie.”

The Emperor Napoleon was sitting in his study in The Tuilleries, discussing Alexander of Russia with his wife. Josephine lay back on a gilt sofa and tried to concentrate, repressing a yawn of boredom.

She was miserably bored with the conversation, most of which was concerned with politics and Napoleon's military moves in the war. He spoke quickly, with many gestures, his dark eyes sparkling, and she thought how unpolished he was still; one violent gesture menaced a favourite Sèvres vase on the table at his side, and Josephine winced in anticipation of the crash. She was the personification of elegance herself, mistress of the graceful pose and delicate movement, exquisitely made up and coiffured. The Revolution had destroyed her; she was frivolous, silly and amoral, traits which had been exploited to the utmost, and there was something about the Empress of the French that betrayed a dubious past. But she was naturally kind, with an amiable wit, an enchanting laugh and a snuggling, helpless manner with men. As Napoleon talked, she thought how odd it was that a man of his type should have fallen in love with her; lately she was discovering qualities in him which fascinated other people and used to be invisible to her. His intellectual range and brilliance, his energy, his terrifying ambition, and, above all, his achievements!

Men were always talking, but Bonaparte translated his words into facts. It was a great pity, she decided, that she had never been able to love him. He was a crude and violent lover, and he frightened her by comparison with the other men she had known, mostly aristocrats like herself. She preferred amorous dalliance, he made love like a whirlwind; he was rather a vulgar little man, fond of displaying his emotions, and while she was too good-natured to dislike him, she neglected and deceived him in his absence during the Italian campaign, and was always relieved when his leaves ended and she could continue her life in peace.

In the early days she would have stopped him, explained sweetly that she didn't understand a word of what he said, but now she did not dare. The situation was changed; the rough young Corsican was the ruler of France, conqueror of many countries, and he was no longer in love with her. Her position was precarious and she had many enemies.

She couldn't afford to be bored or selfish with him; she had to sit and pretend to be interested.

“Then everything went well!” she ventured. It was a safe remark, half question and half statement; it wouldn't betray the fact that she hadn't been really listening.

“Excellently,” Napoleon answered. “The Czar agreed to everything including the blockade of English trade; as I was explaining, that's the important factor now.… But I was most impressed by Alexander.”

“Were you?” Josephine's interest was genuine. She had heard that Alexander was the handsomest man in Europe, and the instincts of the cocotte sharpened with curiosity. Napoleon, who understood her perfectly, noted the changed tone and the large brown eyes turned on him enquiringly.

“I had expected an arrogant blockhead, but he was charming. Quite intelligent too. Once I explained the situation to him and made my proposals he agreed immediately. I promised him a free hand with Turkey, and he was delighted. That was foolish of him, of course.… I've no intention of letting Russia extend eastwards. He'll make no difficulties now. I've measured him and I know how to deal with him in future. He's one of those admirable but foolish men who imagine that it's possible to be a diplomat and mean what one says. You would have liked him, my dear.”

She smiled and he thought how much older she looked since he had last been in France. There were very fine lines under the make-up, and that revealing pose no longer suited her. She was ageing quickly, and it saddened him. He disliked intelligence in women, considering it out of place, but Josephine's stupidity annoyed him where it had formerly delighted. He found it humiliating to remember that she had once reduced him to a state of crawling servitude, that in those days she considered him boring and ill-bred and was unfaithful to him.

He should have divorced her; returning from Italy to find proof of her adultery he'd nearly done so, but her tears and the pleas of his step-children combined against his better judgment. Though love was dead, sentiment remained; she was silly and somehow defenceless in the ruthless world of his creation, and he couldn't bring himself to abandon her. And in the dark she still awoke in him that tempest of passion which he never experienced with anyone else. But there was one need which Josephine could never satisfy, a new need, growing more urgent every day.

He had climbed to the throne of the Bourbons and founded a dynasty, but he had no heir to succeed him, only his brothers and sisters, none of whom were able enough to keep what he had won.

And Josephine would never bear another child.

She was still smiling at him. “I'm so happy it was such a success, but then I was sure it would be. You're so clever.” This time she did yawn, covering her mouth with the tips of her fingers; her hands were lovely, tiny and tapering. The yawn and the look which accompanied it were an invitation.

Napoleon looked at her, remembering the times when he had begged for what she was now offering him, the excuses, the headaches that vanished as soon as he was out of the house, the admonishments to be careful, you're hurting me, you're tearing my dress, oh, Napoleon, not now,
please
.…

And no son to follow him.

He stood up, bent over her and kissed her coldly on the cheek.

“I see you're tired, Madame. I'll leave you then, I have a lot of work to do. Good night.”

The next morning he sent for his Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, created Prince of Benevento after pillaging Austria by the Treaty of Pressburg, and after discussing the terms of his treaty with Russia, astounded him by suggesting even stronger ties between the two countries.

If he were to divorce Josephine, he said suddenly, he could marry Alexander's sister, Catherine.

Charles de Talleyrand-Périgord was an aristocrat by birth. An accident in childhood lamed him, and though he was the eldest son, his family deprived him of the right to succeed his father and directed him to enter the Church. But the young seminarist soon adjusted his profession to his personal taste, a process he managed throughout his life; by the beginning of the Revolution, the aristocrat Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was a notorious Jacobin and libertine.

His acute mind, completely cynical in its approach to everything, saw that the old régime was not only doomed but deserved to be; he therefore allied himself to the enemies of his class and his Church without hesitation. Immediately his talent for intrigue developed; it was as surprising as his success with some of the loveliest and most important women in France. He was a thin, unhealthy-looking man, with the snub-nose and pale eyes which later reminded his enemies of Robespierre, and a manner of arrogant indifference which affronted everyone he did not consider worth cultivating for his own ends.

His intellect was as cold as his senses were hot; intellect prompted him to make friends with Danton; the savage, passionate Revolutionary and the excommunicated Bishop worked to remove King Louis from the throne and proclaim the Republic. They succeeded, and for his part in justifying the imprisonment of the Royal family, Danton allowed him to escape to America before the massacres of September 1792 began. Danton went to the guillotine, rushed to death by the flood he had loosed, and Talleyrand waited until the fall of Robespierre enabled him to return to France and enter the service of the Directory. His patron was another powerful man, the Director Barras, and Talleyrand adapted himself to the decadence and corruption of the new régime with the ease of a chameleon changing its colour to suit its background.

He was astute, convinced that the violence of change was only equalled by its suddenness; the foppish, amoral trend of the Directory was only a transition from the rags and bloodshed of the Revolution; it must lead to something else, and Talleyrand waited to discover what it was. He was one of the first to recognize that the brilliant young Corsican General was potentially more than just the military fist on the Directory's arm. And after that discovery, he waited, watching very closely.

He saw that Napoleon Bonaparte possessed diplomatic as well as tactical genius, and that some overwhelming force of personality brought him victory when the muddles of his Government should have ensured defeat.

He recognized immense ambition behind the quiet exterior of the young soldier, already besotted with his silly Creole wife, and noticed his capacity for rousing a blind loyalty in the men who served him.

His name was becoming a talisman to the people, his victories promised them peace as well as glory, and France needed peace above everything else. He made friends with the General, noting how full his receptions always were and that some of the most influential men in France were filtering into the crowd.

But it was a small thing that decided him. During the campaign in Egypt, 3,000 prisoners were herded on to a beach and shot down in cold blood because there was no time to make proper arrangements for guarding them; the order was given by Napoleon himself.

When Talleyrand heard of it, he knew that the last ingredient of invincibility had been added to the man; inhumanity. From that moment he knew that the Directory was doomed; the phase was ending, the era about to begin.

Ambitious, corrupt, incapable of personal loyalty, the man who had sat in Danton's shadow had one immovable passion in life. The traitor and opportunist was a patriot; France held the place in his heart which no man, woman or child had ever occupied. To liberate France from the enfeebled Bourbons and the rule of a despicable aristocracy, Talleyrand had supported the Revolution and all it represented. He loved his country, and he would have embraced the Devil to benefit France. And since he had declared for Napoleon Bonaparte and become Foreign Minister, he sometimes felt as if that was what he had done. Seven years had passed since General Bonaparte had become First Consul and then Emperor of France. Seven years of ceaseless wars, staggering conquest and increasing disillusion. For the first time in his life, Talleyrand realized he had made the wrong choice. But disillusion came slowly, for even he had fallen under Napoleon's spell; it began with the steady influx of Corsican relations into positions of importance they were quite unfitted for; Bonapartes were climbing on to thrones all over Europe, Italy, Naples, Holland, put there by the man who had made himself ruler of France. And the peace which Talleyrand wanted for his country never lasted more than a few months while the Emperor prepared another war.

The success of his arms didn't appease the Minister, still outwardly devoted to him but inwardly hostile; he knew the worth of spectacular conquest without the backing of consolidated power—it disintegrated unless maintained by occupation, and French troops were already stretched across Europe. Napoleon should have been content, as France was content, with the spoils of victory and the international prestige he had won for her. He should have made friends with England, instead of trying to defeat her by building an alliance with the weaker European powers who were only waiting for the chance to break their word if his luck changed.

Talleyrand sat through the conference with the Emperor, occasionally making a suggestion, realizing that if the Czar of Russia had really been duped by all these promises of friendship, he might be persuaded to follow his late father's plan and attack India, while Napoleon invaded England.

‘World dominance is what he wants,' Talleyrand thought as he listened to the harsh high voice, and followed the pointed finger as it traced across the map spread out in front of them. Cæsar crowned with golden laurel leaves, visiting the tomb of Charlemagne, placing the Iron Crown of Lombardy on his own head as a sign that he meant to re-establish the Holy Roman Empire as a fact instead of an empty title accorded to Francis of Austria.

‘He's gone too far already,' Talleyrand decided, ‘and he means to go further. There's no such thing as world domination for one country; what he envisages will mean the ruin of France.… He will have to be destroyed.'

The same evening he was present at a reception at The Tuilleries, where he saw a certain member of the Russian Embassy staff standing in the centre of a group of admiring women, and he watched him thoughtfully for some moments. His name was Tchernicheff; he was a Colonel of the Russian Guard and one of the most handsome and popular young men in Paris.