Napoleon's Exile (11 page)

Hubert, the polite and cultured valet, relieved Octave at dawn. Finally able to leave that uncomfortable antechamber, Octave passed through the line of grenadiers who ensured the safety of the Imperial apartments, and set off down the corridors, rubbing the small of his back. He encountered more soldiers and over-excited servants; patrols of soldiers were circulating in the courtyard intoning battle-hymns to the sound of fifes, or shouting, ‘To Paris! To Paris!' to maintain the spirit of excitement that precedes a battle. When Octave reached the door, a young wardrobe attendant was waiting for him with a cloth bag that he held out.

‘It's for you, sir.'

‘For me?' asked Octave, surprised.

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Damn right!'

‘So you know me?'

‘Course I do, you're Chauvin's cousin.'

‘Chauvin's cousin, fine, but how do you know that?'

‘In the castle, word gets round.'

‘And have you been waiting for me for a long time?'

‘Oh no, I found out.'

‘About what?'

‘About your hours.'

‘From whom?'

‘The Palace Prefect, of all people.'

Octave had taken the bag and opened it to see what was inside.

‘Boots?'

‘Wouldn't be surprised.'

‘Why so, brat?'

‘Old Boiron left' em here for you at the sentry post, yesterday evening.'

‘So you know old Boiron as well?'

‘Everyone knows him, everyone in the staff here in the castle.'

‘Does he come often?'

‘He does services, that's all.'

‘Of what kind?'

‘Well, he's a shoemaker, so he repairs things.'

‘Has he ever been inside the palace?'

‘Only when His Majesty ain't there, otherwise ...'

‘Otherwise?'

‘Some of the soldiers ain't from these parts, and they don't let him through.'

‘They wouldn't let him through?'

‘Like I said, but I was there and I took your parcel.'

‘Did the soldiers look inside?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well?'

‘They saw some boots, I said they were for you and I said who you were. Did I do the right thing, sir?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can I go?'

‘Be off with you!'

Octave threw the bag on his bed and took out a pair of new boots. Inside the turned-down top of one of them he found a sheet of paper, which he unfolded:

Monsieur le Chevalier, it's about this evening. Our allies are in a hurry. They know that Bonaparte is going to attack them on Tuesday, and they are keen to avoid a new and uncertain war. They are even talking about abandoning Paris and retreating to Meaux. It is therefore a matter of urgency. If my uniform allows me to enter the castle, yours must surely allow me to enter the tyrant's apartment at night. I have a sword.

Maubreuil

*

The Duke of Bassano put Maubreuil's note down on his desk. He smiled faintly, as he always did, but at the same time he wrinkled the fat black eyebrows that caterpillared across his forehead. Octave stood behind him, in civilian clothes. With a slow and composed movement of his head, for he was copying the disdainful manners that he thought typical of the true aristocracy, the Duke said in his unctuous voice: ‘Your Marquis is a dilettante. What a ludicrous idea, a message in a pair of boots; even a farce-writer like Désaugiers wouldn't have risked that. And his plan is the plan of a fantasist.'

‘Fantasist or not, your grace, his intention is clear.'

‘Certainly ...'

‘His family is dedicated to the royal cause; he is related to the La Rochejaqueleins.'

‘The fact that he's from the Vendée proves neither his courage nor his skill. How can he imagine that a valet might open the doors to the Imperial apartment in the middle of the night? There are the aides-de-camp, there's Monsieur Constant, whose bedroom communicates with the Emperor's via a spiral staircase, that fool Roustan down below, the corridors full of soldiers...'

Ever since that infernal machine had exploded in the rue Saint-Niçaise fourteen years previously, all attempts on Napoleon's life had been foiled. The aristocratic hired killers dispatched from England by the Count of Artois had been swept away, all of them: the Cadoudals, the Rivières, the Bouvets, Burbans and Polignacs. Those attempted assassinations had in fact benefited the Empire; as a result, public opinion had been happier to accept the strengthening of measures taken by the police and the censors, the assertion of authority, the plethora of banishments or executions - but could this one, which was bound to fail, be exploited? Octave dragged Bassano from his reflections.

‘I have come to ask your orders, your grace.'

‘Let your Marquis approach, if he will.'

‘And then?'

‘The Emperor wishes to attack tomorrow, our enemies know that and they are quaking with fear at the thought of it. According to your man Maubreuil, the allies intend to pull back to Meaux: that is the only interesting piece of information in his note, and I shall pass it on to His Majesty.'

‘But what about him?'

‘He can fail when he is near to his goal, can't he?'

‘Without a doubt.'

‘If he is killed, would that not harm your reputation with the royalists?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Neither do I.'

‘So, if he turns up ...'

‘If he turns up you kill him. Word will circulate outside the palace that an over-excited marquis has failed, and you will remain uninvolved in the eyes of his partners, whom you will still be able to keep under surveillance. Are you armed?'

‘No.'

‘I will give you a few men, you will just have to point out our prey to them.'

‘I'd prefer to deal with it on my own, your grace.'

‘As you wish.'

‘But...'

‘But?'

‘I'd need a hunting knife.'

‘That's easily done.'

Bassano called for a servant, and asked for a knife to be brought immediately. As they waited for the weapon, the Duke asked: ‘This man Maubreuil, do you think he's a hard-liner?'

‘Better than that: he's being paid.'

‘With promises or gold coins?'

‘Promises. From what he told me the first time, at Boiron the shoemaker's, Talleyrand himself has offered him the title of duke, the governorship of a province, an income of two hundred thousand livres ...'

‘Pffft! He'll faint at the first obstacle.'

‘How can we know that?'

‘If he's hoping for a title, a province and an income, it means he's fond of life.'

‘And if he's fond of life?'

‘He's not going to risk death.'

A chamberlain came in, bringing a knife in a leather case. Octave slipped it under his belt, beneath his frock-coat, saluted and left the room. Maubreuil, this supposed murderer, this elegant hired killer, barely worried the Duke of Bassano. In any case, Octave would do what needed to be done. On the other hand, Prefect Pasquier's remarks about the Jacobins were spinning around in Bassano's head. He thought about Fouché. The former Minister of Police, who had been dismissed, could play the Jacobins' game, and he was fierce. He had retained the names of his informers in the Faubourg Saint-Germain as though they were in the army or at court; but events happened to be keeping him in Lyons. And the rest? Small fry. It was the marshals that worried Bassano. If they couldn't rely on the marshals, the Empire was lost.

Napoleon wasn't suspicious enough of them, he thought they were obedient, he told them time and again that without him they would fall. However, two weeks previously, by the flames of Arcis-sur-Aube, some of them had begun to conspire in the face of the enemy, those 40,000 Bavarians and Austrians that they could no longer contain; Ney had even called the Emperor a scourge. The marshals were grumbling. Their wives, their town-houses and belongings were in Paris: would they march on the capital to destroy their own possessions, and risk the deaths of their own families? An intrepid rogue, jealous and choleric, self-seeking, Ney was becoming dangerous. His brother-in-law lived in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, that den of aristos, and while his wife Eglé had been at school with Hortense de Beauharnais, she was also the daughter of one of Marie-Antoinette's chambermaids, Madame Auguié, who had thrown herself from a window to escape Robespierre's detectives, a few days before 9 Thermidor that would have saved her life.

*

Michel Ney, Prince of the Moskva, had a face as red as his unruly hair. He was furious, and strode around the gallery, spurs clanking. ‘I'll tell him, oh yes, I'll tell him!' He repeated those words as a litany to fire himself up. The other marshals lengthened their steps to keep up with him, feathers quivering on their hats. They had donned their gold-embroidered costumes, their brightly coloured silk sashes, rows of medals awarded in the past; their riding-boots gleamed with wax. Old Lefebvre grumbled, wheezed, clutched his side. Oudinot looked lost, round-eyed, his eyebrow raised in a circumflex. Honest Moncey, who used to love weapons so much, was not so fond of them now. Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, joined this group on the threshold of the Imperial apartments. He had been running, and his anxiety was apparent on his normally placid face.

Caulaincourt had walked ahead of them into the drawing-room adjoining the Emperor's study; he stopped talking to Bertrand and Bassano when the marshals entered the room in a single determined block. They looked at one another and said nothing, tense and quaking. Finally, Major General Berthier, more taciturn than usual, his back bent, sighed and half-opened the communicating door.

‘Gentlemen, His Majesty awaits you ...'

Jostling one another, they silently entered the study together, cocked hats under their arms, huddled like schoolboys fearing punishment, not so strong all of a sudden. The only sound was their panting breath and the rustle of the maps that Napoleon, at his desk, was moving about and marking with a pencil. The Emperor cast a distracted eye over the group, noticed the latest arrival to Fontainebleau, Macdonald, who had just come from Melun, and stared him in the eye.

‘Greetings, Lord Tarentum, how are your men bearing up?'

‘Very badly, sire.'

‘And?'

‘Having failed to save Paris ... We're all devastated.'

‘What do your men say?'

‘That you're calling on us to march on the capital.'

‘They're right.'

‘Sire, they don't want to expose Paris to the same fate as Moscow ...'

‘Moscow was deserted, Paris isn't.'

‘Exactly, sire, no civil war!'

‘The Senate has just pronounced your deposition,' ventured Marshal Ney, gritting his teeth and hissing like a rattlesnake.

‘The new government is calling the Bourbons back,' added Moncey, who had fought fiercely on the Paris barricades.

‘The provisional government, gentlemen, is provisional: it admits as much itself! Those scoundrels will soon be bowing down to the Bourbons, certainly, but they'll be doing it in England!'

‘Sire,' Macdonald went on, ‘my soldiers are dying of hunger, they are discouraged. Many of them have gone home, and what are the others going to live on in Fontainebleau, in the middle of a forest?'

‘Are you refusing to fight? I have sergeants enough to replace you.'

‘The army will not march on Paris!' stated Marshal Ney furiously.

‘The army will obey me!'

‘No, sire, the army obeys its generals.'

The Emperor fell silent and studied them one by one. They lowered their eyes, even Ney, and then, in a dry voice, Napoleon asked, ‘What do you suggest?'

‘Your abdication,' replied Ney, studying the slats of the parquet.

‘You may go.'

They backed out of the room. Marshal Ney's eyes revealed that he was at once frightened and proud of his refusal. The Emperor kept Bassano and Caulaincourt behind.

‘Has the Guard been paid?' he asked in a calmer voice.

‘Yes, sire, but from your personal funds. We haven't a penny left for the other regiments.'

‘And what about the Treasury?'

The great treasurer, Peyrusse, who made grammatical errors but never miscalculated, had been sent to Orléans to recover the booty removed from the Tuileries by the Empress and Cambacérès, about twenty million in all. Peyrusse had not yet returned, and there was no news of his mission. The Emperor leapt to his feet.

‘The regency! Have you heard! It's all they can talk about! The regency! No one believes in it! The allies aren't as naïve as that!'

He paced around the room, hurling to the ground all the objects his hand happened to rest on - the oval snuffbox, a monogrammed pencil-box, some maps - then he abruptly asked for writing material. An aide-de-camp brought paper, Caulaincourt uncorked the inkpot, and Bassano held out a finely trimmed crow's feather. The Emperor took up position at his desk and wrote, for once without making too many mistakes.

‘Abdication! We'll give them abdication all right! Everyone will be reassured, cajoled, rocked to sleep! The allies will believe that we're not going to attack,
bene!
Let's gain some time.'

He spoke and wrote at the same time. His pen scratched nervously.

‘Caulaincourt, go to Paris, negotiate their damned regency as best you can, play the part, take that great idiot Ney with you, and Macdonald, that'll calm them down . . .'

‘Recall the marshals!' called the Duke of Bassano, half-opening the door of the antechamber. Shortly afterwards, the marshals came back; some valets had caught up with them by running down the gallery to the steps of the external staircase. Taken by surprise, the group were unsure about what attitude they should adopt. The Emperor could have had them shot for disobedience, but no, Napoleon stood there, letter in hand, waving it around to dry the ink, and his voice was soft.