Napoleon's Exile (3 page)

‘Since a minute ago.'

By what right?'

‘I'm the last person here to represent His Majesty.'

Baron d'Herbigny gave a hollow laugh.

‘The last person, you're right!'

‘I'm going to finish what I've started.'

‘Bravo! Bravissimo!' said the Baron, bellowing with laughter until a stout blow in the stomach from Octave's cane bent him double over a sofa. He regained his breath with difficulty. The office boys had fled, knocking against the shelves as they passed and causing an avalanche of stacks of files. Wheezing, d'Herbigny rose to his feet, but Octave pushed him back into the papers and cushions with the tip of his cane.

‘Imagine the Emperor coming back on a forced march ...'

‘You have too much imagination.'

‘That's what I'm paid for, my little baron.'

‘Don't adopt that tone with me!'

‘You're nothing but a draper's son!' said Octave, prodding him with his cane.

‘And you of a valet and a washerwoman.'

‘I make no secret of it, my little baron.'

*

It was a clear night. Columns of bare-handed workmen drifted by in silence. Octave learned that they were heading towards the Place Vendôme to ask for weapons from General Hulin, the Governor of Paris; they would get nothing and would fly into a fury, Octave knew it: the reserve muskets had been distributed to the line infantry, because the Empire was suspicious of the suburbs, where unrest is traditionally born. As to the peasants, not all of them had taken the westward road, which was still open. They were camped along the streets in their thousands, in their carts, in stable doorways, and had lit fires on the pavement to keep themselves warm and cook poultry. Octave bought a charred pigeon at twice the going rate, and set off nibbling to the end of the rue Saint-Antoine. Just before the Charonne barrier, he turned into the rue de la Planchette, an avenue lined with low-roofed houses, gardens, railings and little walls on the edge of the fields.

With the pommel of his cane, Octave knocked at a wooden door. The sound of dragging feet came from inside, and a shrewish-looking woman appeared in the doorway, holding her lantern level with her flabby face.

‘How is he?' asked Octave.

‘He's asleep, sir, but he's breathing well.'

Octave took the lantern from the old woman. At the rear of the little house, in a hidden room, a fair-haired man, his shirt open, snored on a mattress. The old woman put some kindling in the stove.

‘Wake him, Jeanne, I'll take him off your hands.'

‘Will he be able to stand up, Monsieur Octave?'

‘I'll help him. Find him a coat or a cape.'

Octave shook the sleeping man's shoulder. With a start, he opened his eyes and murmured thickly, ‘Oh ... It's you ...' He propped himself up on his elbows and, after a moment he said, ‘The other evening...'

‘Yes?'

‘You didn't say ...'

‘What?'

‘If you'd seen the man who attacked me ...'

‘No, sadly, just his back. I turned up just as he was attacking you from behind. He ran off while I was picking up your bags.'

‘Did I look so rich that someone would want to rob me?'

‘You must have been too loose-tongued with the other people at the table. In France, Monsieur de Blacé, there are policemen or rogues everywhere you look. The minute you left that wretched inn, you became their prey.'

‘I never thought. . .'

‘Did you mention London?'

‘I can't remember.'

‘No doubt you did. And you drew attention to yourself by paying the landlord with your gold coins. That would have done it.'

Old Jeanne fetched a grey guardsman's coat, with three red woollen stripes on the sleeve.

‘Put it on, Monsieur de Blacé,' said Octave.

‘Where are we going?'

‘To see some royalists you mentioned to me the day before yesterday.'

‘I was given their address in London . . .'

‘So you really don't know anyone in Paris?'

‘No one. You asked me that before.'

‘No relatives, not even distant ones?'

‘None.'

‘What about your family?'

‘I saw my father's head on the end of a pike ...'

‘I know, you told me that before.'

‘My mother died of tuberculosis in Soho.'

‘So I'm all you've got?'

‘For the time being.'

Blacé pulled on his coat, rubbed the back of his neck and suddenly came to his senses: ‘Where are my clothes and my wig?'

‘With your royalist friends, who are waiting for you.'

‘My letter of recommendation?'

‘They've got it.'

‘What about my money? The money I was going to send to their Committee?'

‘In safe hands.'

‘Wasn't it in safe hands in this house?'

‘Are you suspicious of me?'

‘Not at all, but I don't even know who you are.'

‘Your saviour.'

They headed outside. Blacé was still weak, his attacker had hit him hard. Octave supported him as they walked, chatting, along the moonlit avenue.

‘Will we pass by the Tuileries?'

‘It's on our way,' replied Octave.

‘That's where I have my last memories of Paris...'

‘How so?'

‘I was eight years old. It was August, and the people were attacking the Tuileries. The King and his family slipped off through the gardens. My mother and the ladies of the court had locked themselves away with the children in a candle-lit room. I remember a lot of noise, shouting, window-panes broken by cannon-fire. Why were we spared? I can't remember. Even now I can see buildings on fire, slaughtered Swiss Guards, down by the flowerbeds, in a cloud of flies. The rioters slit eiderdowns open and shook them from the windows like snow ... What's that noise?'

‘The drums of the National Guard. Our Russian friends can't be far off. Come over this way, let's stay out of the centre of the city.'

They walked along the grassy Quai du Mail as it sloped to the Seine. In the darkness, Octave guided the chevalier, holding him firmly by the arm.

‘Where are we going now?' asked Blacé anxiously.

‘You've told me what I wanted to know. I'm going to show you something in return. What do you see, at the bottom of the hill?'

‘Without a lantern?'

‘Without a lantern.'

‘Nothing at all.'

‘No, take a closer look. Lean over.'

Intrigued, the chevalier obeyed. Octave took his cane in both hands, lifted it quickly, and then brought it crashing down on the back of his companion's neck. Blacé crumpled against the embankment, his nose in the soil. Octave rolled the body down to the water with the heel of his boot, and tipped it in with his cane. The corpse floated on the surface and was carried away by the current, swifter in this part of the river, between the Île Saint-Louis and the Île Louvier. When the body had disappeared into the night, Octave went back home to bed.

*

The drums had beaten the call to arms all night and in all parts of the city. From dawn, the sound of cannon and heavy gunfire could be heard from behind the hills of Belleville, Montmartre and the Butte Chaumont, which could be seen from the upper floors of the Sémallé townhouse. The sky was dark and leaden. Nervous and corseted, the young Countess de Sémallé left the window and let her maid buckle a curious belt around her waist. At that moment the Count slipped into the room. The
Countess glimpsed him in the mirror above the fireplace and uttered a little cry.

‘Jean-René, you'll give us away if you come here!'

‘It's my house.'

‘The police are keeping watch on the house, you know that, they'll have recognized you, they'll put you under arrest!'

‘Have no fear, my dear Zoe, events are keeping them far too busy, and their masters are already confused about who they're supposed to be serving. The cannon has its charms, you see - but tell me, what's the purpose of that padded belt, which puts pounds on you?'

‘I'd rather keep my diamonds with me if we have to flee.' The Countess pointed at her maid. ‘Louise is wearing a belt of the same model, with my jewels and my pearls.'

‘The allies are our allies.'

‘And what about the hairy Cossacks who are just dying to pillage us?'

‘The moment I leave, our valets will take the forage cart that I ordered yesterday and push it against the gate.'

‘Will that stop the barbarians?'

‘Pillagers, my dear Zoé, I know from experience, give up at the first obstacle they encounter, and go off to pillage somewhere else. In Paris, they have plenty of choice.'

‘Where will you be?'

The Count kissed the hand that the Countess held out to him.

‘We're going to keep a close eye on the situation before we do anything.'

‘You will be careful!'

‘Don't fret so, we're finally going to defeat the lackeys of the Empire.'

‘May God help you!' said the Countess, crossing herself.

‘God and the mandate of the Count of Artois.'

Sémallé turned on his heels, put on his big black hat and went out to meet his friend La Grange in the courtyard. They took two horses from the stable and, once mounted, set off slowly down the boulevard de la Madeleine, picking their way through an anxious and various crowd gathered beneath the lime trees. At the barrier of the Faubourg Montmartre the Parisians were preparing their defences, such as they were:
chevaux-de-frise
that had been rolled out during the night on the roads and alleyways. There were no fortifications, just a dismantled tollgate, a cannon with no gunners, and palisades manned by university students in new clothes and workers in overalls armed with sticks and carving knives. National Guardsmen were turning up as reinforcements, loaves and fat brioches impaled on their bayonets. Many of them carried picks with tricolour banners for want of muskets. They wore a few scraps of uniform, chalk-whitened shoulder straps over their frock-coats. A notary wore yellow leggings, and a grocer had his trousers tied with string at his ankles. These were the workmen, the property-owners, the shopkeepers ruined by the ceaseless war who had been enlisted to defend the city. They had little idea of the danger that faced them, and came out with a jumble of truth and wild rumour when Sémallé questioned them.

‘They've attacked the Bois de Romainville.'

‘There's only one column there.'

‘What're you on about? There are whole armies, really there are!'

‘The King of Prussia's been taken prisoner, I was told by a sergeant on his way back from Belleville, they're going to parade him through the boulevards.'

The cannon didn't fall silent. Men on horseback circulated among the groups, distributing proclamations which they carried in packs on their saddles. La Grange took one and handed it to the Count. Sémallé put on his glasses and read in a loud voice:

We will be pillaged!
We will be burned!
While the Emperor arrives

on the arses of the enemy ...

The appeal called the massive assault by the allies a ‘helping hand', but asked for the barricades to be raised, for trenches to be dug, for loopholes to be cut in the walls, for cobblestones to be carried into the houses to serve as projectiles and for the streets to be blocked by overturned vehicles.

‘A little later,' smiled the Count.

‘Childish nonsense.'

‘Who's going to tell us what's really happening, La Grange?'

‘I only know one place in Paris, Your Lordship, where they know exactly what's going on.'

‘You're right, let's go to the rue Saint-Florentin.'

This was Talleyrand's address.

*

The first floor of the unfinished Hôtel Saint-Florentin overlooked the rue de Rivoli. There, Monsieur de Talleyrand was at his toilet, following a ritual that no tragedy could alter. As ever, he had spent a large part of the night playing whist, before going to sleep in an almost seated position, wearing fourteen cotton hats for fear of falling on his head. When the clock chimed half-past eleven, he drank his camomile tea by the marble fireplace in his room, surrounded by a
corps de ballet
of valets in grey aprons, who hummed as they pomaded him, curled, combed and powdered his wig, and presented him with the silver bowl in which he dipped his fingers to wash himself. When this was done, he sucked several glasses of luke-warm water through his nostrils. He was sixty years old, with a turned-up nose, soft cheeks, clay-coloured skin and dead eyes; only his mouth was expressive, sometimes indicating irony, sometimes contempt.

One valet slipped a shirt over the rags and flannels that swaddled him, while another, kneeling, slipped silk stockings over the woollen stockings that already concealed his atrophied legs.

His entourage witnessed the spectacle.

A member of the Regency Council, the former Bishop of Autun, Prince of Benevento, and prince of intrigue, Talleyrand surrounded himself with a coterie of unfrocked abbots who hated the Emperor and admitted as much. They included Monsieur de Pradt, a disgraced ambassador who distributed the
Times
and the
Morning Chronicle
which were sent to him by a lady in Brussels; the nonchalant Montesquiou; Jaucourt, Joseph Bonaparte's chamberlain, who was very well informed about the movement of the troops; Baron Louis, now a banker, who had served mass at the Feast of the Federation during the Revolution - and others of similar stamp.

Sémallé, emboldened by the sudden impunity conferred upon him by the proximity of the enemy cannon, had entrusted his horses to La Grange and fearlessly entered this den of conspirators. He approached Jaucourt, an acquaintance of his, and whispered in his ear so as not to disturb the ceremony, ‘What are Monseigneur's plans for today?'

Monseigneur Talleyrand had risen to his feet, and two valets were hoisting his black silk breeches up to his belly. Without looking at the Count, Jaucourt murmured like a ventriloquist, ‘That will depend on the battle currently being fought outside Paris.'