Napoleon's Exile (6 page)

‘Yes...'

‘Can't you get to sleep?'

‘Neither can you.'

‘I'm resting, and I suggest you do the same: we have a hard day ahead of us.'

‘I know ...'

‘And I know what your problem is, Blacé, you think too much.'

‘You think so?'

‘Don't worry, my friend, everything will come to pass as we have decided it should. God will protect us.'

Discountenanced by La Grange's natural manner and naïve trust, Octave abandoned his murderous project. Why had he failed? With one well-aimed blow he could have split the Marquis's head open, without giving him a chance to utter a cry and alert his accomplice; after that Octave could have executed Morin. But he felt tired, and perhaps he really was thinking too much; he no longer had the killer instinct his profession required.

Yawning, Octave decided to delay his departure - anticipating the muddle of the next few days, he would wait for, and seize, the next opportunity - and looked back down at the Seine. Firelight, far away on the left bank, past the Faubourg Saint-Denis: had some irregular Cossacks taken advantage of the truce to enter the city unimpeded?

Octave was mistaken about the nature of the flames that licked the court of the Imperial residence in the Invalides. In actual fact, Marshal Sérurier, the commander of the Parisian National Guard, had ordered the trophies stored in the chapel to be burned on a gigantic pyre; the 1,800 colours captured during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire were on no account to fall into the hands of the enemy - not the flags themselves, nor the metal of the staffs, nor even the ashes, which would be consigned to the river in the morning.

*

Octave woke before dawn. Curled up on the sofa, he had slept little and badly. Now he sat up with a stupid expression, his wig perched at an angle. Morin had filled two baskets with the white cockades that he had kept in his wood-chest, and he was pinning them to their hats. La Grange was busy loading his pistols. ‘Hurry up,' he said to Octave, ‘we're off'

‘Already?'

‘It's six o'clock.'

‘A quick wash and I'll be with you . . .'

‘No time. We must surprise the rabble at the crack of dawn.'

Outside, the army had disappeared. Octave crossed the Place de Grève, flanked by the two royalists. Bah, he said to himself, I'll jot down a few names, and make a note of any about-turns and hesitations. That'll be useful to the Emperor, who likes weak people. They're more manageable than hotheads.

The three men walked through the main porch of the Hôtel de Ville (the National Guards on sentry duty didn't even think of stopping them - you don't check people who walk with such a determined stride) and climbed the large stone staircase on the right, which led to the single upper storey. A bald clerk, dressed in black, raised his hands to block their way: ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen! Where are you going?'

They did not reply; Octave pushed the clerk aside with his cane, like a walker bending back a branch in his way.

‘Messieurs!' cried the man, gawping and staggering in their wake.

A second clerk tried to obstruct their path by pressing himself against both wings of a large door:

‘No one comes in here, this is the Prefect's office!'

‘But he's the man we've come to see,' said La Grange.

‘Our of the question!'

‘I beg to differ,' said Octave, catching the man by the lapels.

‘The Prefect is not in his office!'

‘Where is he?'

‘He's at the Ministry of the Interior, where the mayors of the
arrondissements
are meeting at this very moment.'

‘Who is taking his place?'

‘The Secretary-General...'

‘Go and get him.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘We urgently need to speak to him.'

‘Who's that making such a racket?' said a stocky, short-legged individual emerging from a corridor?

‘Monsieur Walknaer,' mumbled the clerk, ‘these gentlemen wanted to meet the Prefect...'

‘Are you the Secretary-General?' asked La Grange.

‘Precisely so,' said Monsieur Walknaer, alarmed by the intrusion and the appearance of these unshaven visitors.

La Grange moved to stand in front of the Secretary-General, parting his frock-coat so that the latter could see the handles of the pistols sticking out of his belt: ‘How can the Prefect absent himself under such circumstances? It's insane!'

‘Monsieur de Chabrol is in a meeting...'

‘In any case, he is no longer the Prefect of the Seine, he has been replaced.'

‘By whom?'

‘By Monsieur Morin here, who has come to take his post and occupy his office. Ha! Let us in! No? If you are not willing to serve your new Prefect, I can have you replaced as well.'

‘I didn't say I was refusing...'

‘A fine idea, if I may say so, and much the better for you: the allied sovereigns have just recognized Louis XVIII as King of France.'

‘I didn't know

‘Of course, you were here, either shut away or asleep! Here are the proclamations, and some white cockades which you will immediately distribute to your staff.'

Morin held one of his baskets out to the Secretary-General, who ventured a question: ‘What if they don't want to wear them?'

‘Then throw them out! Right now, we have work to do.'

The three conspirators entered the Prefect's office, shutting the door in the clerks' faces.

‘Here is your office, Morin. Lovely location. First of all, reprint our appeal using the Prefecture's services, and order them to be posted up in every district.'

‘If they obey me ...'

‘This pack of cowards is under your orders.'

‘But what if Monsieur de Chabrol comes back?' asked Morin anxiously.

‘What? Are you going to give up on us now?'

‘No, no ...'

‘You've got plenty of time, those windbags from the councils and the ministries will go on endlessly nattering, they haven't a clue where their interests lie, and anyway, as of this evening, Paris will have a Russian or Austrian governor.'

Octave pricked up his ears:

‘Did you hear that? Sounds like horses, a whole troop of them.'

‘Here we go!' said Morin gloomily. ‘The Prefect's back.'

Octave and La Grange opened one of the windows.

A detachment of cavalrymen, in blue uniforms and black shakos, was coming from the quays, led by a general in a plumed cocked hat. ‘The Prussians!' said the Marquis. These good people will help us.' La Grange seized the second basket of cockades and dragged Octave over to the big staircase, where some terrified officials were holding hasty confabulations.

Down below, Monsieur Walknaer was negotiating with anyone who still refused to wear a royalist cockade. When he saw La Grange and Octave slipping off towards the front steps, he joined them. They reached the courtyard together just as the dragoons of Brandenburg were marching in. At the sight of them, the General dismounted and introduced himself. He was a middle-aged man, covered with medals and gold badges, with a thin goatee and a smartly curled moustache.

‘I am General Baron Plotho, Chief of Staff to the King of Prussia ...'

‘Where are you going, General?' asked the Marquis.

‘To see the Prefect.'

‘I am the Prefect.'

‘Sehr gut
, Meuzieur! I have come to reach the agreement with you for the living places of the Emperors of Russia and Austria, my sovereign and some princes who are with them.'

‘Secretary General!' cried La Grange.

‘I'm here, sir, there's no need to shout,' said poor Walknaer.

‘Who is in charge of the accommodation of the foreign sovereigns?'

‘Monsieur Monnet, the head of department.'

‘Drop your basket and call him this minute!'

Walknaer ran off and came back almost immediately with a fat, maggot-like character who, adjusting his white tie, began to speak without waiting.

‘Everything has been sorted out. His Majesty the Emperor of Russia wants to live on the Champs-Elysées, the Emperor of Austria in the boulevards, the King of Prussia has demanded the Faubourg Saint-Germain ...'

‘Have the
mairies
of those
arrondissements
been warned of this?'

‘Not yet, but...'

‘But I am dealing with it myself,' said La Grange, ‘along with the General.' And the Marquis gestured to the coach-driver who was waiting on his box in the courtyard. The coach pulled in at the bottom of the stairs.

‘You can't take that carriage!' Monsieur Walknaer protested, embarrassed.

‘And why not?'

‘It's Monsieur de Chabrol's...'

‘He is nothing now!' And then, to the Prussian: ‘Get in, General, together we must go and recognize the residences of our liberators.'

‘This is a very good idea, I think,' said Baron Plotho, climbing into the berlin.

Octave joined him with the cockades, and La Grange issued an order to the coachman: ‘Rue de l'Echiquier, number 36!'

*

'My friends, I have been successful! Morin is in the Hôtel de Ville, in the Prefect's chair!'

‘Bravo!'

‘I have with me a Prussian general who believes I am a higher authority: he is going to serve as guarantor!'

‘Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!'

The Committee members still present at Lemercier's had risen to their feet, and they applauded as one might applaud a resolute deed in a play, La Grange, in a state of boundless jubilation, continued.

‘I am going to the
mairies
of the
arrondissements
with our Prussian friend, to prepare the accommodation of the sovereigns and their retinues. Come with me, let us announce that the allies have recognized Louis XVIII!'

There were more volunteers than would fit in the carriage (from which the conspirators were to throw handfuls of royalist cockades at passers-by), and Octave seized upon this as an excuse: he would go to the Count of Sémallé and tell him about their dawn raid. La Grange approved; he climbed into the real Prefect's berlin, pressing against Baron Plotho, and the two set off, escorted by sky-blue dragoons, who were surprised by being thus welcomed into a conquered capital. Octave set off in the other direction, towards the boulevard.

It was almost ten o'clock, and the smarter districts had very quickly reassumed their normal appearance once the Parisians had learned of the capitulation. They had dreaded the possibility that the city might be put to the torch: over the past few days,
La Gazette de France
and
Les Débats
had recounted so many horrors that, since the worst had failed to materialize, there was a great sense of relief. Yesterday, the walls of the houses had been bare and black with soot; today they were covered with gaudy posters, advertisements for music-halls, for concerts, lotteries, hotels and magic potions, but also with insults against Napoleon, jubilantly scribbled caricatures (one showed the Emperor on all fours, with his buttocks in a broken drum, and a Russian general beating the march with a birch whip). All of a sudden life was reborn, light and muddled. The boulevard once again filled with people. Fear had fled.

Octave approached a crowd who were laughing delightedly at two bourgeois in threadbare suits being manhandled by members of the National Guard armed with picks. ‘Let me go!' screeched one of the bourgeois; held firmly by the collar, he was wiggling and waving his arms around, but they were too short to reach the stout, uniformed fellow who was holding him. Octave recognized a conspirator from the royalist Committee, and he remained apart, hidden by the growing crowd. As he watched, one of the guards tore the white cockade from the hat of the other bourgeois, threw it on the ground and stamped on it; as his victim protested, another guard picked up the posters the royalist had been carrying, plunged them into his bucket of glue and smeared the man's face with them. Octave quietly removed the cockade that Morin had pinned on his hat, and sloped off.

Over by the Madeleine he noticed a white flag flapping, as predicted, from one of the balconies of Sémallé's house. If the passers-by did happen to look up, no one complained, no one saluted - and it looked as though they were getting away with it. The flags no longer made the Parisians tremble, either with shame or joy; they were waking from an improbable dream, the air was sweet, and they wanted to dance. The shopkeepers imagined that business would pick up, that the invaders would make their fortunes for them by buying huge quantities of fabrics, necklaces and wine; others were convinced they would fill their theatres or their taverns: the foreign officers would distribute gold pieces without counting them, they were so pleased with their victory after such rough treatment throughout the winter.

Not far from the Count's house, a group of about twenty young people in white scarves were waving handkerchiefs on the ends of their canes, shouting, ‘Down with the tyrant! Long live the Bourbons!' In the suburbs they would have been soundly thrashed, but here, in the elegant part of the boulevards, the indifferent crowd simply opened up so they could pass. These excited folk, Octave thought, had never known kings. They didn't even understand their own slogans, which they were barking out as though issuing commands, inspired by hatred of the Imperial order.

Behind the youngsters he saw Marquis de Maubreuil - recognizing him by his plum-coloured silk clothes: he had tied his Cross of the Légion d'honneur to the tail of his horse, and was singing in a tenor voice, ‘
Vive le roi!'

*

The allied armies had entered Paris by the Pantin tollgate at eleven o'clock. They had passed beneath the Porte Saint-Denis, now cleared of its pitiful barricade. In the suburbs, the people had watched the impeccable squadrons passing by without much of a murmur, but in the capital the National Guard was acting as a police force, its officers holding back those who wanted to spit and curse at the young soldiers in their bright uniforms. There were even some cries of
‘Vive l'Empereur!'
which were barely drowned out by the military fanfares. Then, though, as the armies passed through different districts, the nature of the crowd had changed: from the boulevard des Italiens onwards, the windows were covered with bed-sheets or white towels, elegant ladies waved handkerchiefs, and cheers rose by several tones as the marching men approached the Place de la Concorde.