Napoleon's Exile (7 page)

‘They're coming!' said the young Countess of Sémallé at her balcony. Deeply moved, she brushed a tear from her made-up cheek with a fingertip. Heralded by an impressive brass band playing an unfamiliar anthem, the red Cossacks of the Guard came first, followed by cuirassiers with gleaming boots, then the hussars, and the pearl-grey regiments of the King of Prussia.

‘Eleven, twelve . . .' murmured Octave.

‘How comforting they are!' remarked the dazzled Countess, beside him.

‘Fourteen, fifteen ...' said Octave.

‘Fifteen what?' asked the Countess, clapping her hands.

‘The cavalrymen, madam, fifteen deep.'

‘How handsome they are!'

‘Control yourself, my dear,' the Count rebuked her.

‘We've been waiting so long for this liberation!'

‘Of course we have, Zoé, but a countess doesn't hop up and down.'

The Count is right,' hazarded Octave. ‘All the same, it's the first time since the Hundred Years War that foreign armies have defiled our capital...'

‘But they aren't foreigners, Monsieur, they are our European cousins! Isn't that so, Jean-René?'

‘Yes,' replied the Count. Then, to Octave: ‘They won't stay, Blacé, they will restore power to us and then they will go home again. The people of Paris understand that, look at them.'

Down below, in the boulevard de la Madeleine, the crowd was surging in the direction of the procession, shouting: ‘Long live our liberators!' Among the keenest of them, Octave thought he recognized the apothecary who had been so patriotic on the Saint-Denis barricade. His neighbour in that potential battle was now raising his hat, mouth open wide, to acclaim the very men whom he would cheerfully have massacred with his hunting rifle the day before. Meanwhile some hysterical women dashed towards the orderly ranks of the marching Russian cavalrymen, grabbing their boots, kissing their gloves and calling them ‘saviours' and similar extravagant names.

Octave was not at all surprised to see a population turning in the blink of an eye to kneel before its conqueror. He was accustomed to the fickle feelings of his contemporaries, but one thing still intrigued him: the enemy soldiers were all wearing white armbands on their sleeves, as though parading for Louis XVIII. Octave leaned towards the Count and yelled loudly in his ear, for it was not easy to be heard among all the commotion:

‘How did you persuade them to wear the symbol of our royal family?'

‘Pure chance, my dear friend,' replied Sémallé in the same tone, ‘a happy coincidence, a sign of Heaven, a misunderstanding that's bloody useful to us!'

Count de Langeron, who served the Tsar, had just told him the reason for the armbands. The other morning an English officer had been wounded by a Cossack who mistook him for one of Napoleon's grenadiers - because the allied soldiers had trouble telling French uniforms from Austrian, Russian, Prussian, English and German - so the staff had decided that they would wear armbands to avoid killing each other. However, the Parisians actually believed that the occupying forces were supporting the King of France and, lest they be importuned at a later date by this invading army, more and more were themselves wearing armbands, scarves, and the white cockades that Sémallé's men were now distributing without fear of harm. The Count had won his wager - the allied sovereigns would be convinced that the French were, in chorus, reclaiming their legitimate king. And he threw great handfuls of cockades like grain to pigeons.

A valet appeared on the balcony and whispered a few words to the Count, whose face lit up: ‘My dear Blacé, the miracle continues! The blind can see, the deaf can hear!'

The heads of the aristocratic party had disdained or rejected Sémallé's overtures, but as events had progressed they were now jostling in his antechamber, aware of his connections with the Count d'Artois, the King's brother. Octave couldn't get over it: harebrained the day before yesterday, the Count's calculations had proved correct, and his far-fetched ideas were fast becoming reality.

*

Count Ferrand, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, Doudeauville and Chateaubriand were all in the drawing-room. They wanted to take Sémallé to Mme de Mortefontaine's house, where they had just set up a second Committee of members of the senior aristocracy. Standing apart from the rest, Octave watched and listened to them chirruping, especially Chateaubriand, feverish, pale as a winding-sheet, his head a mass of crazed little curls. Everyone knew that he was writing a pamphlet against Bonaparte, that he hid the manuscript under his pillow and went to sleep every night with a pistol close at hand: he could breathe at last, and had joined the others to request an audience with Tsar Alexander and the King of Prussia, to persuade the two sovereigns to recall Louis XVIII from exile.

The Count listened to the group with sardonic detachment, tempering their recent ardour, and hoping all the while that La Grange, who had been out and about since dawn, would soon return to tell him how the situation was changing, what attitude to adopt, and when. In the meantime he dragged the interview out as long as possible, asking endless questions, and giving evasive answers to those questions asked of him. Exhausted by the endless waffle, one of the emissaries of the aristocratic party left the group to chat to Octave, under the impression that the latter knew the Count's secrets. The man had the face of a little bird, lost amid the lace of his jabot, and a solemn voice that was at odds with his appearance. He introduced himself.

‘Champcenetz. You must have heard of me, Monsieur de Blacé.'

‘Champcenetz, you say?'

‘But of course, in London!'

‘In London? Ah, yes, how silly of me!'

‘Lady Salisbury, I was told, recommended you to our precious Sémallé, and indeed, she is a great friend: it is to her that I owe my life and my good fortune.'

Champcenetz did not look especially sly, but Octave's interest was kindled when he mentioned his career as an emigrant in England. This irritating character was all thumbs, but by observing his cooks he had learned how to toss a salad in the correct manner - by hand - and that was enough to establish his reputation. Brought into society by the Countess of Salisbury, he'd been in demand at the big houses, where he was asked to mix lettuce or cress in public, and he was invited to the upper-crust circles and restaurants that were then so fashionable. He'd trained up a number of pupils and returned to France, in around 1802, with an income of 150,000 francs.

‘You're too young,' he said to Octave, ‘to have known those times, when we arrived with nothing, driven out by the Jacobins who wanted to cut our throats.'

‘To be fair, I was eight years old!'

‘We were ruined, we became door-to-door salesmen, acrobats, water-carriers like Madame de Montmorency. You remember? Countesses sang in cafés, they sold fish from the Thames...'

‘My mother made straw hats.'

‘Terrible times, weren't they? But over there they have no guillotines - only sash windows!'

Champcenetz hiccuped at this quip, which he had repeated a thousand times, and then, with a sniff, asked Octave, ‘And incidentally, how is that dear woman?'

‘The Countess of Salisbury? Well, goodness me, she's quite well.'

‘I assume she received you in her lovely house in Kensington

Octave didn't need to reply, as the Count of Sémallé, who had abandoned the gentlemen he had been speaking to, took him by the arm and dragged him into a little office nearby, where La Grange was waiting for them.

‘We are at the helm,' said the Marquis, in an excellent mood. ‘Baron Plotho, our Prussian friend from this morning, has introduced me to the new Governor of Paris, Sacken, a general who expresses himself in impeccable French, and now I'm his deputy. What do you think of that?'

‘Perfect,' said Sémallé. ‘We'll have to take care of the press without wasting a moment. Bonaparte has helped us: he banned most of the newspapers, we only have five to work on, those in Paris, which are responsible for public opinion. Appoint Morin Censor General, and let him appoint editors for each of those papers...'

‘Michaud for
La Gazette de France?'

‘As you wish.'

‘One other thing,' said La Grange. ‘The Tsar is staying at the Hôtel Saint-Florentin.'

‘Wasn't he supposed to be staying at the Elysée?' said Octave.

‘Yes, but word reached him that the palace was mined, so he accepted the offer made him by Talleyrand ...'

‘... who sent that letter to bring Alexander to his residence, oh, the sly fox!'

‘The worst thing is,' La Grange continued, ‘that Caulaincourt is in the rue Saint-Florentin as we speak.'

‘Damn! The Duke of Vincennes!' This was the name the royalists gave to the Duke of Vicenza, Caulaincourt; they accused him of being involved in the abduction of the Duke of Enghien, who had been murdered at the Château de Vincennes.

The Count remained thoughtful, his eyes fixed on the patterns in the carpet. Caulaincourt, Grand Equerry to the Emperor, had known the Tsar in St Petersburg when he had been ambassador there, and they had liked one another. Bonaparte had sent him to negotiate, but to negotiate what? His throne? A regency? The Tsar admired Napoleon, he might consent to be swayed, and influence the other sovereigns. That was hardly something the royalists were about to organize.

‘How could we find out what Bonaparte has in mind?' asked Sémallé. We have a spy in Fontainebleau, don't we?'

‘A servant, Chauvin.'

‘Has he been struck dumb?'

‘He's worried, he will have to be replaced. In his last message, he said he was ready to take in one of our men. He would pretend the man in question was his cousin, and make sure he was given a job.'

‘Who were you thinking of?'

‘What about me?' suggested Octave, jumping at the chance to return to Fontainebleau.

‘You?' the Marquis and Sémallé spoke simultaneously.

‘Why not? I have one advantage: no one in the imperial entourage knows me.'

‘That much I admit, my dear fellow, but could you really play the part of a servant?'

‘As an émigré in London, you know, we survived by practising a thousand and one trades that had little to do with our rank. We became door-to-door salesmen, I even knew one viscount who was an acrobat, and Madame de Montmorency was a water-carrier ...'

‘Maybe. It's not such a bad idea.'

The Count opened one of his desk drawers and took out a cameo - a Negro's head on an agate - which he held out to Octave.

‘When Chauvin sees this ring, he will understand. Then we need only arrange your departure from Paris and your journey to Fontainebleau. The city has been closed off since this afternoon.'

‘I shall see to it,' said La Grange.

*

Monsieur de Sémallé hated wasting time. He was good at waiting, certainly, but when he had made a decision, he could not bear to delay its implementation; Octave did not have time to collect any personal effects from his rooms in the rue Saint-Sauveur, nor the booty of gold coins that he had taken from the luggage of the dead cavalryman whose outfit he had adopted.

The Count called in his valet and handed Octave over to him, with instructions to transform him into a thoroughly credible servant. To that end, Octave was given a grey morning-coat, a pair of stout travelling boots, and a flat, narrow-brimmed hat to lend him a provincial air, and a barber shaved his chin (but spared his nascent sideburns).

La Grange witnessed the transformation: ‘I can already imagine you in livery,' he said. ‘Basically, a livery and a duke's outfit are worn in similar fashion, wishbone protruding, like a turkey. Did you not notice that La Rochefoucauld has the bearing of a
sommelier?'

Octave repeated the question he had asked the Marquis a few moments before: could they not, even just for a moment, call in at the rue Saint-Sauveur?

‘You must leave as quickly as possible,' said La Grange, ‘to pass through the enemy lines surrounding Paris. But give me your key, I will put your belongings out of harm's way myself.'

Octave resigned himself to handing over his key - his gold. This would be a loss to him; since the ill-fated Russian expedition, Napoleon had ceased to pay wages and salaries, or else had paid only very small amounts.

In the rue Saint-Honoré, La Grange himself opened the door of a dusty coach hitched up with ropes; the Russian coachman, who had a thick beard and was wearing a dark coat, did not bother to turn his head. ‘Forgive the awful state of the vehicle,' the Marquis said to Octave, ‘it's the only one the governor will make available to his new deputy ...'

Inside, one of the Tsar's officers was waiting for them, his hair emerging in waves from beneath his flat cap and falling to his shoulders. He leaned forward to issue an instruction, and the coach set off.

‘Where are we going?' asked Octave.

‘To see General Sacken. While you were being disguised as a valet, Sémallé wrote a pass in your name, or rather, in the name of the servant whose cousin you are to become. Sacken has only to sign it, and then we will consider the manner of your departure.'

Along the length of the rue Saint-Honoré they saw Germans and Asians, Cossacks with sheepskins and red beards, brick-coloured Tartars with small whips around their necks, blue-uniformed uhlans from Silesia, stiff in their high collars, reining in their horses and leaving trails of dung behind them. They reached the Palais-Royal at nightfall just as lamps and windows were being lit around the gardens. There was a party at the Savoy Café, the royalist hideout where the Imperial police had never officially shown their faces. Beneath the wooden arcades the prostitutes strolled once more, luring the soldiers with a swing of the shoulder and a flash of the eye. Under striped awnings, wine was being served up from the barrel. Smoke from the roast-meat stalls stinging their eyes, Octave and the Marquis progressed through greasy fog that stuck to their clothes, past shops where pretty girls, dressed as sellers of knick-knacks, tried to persuade the passers-by to come inside, behind the screens, and entered a restaurant filled with braying officers in green frock-coats. The porter greeted La Grange, pointing towards the stairs.