The Barbed Crown (7 page)
Other days we’d wander through the entertainers on the Boulevard du Temple. We watched Indian sword swallowers, the famed tightrope walker Mademoiselle Saqui, jugglers, tumblers, dwarves, and a bearded girl who let Harry tug her whiskers. Munito the Wise Dog told fortunes by cards, pawing them one by one after payment of a franc.
Mine was a watery trip, and Harry’s a secret prize.
Carnival booths displayed five-legged sheep, two-headed calves, and races in which tiny chariots were drawn by fleas. Pug dogs fought across a pie baked in the shape of a fortress. We’d watch the rich parade in the Tuileries, the aged relax in the Luxembourg Gardens, and African animals pace morosely in the Jardin des Plantes. I wouldn’t take Harry to the notorious Palais Royale after dark, but he pleaded relentlessly for the cannon clock that was fired by sunbeams. At noon the sun focused through a glass, ignited its powder, and set off the gun.
“Boom!” he shouted as we walked back home. “Boom, boom, boom!”
I had him promise not to tell his mother.
I
n sum, I rather enjoyed being a conspirator, since there no longer was much of a conspiracy to attend to. Yet our idyll grew grim as the execution of the royalist plotters approached, and our claustrophobic lives complicated my relationship with Catherine, who became evermore familiar and imperious.
“Ethan, I don’t understand your choice in marrying a slave,” she challenged once when we were alone together. “Your wife is intelligent, yes, but wholly unpresentable.”
“That’s as silly as it is ungrateful. Napoleon and I captured Astiza to be a translator, and she helped get me inside the Great Pyramid. Good swimmer, too.”
“It may be too late for annulment, but certainly you should explore divorce. The revolutionaries have made changing wives as easy as changing shoes.” The cheapening of marriage was another royalist lament, although they took advantage of the laxity as quickly as anyone. Since the revolution, a couple living together was as likely to be unmarried as wed, and few brides came to the altar as virgins. Census takers estimated that up to a third of the children in Paris were illegitimate.
“On the contrary, Comtesse, I’m desperately in love with my wife. You may recall I came to avenge her.”
“That was for honor. I’m talking about standing. Your faithfulness is entirely out of step with the times.”
Certainly the era was licentious. A former priest named Banjoir had organized saturnalias under the guise of his newly invented religion. Audiences wore masks to watch naked actors in the play
Messalina
. Police confiscated pornography from the Barabbas Bookshop to share with their own dinner guests. Even with a swelling police force, Paris still had ten thousand prostitutes. It also claimed six thousand writers, the consensus being that the scribblers were considerably less useful than the trollops.
“Bonaparte is trying to reestablish propriety.”
“Bah. He fornicates like a sultan. And love has nothing to do with marriage. A wedding is a contract of rights, property, and reproduction. Sleep with whomever you want, but marriage requires a strategy as careful as a military campaign or the seeking of court favor. It’s true you had limited prospects, but an Egyptian serving girl? My poor American, I shudder at the advice you were given.”
“I didn’t have advice at all. She’s gorgeous.” Why did the comtesse obsess about my marriage? Ladies do find my company irresistible (given enough time, and convincing) but I was not about to swap wives. Catherine seemed to be prying us apart when we should all be pulling together. But then the female heart could stampede heedlessly, I’d learned from the romance novels, so maybe the girl simply couldn’t help herself.
“Beauty can be rented,” Catherine said.
“And she’s wise,” I defended doggedly. “Astiza knows more than any royalist I’ve ever met.”
Catherine was oblivious to my comparison. “Hire expertise. Blood, you must marry.”
“You’re living on our charity while insulting my wife?”
“I’m helping you face the truth. She
is
wise, since she married a handsome rogue who also claims to be an electrician, a Franklin man, an explorer, and a soldier. You’re common, but a commoner of an interesting sort. It’s only
your
judgment that is faulty. A proper comte would make Astiza a courtesan, deny paternity of any offspring, and cast her off before she begins sagging. I entirely understand her determination to follow her husband to France; it’s unlikely she’ll do better. But you need to marry breeding if you’re ever to rise.”
“Which you could supply,” I said dryly.
“Certainly not.” The comtesse sniffed. “It would be as foolish for me to marry down as it was unwise for you not to marry up. Only in an exigency do we cooperate in this hovel. We’re pretending to be democrats until natural order is restored. You cannot aspire to me, but you need a powerful father-in-law. I’m saying all of this to be helpful.”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand marriage,” I countered, truly annoyed now. “It didn’t matter that Astiza had no property, and I no title. Have you ever looked at the half moon and seen the dark wedge that blocks out the stars and completes the sphere?”
“We’re talking astronomy now?”
“That was me before my wife. Astiza came in and began to lighten my dark half, day by growing day, as I came to love her, until the moon was full—representing not one of us, mind, but both of us combined. I fear that’s a completion you’ve yet to understand.”
A shadow passed then; she looked stricken for just an instant at my jab, and even vengeful. There was some wound on her that I didn’t know. Then she gave a short laugh, forced gaiety. “And you’ve yet to understand how big your moon could be with the right person. Or listen to realism.”
The odd thing was that Catherine could be as charming as she was maddening. She actually warmed to her governess role, playing with Harry when we went on errands. “He listens to me better than you do.” She also confessed that she regretted that her crusade to restore the monarchy and avenge her parents was postponing her own marriage, household, and children. I’d actually catch her with a look of pensive sadness at times.
The comtesse could also be a witty dinner companion, sharing gossip of fallen aristocrats struggling desperately for new positions. She’d compliment as deftly as insult, and sought my wife’s suggestions of classic books to buy besides romances. Not that Catherine actually read such books; she simply enjoyed dropping the imposing-sounding titles into conversations.
She was mercurial toward me, disdainful at one moment and flirtatious the next. Catherine found an excuse to touch me when my wife wasn’t around. She’d propose that we go together to the arcades of the Palais Royale to listen to Parisian gossip and street speeches. Even when I kept saying no, she somehow appeared on my arm. When I was a widower, she’d treated me like the plague; when convinced I was married, she found it amusing to tease me.
An example is a time I came home when Astiza and Harry were at the fruit market and Catherine called for help from the kitchen. I found her bathing in the tub in a linen shift, as is the female custom. The fabric was transparent from the water, however, one arm only half concealing her breasts.
“Fetch me more hot water, Ethan,” she commanded. A golden necklace and bracelets accentuated her near nudity. A sheet lined the tub to insulate her from the metal.
“I’m not a maidservant, and this is inappropriate.” Not that I turned away.
“You don’t want me clean?”
“I don’t want to watch you get that way.”
“Then you’re a very peculiar man.”
I should have fled, but found it more enjoyable to debate the issue. “Comtesse, I’m happily married, as you’ve sourly observed. This is inappropriate.”
“And I’m not embarrassed at our lack of privacy after so many weeks together. I’ve heard your lovemaking with your wife and applaud it. What a stallion you are! Now, don’t stint me the pleasures of a bath.”
I didn’t miss the compliment. “I’m just saying you can bathe yourself.”
“Ethan, we’ve no maid because as spies we must be careful. That requires expediency. Please, warm water!”
So I poured some in, pretending not to look and looking plenty. Her nipples were pinker from the heat of the water, and there was a flush around her neck, tendrils of hair curling there. I retreated in embarrassment while she laughed.
But the comtesse also had a morbid interest in the guillotine, which is how she and I came together to watch poor Georges lose his head. There was a great slop of blood, the fiery color exciting the crowd, and a mix of cheers, curses, and weeping.
“If the Corsican is confirmed emperor, the whole world will be like this,” Catherine muttered.
“Not necessarily,” I said, being the judicious sort. “He’s strict, but not cruel like Djezzar the Butcher, or Omar the Dungeon Master, or Red Jacket the Indian, or Rochambeau the Slave Hunter. The useful thing about knowing horrid people is that they put everyone else in perspective. Even Napoleon.”
“We have to stop him from being crowned.”
“What chance do we have of killing him?”
“Not killing. Turning people against him. Breaking the spell he’s cast. We can’t mount a coup, Ethan, but we must mount an embarrassment.”
“But how, Comtesse? Word is that he’s seeking no less than the pope to crown him this winter. He’s determined to win over your class.”
“Then we have to act before winter, and before our money runs out. You’ve a reputation for being clever. Live up to it.”
“And your job?”
“To goad you.”
We turned to go, the crowd milling. She tugged my sleeve and nodded toward a gigantic dark-clad spectator.
“He’s been watching us instead of the executions. It’s the policeman Pasques, I think, as strong as he is tall. You’ve heard of him?”
“No, and nor do I want to. He looks big enough to cast shade for a picnic.” Had Harry seen something after all? This fellow was somber, with a great mustache that drooped to his chin. He had a dark suit, a cloak like raven wings, a battered and dated tricorne, and the bulk of a dray horse.
“Quick, to the left. We’ll melt into the street crowd.”
But other police materialized to block that way, and the giant proved surprisingly adroit. He used his muscle to part dispersing spectators like a buffalo through corn. Quickly, he loomed over us. “Monsieur Ethan Gage?”
“John Greenwell, of Philadelphia.”
“No. You are Gage of Egypt and Marengo, Mortefontaine, and Saint-Domingue.”
“You’re entirely mistaken.” My heart was hammering, given the chop of the blade we’d just seen. “If you’d please stand aside, monsieur, we’re late.”
He shook his head. “The notorious American is too well known and remembered to remain unnoticed. We’ve been following you since your arrival in Paris and puzzled only over how little you’ve seemed to accomplish.”
This was unsettling and insulting to boot. “‘We’?”
“The police ministry. Do you know that your household has led us to three royalist cells?”
Catherine gasped, and I struggled to pretend calm. “I’m sure you’re confused.”
“And I’m sure that Police Councillor Pierre-François Comte Réal, administrator of northwest France, requires a meeting. You’d be wise to cooperate, since you’ll meet regardless
and he has ways of forcing conversation.” The other police surrounded us.
“He couldn’t send an invitation?”
“Your invitation is I.”
“This lady plays no part in this.”
“On the contrary.” He inspected her, his gaze lingering longer than it had to. She looked flattered and fearful.
I sighed, wishing I’d brought a weapon. “You’ll tell my wife what has happened?”
“Tell her yourself. Your wife and son, monsieur, are already in custody.”
Not again. “But wait—didn’t you say I’ve accomplished little?” I’m used to arguing incompetence. “Why would the councillor want me?”
“He has a present for you.” Pasques shrugged, as if this was as incomprehensible as my own sorry performance as a spy.
“A gift?”
“From Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“From the emperor?” While I echoed him with my own stupid questions, the comtesse looked at me with surprise and suspicion.
“Yes. From a man who gives nothing without expecting something in return.”
I
’ve described Police Minister Fouché as a thin-lipped lizard, and renegade inspector Leon Martel, safely dead, as a rodent. Councillor Réal I’d call a forbidding French father-in-law: handsome, distinguished, and naturally stern, with a long Gallic nose, searching gaze, and a mouth pinched with habitual disapproval, its corners rising just enough to betray weary amusement at the fables and lies of the prisoners he interrogated. It was this man who’d traced the horseshoes of the animal that pulled the huge bomb that almost killed Napoleon in 1800. He’d broken assassination conspirators Louis-Pierre Picot and Charles Le Bourgeois with torture so relentless that they begged for death. More recently, royalist conspirator Jean-Pierre Quérelle betrayed Georges Cadoudal after Réal let the man watch preparations for his own execution. Terrified of eternity, Quérelle confessed all.
I knew vaguely that Réal was considered a moderate, had gambled by throwing in with Napoleon for the coup of 18 Brumaire, and now oversaw the policing of the Channel coast facing Britain. He received me in the cavernous police headquarters off rue de Jerusalem, its hive of cubicles wormed into a decaying pile of a palace. Posts and beams had been inserted to keep the edifice standing, and mezzanines had been built on these to stuff in more policemen, the new floors reached by stairs as steep as ladders. The result was a gloomy maze. Réal’s own office was a stony corner suite overlooking a stone courtyard with stone walls beyond. He wore a severely black civilian suit without insignia, the color the perennial favorite of my police acquaintances. It makes them a dour lot.
High collar and cravat reinforced Réal’s formality, but five gaudy rings hinted at worldly pleasures. I tried to analyze him as annoyingly as he was analyzing me. Perhaps he was not the humorless puritan of reputation, but rather a man who enjoyed profiting from power. I pictured a rich house and family gatherings with laughing children and amber-colored spirits, Réal serenely presiding over bourgeois pleasures, not speaking of the day’s routine of firing squads, weasel informants, and tenacious torture.
Now Réal splayed his fingers on his massive maple desk, as if considering whether to spring. It was said he’d made a study of the interrogation techniques of the Ottomans and the Spanish Church and was a student of the criminal mind, particularly those with shifting causes and irregular employment.
I, in turn, have become something of an expert on ambitious policemen.
“Monsieur Gage, so gracious of you to visit.” The tone was ironic.
Guest I technically was, since the giant Pasques had explained that I wasn’t really under arrest so long as I visited the police inspector “voluntarily.” I was unclear as to the distinction. “I’m flattered by your invitation,” I lied, “though I’m not really Ethan Gage.”
“Amusing fiction. Impostors and aliases have become a fixture of our age. During upheaval, everyone can pretend to be something they’re not. It’s what makes revolution so popular.” He gave me a nod. “It’s an honor to meet a hero of the Pyramids.”
I do have a weakness for flattery, and it seemed futile to pretend I was Greenwell. “Hardly a hero, Councillor,” I said. You have to decline compliments if you hope to get any more. “When the Mamelukes charged, I was safely inside an infantry square.” It was a subtle way of confirming that, yes, I’d been an aide to Napoleon in Egypt. I’d put Bonaparte’s pendant around my neck, in hopes it might prove as potent as a crucifix in a situation like this.
“You’re too modest. You’ve had many adventures since, on assignment for Talleyrand and Jefferson in North America, Bonaparte in the Mediterranean and”—he picked up a folder to peer at it—“Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the black revolutionary who defeated Rochambeau in Saint-Domingue. You’ve also fought with the British general Sir Sidney Smith, against Pasha Yussef Karamanli in Tripoli, and”—here he squinted at his folder again—“done both with former police inspector Leon Martel in Martinique.” He put down the document. “I envy your worldliness, while remaining baffled by your causes.”
“My cause is my family.” I was wary. “It’s actually quite the trouble bouncing from one belligerent to another. Labors of Hercules, and all that.”
“Your wanderings are suspicious.”
“I always come back to Paris.”
“Under an assumed name.” He tapped his file. “Most peculiar, no? The young general you rode with in the Egyptian campaign rises to emperor, and you hide in his capital like a thief?”
“I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Your obscurity aroused our curiosity, especially since Britain has employed half the scoundrels of Europe to spy on France. You fought at Acre with the spymaster Sir Sidney Smith. And every man in Paris seeks advantage from his personal acquaintance with Bonaparte—every man except the famed Ethan Gage.”
“I’m just avoiding responsibility. Being important is tiring.”
“I don’t believe you.” Réal’s gaze bored like an auger. Smart policemen make you feel guilty no matter how innocent you are, and of course I was a would-be Nathan Hale or Benedict Arnold. Yet except for my wife recently sweeping a deck clear of roguish French with a grapeshot-loaded swivel gun, I couldn’t think of anything in particular to confess to. I was a spy, yes, but not a very good one.
“And how is our old comrade Martel?” he went on.
“His name reminds me that the other half of Europe’s scoundrels are working for France.” I was stalling; I’m so honest by nature that I’m a poor liar, making it a habit only because of the bad company I keep. “Is Leon missing?” As I said this I pictured him cutting our rudder cables and dooming our ship on a reef. I’d later found his corpse on a beach, and when inspecting his body found a tattoo marking him as a henchman of Napoleon.
“‘Disappeared on a peculiar mission, according to the governor of Martinique,’” Réal read.
“If I remember correctly,” I tried, “Martel had left French government service and had his own background in crime. Pimp, slaver, thief, and rogue. If he was on a mission for the governor, it must have been of the most disreputable kind.” Which was working with me, but no need to call that out.
“Perhaps.” The councillor stood and moved to his window, looking at a courtyard crisscrossed by gendarmes on urgent, silent missions. Under Napoleon, seriousness meant advancement. By rumor, Fouché was about to be appointed police minister again, and other police chiefs like Savary, Dubois, and Réal were competing over who could catch the most traitors to win favor.
“Martel’s mission was quite important,” the policeman went on, “and we were informed he’d united with you after Dessaline’s victory in Haiti. Two adventurers, pursuing ancient Aztec knowledge for France! And then Martel and an entire bomb vessel vanish, as well as the notorious Ethan Gage. So mysterious and tragic. Until you’re smuggled back into France, arriving from England with your wife and son, and accompanied by a comely governess with royalist background. Perhaps, Monsieur Gage, you’ve become a spy for the British side.” He said it sadly, as if greatly disappointed.
“Then why would I bring my family? It would be lunatic risk.” I wondered where Astiza, Harry, and Catherine Marceau waited in prison.
“Bonaparte tells me you’re clever without sense.” He turned back and sat down behind his desk, as if weary with disapproval. Then Réal gave a Gallic shrug. “So I suppose we’ll start with the comtesse.”
It took me a moment to realize what he’d said. “Start?”
“If she doesn’t talk, and she won’t, some bad food and complete isolation will prepare her for torture. No word will leak of our cruelties. It’s hard for the ministry to know what happens to prisoners when our jailers are their only contact with the outside world. And if she remains silent, then scientifically applied pain.”
“But she’s just a governess. A silly one at that.”
“I’ve found the garrote is an effective tool that leaves little lasting damage. Experts strangle the interviewee to the point of near unconsciousness, revive them, and then strangle again. You had something of the same experience, I believe, with drowning.” He made a temple of his hands.
I had a frightening mental picture of my beautiful comrade with contorted tongue and bulging eyes. “She’s not up to anything, except gossip, fashion, and spending too much of my money. I can show you my ledger book if you don’t believe me. She’s as profligate as Josephine and flitty as a swallow.”
“Then your wife, Astiza, before we start on your little boy, since I have a soft spot for children. I understand she’s part Oriental, and the conventional wisdom is that hot tongs work on them. It would be an experiment on her race. There’d be no need to use instrumentation on Horus until I was certain the adults wouldn’t cooperate. Then you could watch . . .”
“Napoleon would never tolerate such monstrosity.”
“Napoleon, like all leaders, makes a point of not knowing everything done to keep him in power.”
“You’re a wicked man.”
“I keep order.”
We stared at each other. “There’s no need for barbarism, Councillor. We both know I’m a spy, and that my family and companion are innocent.”
“I doubt that, but admitting you’re a spy is the first encouraging thing you’ve said.”
He kept me off balance. “Encouraging?”
“We
like
English spies, Gage, so long as we know who they are. In fact, we want you to continue spying for Sir Sidney Smith.”
“Councillor?”
“So long as you also spy for us.” His tone became almost cheerful. “That will allow your wife and son to escape torture, your governess to keep her pretty neck, and yourself to once more play a role in great events, as you so like to do. No, don’t protest Gage, you’re a lazy layabout who pursues his own ends in a troubled world, but you’re as driven as a soldier aspiring for a marshal’s baton. It’s simply that in your case, you’re driven by greed, lust, and vanity.”
“I think of it as trying to get ahead.” Napoleon had just appointed eighteen generals to “marshal of the empire”; I was no different in ambition. “You want me to spy for both sides?”
“I didn’t invite you here to discuss the weather. And if I wanted you out of the way, you and your family would already be dead, as you well know.”
The threat, while accurate, irritated me. “I’m afraid I’m disappointed by your new emperor, Councillor, because of exactly this kind of threat. It’s the boast of a bully, and I don’t want to spy for bullies.”
“Why not?” Another Gallic shrug. “Your royalist conspiracy is a ruin. Do you know we’ve arrested three hundred fifty-six people to date who played a part in it?” He recited the statistic with satisfaction. “You’ll be tortured and executed if you don’t cooperate. If you do, you could earn money for your family. What does it matter if you like our emperor? You must provide.” He said this matter-of-factly.
I stalled, trying to calculate what I
should
do while also realizing I had little choice. “I
am
a man of political principle.”
“No you’re not, American wanderer. Like most spies you’re an opportunist and schemer. Besides, your country has more in common with French revolutionary fervor than British royalism.”
I glanced at Pasques, who guarded the door as still as a statue. There’s a time for heroic defiance, and a time for calculating the odds. “You have a point.”
“As a double agent you’ll tell Britain what France wants it to hear, which is that invasion is imminent. This is nothing less than the truth. And you’ll tell
us
what they think about it. Telling the truth again. I realize that’s a novel idea for you, but you can be paid well for doing the right thing.”
“Paid well?” It’s best to pin these elusive promises down.
“Four hundred francs a month.”
“That covers only my rent.”
“Five hundred, to supplement what you already have in English gold. Not as generous as Smith, perhaps, but I don’t have his resources.”
I hadn’t expected this, and acceptance sounded like a quick path to being caught in a crossfire. On the other hand, I’d completely failed to deny my connection to the British, and playing along with Réal might give us a chance to escape.
I shifted in my chair, trying not to sound too eager. “I
am
a moral man. Isn’t working for two sides unethical?”
“Unethical compared to the espionage and assassination cabal of Sir Sidney Smith? Who is a man with no ethics of his own? Do you know that his heroic escape in 1798, celebrated in song and novel, was in fact the product of bribes to French officials who wanted him gone?”
“Certainly not. We’re told he wooed comely women from his Temple Prison window, got word to royalist agents, and made a daring escape with the help of my late friend Phelipeaux, hero of the siege of Acre. People treat him like Robin Hood.”
“History is just that, Gage, a story, and nothing is more fanciful than a man defying impossible odds. No one escapes Temple Prison without connivance.” That had certainly been true in the case of Astiza and me, when we did so in 1799. “The Directory couldn’t prove allegations of espionage against Smith and found his imprisonment an embarrassment. Yet they couldn’t release him after authorities ballyhooed his capture. Easier for both sides were British bribes to key French jailers, who became conveniently stupid when agents arrived with forged papers. This is how the spy game works. A great deal of skullduggery, and then a satisfactory conclusion for everyone involved. Our business is happier than people think.”
I conceded the argument. Espionage was like juicing cards, and was all the sneaking about simply a scheme to divert some English gold into everyone’s pockets? I tried to work out my chances while deciding if at least temporarily joining the French as well as British was expedient or suicidal. I do have principles: namely, to protect my family from torture. As government, armies, and businesses become ever larger and more implacable, I’m a leaf in a hurricane, a man among millions trying to make my way home. So I take opportunities as they come, and revise strategy as I go along. “How did you know I was in Paris?”
“We knew everything, Gage, including when and where you’d land, though we didn’t expect the coastal ambush that allowed you to escape capture. We knew your address shortly after you arrived in Paris, and we’ve followed with curiosity the little you’ve been doing since. As an agent of the British Crown, you are remarkably unproductive. I’d suspect it an American trait, but your mentor Franklin accomplished a great deal.”