Young Bloods (43 page)
‘Gentlemen, this is Lieutenant Corbois of the Swiss Guard. He has come to us directly from Versailles with a dispatch from the War Minister.’ He turned towards Corbois and gestured for him to step forward. ‘It’s best that you tell the news.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Lieutenant Corbois calmed his nerves and began to speak.‘Four days ago, on the fourteenth, the mob in Paris stormed the Bastille. They slaughtered most of the garrison, murdered the governor and seized all the stores of muskets and gunpowder. When I left Versailles the King was having orders prepared for General Broglie to march on Paris. Gentlemen!’ Lieutenant Corbois’s voice was strained and he had to pause a moment to clear his throat again. ‘Gentlemen, I fear that France will be at war with itself at any moment.’
Chapter 52
In the days that followed the fall of the Bastille the officers of the Régiment de la Fère waited for the command to march against the communes of Paris and restore order. But no command came and, to their astonishment, it seemed that the King had simply accepted the seizing of the prison and the slaughter of members of the garrison. Word of the surrender of royal authority to the mob spread through France like a plague.
A few days after the fall of the Bastille a riot broke out in Auxonne. A crowd destroyed the town gates and then made its way through the streets to the tax office and sacked it, badly beating the handful of officials who had tried to deny the mob entry to the building. The colonel of the artillery regiment had ordered a detachment of his men to stiffen the ranks of the local civil guards being assembled to put down the rioters. But once the soldiers were given their orders they had refused to march against the townspeople. The men were confined to barracks at once and a more reliable company of soldiers were sent in their place. The mob was quickly broken up and order restored in Auxonne, but the bad feeling lingered in the barracks. Napoleon, more attuned to the sentiments of the common soldiers than the other officers, sensed it at once. Although daily routine continued, the men took longer to obey orders. Their demeanour became noticeably more surly and the number of complaints about their quarters, their food and their pay grew from the usual trickle into a stream of notes presented to the colonel through their sergeants. Soon the complaints took on the tone of demands and the colonel, mindful of the fate of the governor of the Bastille, took to wearing his sword around the barracks.
Then, on a stifling day in August, as Napoleon was writing up an inventory of the battalion’s munitions, he became aware of raised voices on the parade ground. Not the usual bawls of a sergeant drilling his men, but a more angry and exasperated shouting. Setting down his pen, Napoleon rose from his desk and crossed the stores office to look out of the window. A company of artillerymen were standing at ease. In front of them stood a red-faced sergeant, screaming at them to stand to attention.When no one moved the sergeant strode up to the nearest man and bellowed the order again. The soldier looked to his companions, and then shook his head.
‘Defy me, would you? You cocky little bastard!’ The sergeant drew back his baton to strike the man about the face, but before the blow could be landed another soldier stepped forward and swung the butt of his musket up, into the sergeant’s stomach.The sergeant doubled over, winded, and then slumped on to his knees. The assailant raised a boot and kicked the sergeant on to his back, before turning to his comrades.
‘Come on, lads! It’s time we presented our grievences to the colonel in person.’
‘What if he doesn’t listen?’ one soldier called out.
The first man smiled. ‘Oh, he’ll listen all right, if he knows what’s good for him. Let’s go! To headquarters!’
Napoleon felt sick at what he had just witnessed. This was mutiny, almost the worst offence that a soldier could commit.The penalty was death.Those men must know it and, knowing it, they would be quite ruthless.
‘Shit …’ Napoleon’s mind raced.What the hell should he do? He snatched up his coat and hat, hoping that a formal appearance might yet carry some weight with these men. Hurrying outside, he strode across the parade ground towards the sergeant. The last of the soldiers were moving off to follow the ringleaders heading for headquarters and as he approached them the men stared at him uncertainly. Napoleon saluted and instinctively the nearest man stiffened his back and raised his hand to respond, until one of his companions slapped the hand down.
‘None of that any more! You understand?’
The soldier nodded, still watching Napoleon anxiously, but the young officer ignored him and bent down over the prostrate form of the sergeant. Beside him he heard the soldier who had intervened continue, ‘Come on, you!’
The soldiers scrambled away, crunching across the gravel as they made off in the wake of the rest of the company. Napoleon glanced down at the sergeant.The man was clutching his guts and fighting for breath. His face was white and twisted into an expression of agony.
‘Sergeant, are you all right?’
The man rolled his eyes and then hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Do … I … fucking … look … all right, sir?’
Napoleon grinned. ‘Sorry. Do you need any help?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Just winded … Warn the colonel, sir … Now. Go!’
Napoleon straightened up and looked round.The soldiers had already reached the steps of the headquarters building and had thrust aside the two sentries who had tried to challenge them. Napoleon turned towards the officers’ mess, but already another party of soldiers was heading in that direction. He left the sergeant and ran over towards these men, shouting as he got closer to them.
‘Back to your barracks!’
They stopped at the sound of his voice and turned towards him as Napoleon trotted up. Taking a deep breath he tried his most commanding voice when he addressed them again. ‘Back to barracks! That’s an order! Do it, now!’
No one moved.Then, one of the soldiers took a tentative step towards the young officer. ‘Sir, we know you. You’re not one of these stuck-up gentlemen who give themselves all sorts of fancy airs.You should be for us. Not them.’
‘Enough!’ Napoleon’s eyes burned with anger as he confronted the soldier. ‘Now get back to your barracks!’
‘Sorry, sir.’The man shook his head.‘That’s not going to work. The lads have got grievances. We’ve agreed not to carry out any more orders until we get what we want.’
‘Get what you want?’ Napoleon repeated in astonishment. ‘Where the hell do you think you are? This is the bloody army, not a debating society. Now I won’t tell you again. Get back to barracks.’
The man shook his head again and turned away from Napoleon. ‘Come on, lads. Follow me.’
As the men flowed past him, keeping a respectful distance so they did not accidentally knock him in passing, Napoleon opened his mouth to shout the order again. But he could see that it was pointless, and his mouth closed, then fixed into a grim line as he glared at the mutineers. He would only have looked a fool if he had tried to resist, he told himself. Nothing he could say would stop them, and he cursed himself for not having the strength of personality to get them to do as he had ordered.With a sick feeling in his guts Napoleon slowly set off after them, knowing that his duty must be to stand with the other officers in this confrontation.
Once they had found the colonel, the soldiers demanded that he open up the chest that contained the regiment’s welfare fund. As soon as the money was shared out the soldiers helped themselves to the wines and spirits of the officers’ mess before heading into town to spend the money they had stolen on yet more drink. As the evening came, they returned with barrels of ale and forced the officers to drink with them and dance. The colonel, clearly afraid that the atmosphere might turn nasty at any moment, ordered his officers to go along with the men. And so it went on through the hot, sultry, night, and the party only ended when the soldiers had drunk themselves into a stupor.
It took another day for the effects of the drink to wear off and the men slowly returned to their duties.The colonel made it clear that he did not want to address himself to the mutiny and the soldiers gratefully slipped back into their routine under the uneasy eyes of their officers. But Napoleon had seen enough. All the long traditions of the regiment, all the training and enforcement of discipline - all of it had been rendered purposeless by the drunken confrontation. He could see that life in the Auxonne garrison was going to be plagued by the same chaos, uncertainty and danger that had consumed Paris.
The next morning Napoleon was summoned to the colonel’s office. As he stood to attention in front of the desk the colonel leaned back in his chair, and behind him, on a small chest, Napoleon saw a brace of pistols. It had already come to this, he realised. The officers were beginning to arm themselves against their men. The colonel looked tired and had not shaved for two days so that there was an audible rasp as he scratched his cheek and stared at Napoleon.
‘I’m sending you on leave.You’re going back to Corisca.’
‘Sir?’ Napoleon could not hide his surprise. ‘Why? I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not asking you to understand, Lieutenant. It’s an order. You’ll do as you are told and go on leave.’
‘But why, sir? Surely I’m needed here.’
The colonel stared at him for a moment, before he relented and gave a weary shrug. ‘You’re a good officer, Buona Parte. I know that. But I’m acting on orders from the War Ministry.’
‘What orders, sir?’
‘I’m to send any officer on leave whose loyalty to the King is suspect. I consulted with Captain Des Mazis and he has no doubt that you have radical sympathies. Therefore, I have no choice but to send you away.’
Napoleon’s cheeks burned with shame and indignation.‘That’s outrageous! Sir, I protest. I—’
The colonel raised his hand to silence Napoleon. ‘Your protest is noted, and you are dismissed. Go and pack your bags, Buona Parte. I want you out of the barracks by the end of the day.’
Napoleon stared back at him, then swallowed. ‘When may I return to duty, sir?’
‘When you are called for, Lieutenant.’
Chapter 53
As soon as the news of the assault on the Bastille reached Dublin, Arthur sent an anxious letter to his former mentor at the Academy in Angers. Marcel de Pignerolle did not reply to Arthur’s letter until late in the year. He thanked his former pupil for asking after his health and safety, and assured Arthur that the events in Paris had, as yet, failed to make a significant impact on life at Angers. Some of the students had been withdrawn and the director was considering advising those that remained to return home to their families while public life in France was disrupted. They might return if things settled down, although the director had little hope that the King and the deputies of the new National Assembly would eventually come to their senses and abandon this mad experiment with radical democracy that seemed to have infected the heart of the Paris mob.
The fall of the Bastille and the grisly aftermath seemed to have awakened people to the danger of events running out of control. King Louis had wisely ordered the regiments that had been slowly gathering round Paris to return to their barracks. In October, in order to remove some of the tension between the people of Paris and the deputies representing the whole of France who had gathered at Versailles, the King and the National Assembly had moved to the Tuileries Palace in the heart of Paris. While Marcel de Pignerolle approved of this development, he could not help wondering if the King had not been a little unwise in trusting to the protection of the National Guard units of Paris, who seemed to answer only to the municipal authorities.
While life at the academy was quiet the director had taken the opportunity of visiting some relatives in Paris with his wife and was disquieted by the changes since his previous visit. And here, Arthur noted, the tone of the letter shifted to a more serious, anxious description of events:
My dear Arthur, you can little imagine the alteration in civil manners of the common people. Since the so-called National Assembly published their Declaration of Human Rights in August, the common man has taken this measure as permission to excuse him from all manner of incivility and immorality.The Districts of Paris answer to no one but themselves, and petty demagogues are free to whip up the feelings of the herd so that mobs pillage the premises of innocent bakers and merchants, or beat to death or hang those they proclaim to be enemies of the people. But if the Paris mobs are little more than barbarians, they take their lead from the representatives of their class at the National Assembly. A more venal house of petty jealousy and unbridled ambition is hard to conceive of. They meet in what was once the riding school of the Tuileries and one can not help but wonder if the former occupants of the building were better educated and mannered than the crude mouthpieces of the third estate.Worse still, of course, are those with breeding who play traitor to their class and have abandoned the first and second estates to descend into the ranks of the third. It is only with their support that the demagogues have managed to remove all manner of privileges to our class, and strip the Church of her right to the financial support of the people. It is this wretched Godlessness in the hearts of those who are destroying the old order that distresses me most.What is happening is evil, and I pray that the majority of the people apprehend the gathering darkness and act against it before it is too late.
Arthur, I fear we may never see the old days again. Our class teeters on the edge of oblivion in France.Take heed of our fate and do what you can to ensure that all that is fine and good in the nobility of England is spared from the fate of France.
Your friend, Marcel de Pignerolle
Arthur folded the letter and set in down on his desk. He turned and looked out of his window, across the roof tiles of Dublin, glistening in the desultory rain that had closed in over the city since the start of December. It was more than two weeks since he had last seen clear blue sky. Nearly three years had passed since he had taken up the post of an aide at Dublin Castle. He was still a mere lieutenant with little prospect of promotion in the army and little hope for advancement outside of it. The wild social life amongst the young officers of the castle now held little attraction for him. He had had enough of being drunk, of seeking out mischief and getting into trouble. The courtesans of the better clubs now all seemed the same: painted faces with painted-on passion, whose conversation seldom extended beyond platitudes and politely presented reminders of the pecuniary nature of their relations with Arthur. Even his companions now seemed to bore him. Dancing Jack was well on the road to nuptial incarceration, while Buck Whaley and the others drank and duelled and shagged, and placed puerile bets on the outcomes of any of the first three pursuits.
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