by Iain Gale
He turned to Archer. ‘Archer, I’ve been thinking. It may go against your nature, but perhaps it might be a good idea to just occasionally address me as “James”.’
Archer looked puzzled. ‘Really, sir?’
‘The French, since the Revolution, are more informal than we are. I may be your superior officer as a captain, but as Irishmen we might look more convincing if we were a little more familiar with each other.’
Silver grinned. ‘That go for me too, sir?’
Keane shook his head. ‘No, Silver. Your part is that of our servant and as such you may still address me as “sir”. In point of fact, you had better do the same to Archer.’
Archer smiled. Silver shook his head. ‘What, call him “sir”, sir?’
‘Yes, that’s precisely right.’ He changed the subject. ‘Were you aware that I had been here before, Archer?’
‘You have, sir? Sorry, James. You have?’
‘As a boy. My aunt lived here and I was sent to live with her. I had left school and my mother needed me away from the farm for a while.
‘It always seemed a little curious to me that my mother’s sister should have come here. She had grown up in Ireland but had married a Frenchman. A Parisian nobleman. She and her husband became almost like parents to me. He in particular, fatherless as I was. They had a wonderful house. It seemed like a palace to me, coming from a farm in Ireland. Such paintings on the walls and a library filled with books. Most in French of course. But I had a little Latin. I would spend hours in there. They seemed to live a charmed life. And I, for a while, became a part of it.’
‘How long did you stay here, sir?’
‘Two years, but it seemed like a great deal longer. You know how it is when you’re that age. I came in the summer of ’90. I was twelve.’
‘What did you do for friends? Could you speak French?’
‘Not at first, but you learn quickly at that age. Besides, I had a cousin, Sophie, who was almost the same age. She helped.’ He smiled.
‘A girl? What was she like? Where is she now?’
‘I have no idea. My whole world here collapsed when the Revolution came. I was still here in ’92 when they arrested old King Louis and his family. My uncle too. He followed the king and queen to the Conciergerie. It was a huge prison back then, filled with aristocrats and nobles and any political prisoner that citizen Robespierre and his cronies chose to name and condemn. And then the king and queen and all their children went to the guillotine. And my poor uncle lost his head too. Unfortunate man. I was lucky to escape with my life.’
‘I had no idea, sir – James. What happened to your aunt?’
‘She got me away. How she managed it I still don’t know. After the night when they took my uncle she knew it wouldn’t be long until they came back for us. One night she woke me and Sophie and got us dressed and then I remember a carriage outside the house with the blinds drawn. We left everything behind. Everything. All of the paintings and furniture, all the books I had studied. Even our clothes. We drove for the coast, I suppose, but I couldn’t tell you where. She handed me over to a soldier, an officer in a redcoat, and I remember waving goodbye to her and Sophie and the next thing I knew I was back in Ireland on the farm with my mother and somehow we had money again.’
Silver too had been listening as they rode deeper into the city. ‘Where was the house, sir?’
‘In the old quarter, the east. The Place Royale. Although of course it won’t be called that now. If it’s still standing.’
Keane wondered if he had said too much. Given too much away about himself. But these were the men alongside whom he had fought for three years. And if he couldn’t tell them these things, then who could he possibly tell? The two women he had loved, one English, one French, had gone. Grant was in Spain, and Don Curtis, the man who he knew had information on his father, was there too. Being in Paris, he thought, might be a chance to revisit his past. The past about which he yearned to know more. And to visit the old house would be a starting point. Of course everything he had known of it would be long gone now. But curiosity and the fate which had directed him here had got the better of him.
*
On this first impression, he was now beginning to wonder how different he would find the great Imperial capital from the Paris he had known. The pre-revolutionary city had been a warren of tiny lanes and high apartment blocks where people slept in houses stacked on top of each other. His family’s house had been set in a beautiful square of four identical terraces, each resembling a country house. Beneath two sides, colonnades held restaurants and street cafés, and in the centre a lawn was framed by fruit trees. Could all that really have gone?
*
They were riding now down another tree-lined avenue, away from the arch and taking them, he presumed, straight into the heart of the city. He was conscious that this too was a new creation. It was wider than any such road he could recall seeing or riding along, allowing two carriages to pass in each direction and any number of horsemen. It was not hard to perceive why Bonaparte had had it built. This was a triumphal avenue, intended for great victory processions and large enough to accommodate column after column of marching men, twenty or thirty abreast.
Silver was in awe. ‘Is it true that it is the centre of all the evils of the world, sir? That smart ladies go almost naked to the theatre and that whores can be bought and had in the public gardens?’
Keane smiled, and nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard the stories too. How would I know the truth of it? They do say that in the Place Louis XV, where the guillotine was for so many years, the stench of blood is still so great that the cattle and horses refuse to cross it. This place has certainly seen its fair share of blood in the last twenty years.’
As they approached the end of the avenue they came to a wide square, with neo-classical buildings on one side, the other being bounded by the river. As they entered it Keane’s horse began to grow nervous and refused to go on. The others too seemed to be having problems with their mounts.
Keane spoke. ‘I’ll be damned. This is it. This is the Place Louis XV, as was. God knows what they call it now. But this was the Place de la Guillotine.’
Pulling on the reins, he managed to push his horse right, along the side of the square closest to the river.
As they moved further away from the centre and the horses became more relaxed, the cityscape began to open out before them, unfolding a skyline of tall buildings and in the distance to their right the towers of a huge cathedral which seemed almost to be floating on the great river.
The water was spanned by endless bridges, and across these the sun gleamed on the domed roof of another huge building which stood in its own landscaped gardens. They continued to ride along the river in the direction of the cathedral, and as they did so the townscape changed again about them. Apart from the one great street, as they began to peer to their left up the numerous side streets there seemed to be another world behind the pomp. More like the old Paris he knew, or Lisbon, or Salamanca or Burgos. Here again were the squalid slums where children played on the broken flagstones, and as the three men rode through the streets, women whistled at them from the upper floors from where they displayed their wares and called out the usual invitations.
Keane turned to Archer. ‘Just like being in Portugal, Archer, eh? And another thing I don’t think has changed since I lived here all those years ago – I can tell you, the Parisians think of us as idiots. All Englishmen are red-faced drunken boors. I suppose the Irish might be seen in the same light. Well, I’m not going to disabuse them. We don’t fit the caricature image. We should blend in nicely.’
8
The agent Grant had told him about, Andrew Macpherson, lived in one of the better streets of the old quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. To Keane’s eyes it was a very public street, filled with merchants and their customers coming to and from the new market of Les
Halles, built by the emperor for his people.
‘Bit conspicuous, sir, isn’t it, for a spy?’
‘Quiet, Archer. For heaven’s sake don’t breathe that word. Actually, I think that’s the beauty of it. It’s too obvious. It’s a double bluff. I think our Mr Macpherson might turn out to be a very interesting person indeed.’
*
Arriving at the door of 320 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, they dismounted and Keane knocked. For some time no one answered. They heard nothing. No hurrying steps, no creaking of doors, no calls. Nothing. And then, quite suddenly, the door opened and there stood a woman. She was in her fifties, of rosy complexion, and stared at Keane with shining green eyes. She spoke in a subtly Scottish accent, with the intonation of the Western Isles.
‘Yes, what would you be wanting?’
‘We are here to see Mr Macpherson.’
‘And who might you be?’
‘If I said the word Zenobius, would it mean anything to you?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. Wait, I’ll call my father.’
She turned back into the corridor, all the time keeping a hand on the door. ‘Father, it’s some gentlemen to see yourself. Someone called Zenobius.’
There was a noise from within, and from the darkness of the hall a man appeared.
Andrew Macpherson was just as Grant had described him. He looked as if he was in his sixties, but Grant had said that as a boy in his teens he had enlisted to fight for Prince Charlie in the ’45 rebellion. That, thought Keane, would make him at least eighty-two, in which case he was in remarkable condition. Macpherson was small in build, with a long, angular nose and the same bright green eyes as his daughter, almost like emeralds in their intensity.
‘Good day, gentlemen. What was the name you used?’
‘Zenobius.’
Macpherson looked at them, focusing principally on Keane. ‘Yes, that would be right. That’s the very word. Do come in, won’t you? Kirsty, will you make these gentlemen at home?’ He closed the door to the street as he spoke. ‘They have come a very long way to see me so I think some coffee would be in order, or tea perhaps. Or something stronger, gentlemen?’
Keane shook his head. ‘No, thank you, sir. We have ridden throughout the night. Tea would be perfect.’
Kirsty Macpherson left the room and the old man smiled. ‘It’s good to see you safe here, gentlemen. I had been expecting you. Major Grant sent word. I trust that all went according to plan?’
‘It went beautifully, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be back in Paris again.’
‘You know the city?’
‘I was here as a boy.’
Macpherson shook his head and smiled again. ‘I did not know that. I’m afraid that you will find it much changed. I myself can hardly recognize whole areas. You will presume to know your way around?’
‘I did, but as you say, even from what we have seen it is much changed.’
‘It’s Bonaparte’s doing. This is his showpiece. All show.’
‘We noticed the arch as we entered the city. Half built.’
‘Yes, it will be carved with the names of all his victories and all his generals. Who can say when it will be finished?’
‘You believe that the empire will last?’
‘No, I believe that the empire is doomed. When you reach my age you have seen many such enterprises come and go. It is the folly of vanity and as such it will fail. Although of course we might help it on its way. It is up to you gentlemen to determine how quickly that comes about. The people of France are becoming tired of war. Paris is an indicator. Look at what Paris thinks and you will see the spirit of France. There was a poor harvest last year. Look more carefully and you’ll see the first signs that the empire is not all it seems. It’s starting to crumble, captain. And you’re here to help speed up that process.’
It was a curious thing to say, thought Keane, delivered almost as an order.
‘Yes, I’m aware of that. Part of my brief was that we are to encourage and assist an attack on the empire at its heart and destroy it from the inside. And that is just what I intend to do. With your help. Can I ask, Mr Macpherson, if you hold military rank?’
‘You can ask, certainly, but how shall I answer you? Shall I tell you that many years ago, as a very young man, I held an officer’s commission, bestowed in the field by the prince himself, in the Jacobite army that fought to bring down the very government that I now support? Shall I tell you that later I held rank in the war in the Americas and fought against the revolutionaries? Does that surprise you? Of course I wished to uphold the old order. But shall I then tell you that I also held the rank of a captain in the Revolutionary Army of France? Well, I did. And why? To undermine the Revolution from within. But I doubt whether any of those would be the sort of military ranks for which you are hoping. Let’s just say that I do now hold a rank, but I am afraid that you will not be privy to it. Let us also say that that rank is above your own, captain.’
It was enough to satisfy Keane. ‘I quite understand, sir. Can you brief us on the current situation?’
Macpherson’s daughter entered with the tea and after she had left, closing the door behind her, he began.
‘Paris is alive with rumour and speculation. Marshal Marmont is beaten in Spain. The Prussians are re-arming and will attack France. The emperor plans to attack Britain again and there’s an army of 500,000 men at Calais waiting to board the invasion barges. All the usual stuff. And there are the crazy ones too. The empress has had an affair with a Bourbon. Nelson has been seen alive in Cherbourg.
‘I’ve been trying to feed the madness. That’s how you bring down a regime. You destabilize it from within. Make the people and those who govern them believe their own lies.’
‘Fascinating. How do you manage it?’
‘I have agents. A number of them, throughout the city. Royalists, émigrés, republicans. I’m not fussy. I’ll use anyone who wants to bring down the tyrant.’
‘That must be a delicate game to play.’
Macpherson laughed. ‘I’ll say it is. You have to keep on your toes.’
Perhaps, thought Keane, that explains why the man seemed to have kept his youthful spark.
Macpherson continued. ‘Fouché’s men are everywhere. He may now be the ex-minister of Napoleon’s secret police and that fool Savary in his place, but Monsieur Fouché still rules Paris. In truth he shouldn’t really be here. He was banished from the city by Bonaparte two years ago after they fell out. Bonaparte was trying to make peace with Britain, but Fouché wanted the war to continue. Bonaparte sent him to Tuscany. But now he’s back and he still has power. The man is a monster – born of the Revolution and nurtured by the policies of Bonaparte.’
‘So we need to avoid him.’
‘On the contrary. I think it is imperative that you make contact with him. With Fouché himself.’
‘You’re serious? I should really meet Fouché?’
‘Yes. You are a card player, are you not, Captain Keane?’ It was the first time he had addressed Keane by name. ‘You must be aware that in this game the best defence is attack.’
‘Yes, I understand. I was explaining to my men that is the reason you live on so public a street.’
‘Precisely. You must hit the enemy where he expects it the least and when his guard is down.’
‘And where do I find Fouché? This monster with the need for war.’
‘I will think of that. I will arrange a meeting.’
Keane thought that he might rise to Macpherson’s terms and suggest the ridiculous. ‘And what of Bonaparte himself? When should I meet him?’
Macpherson seemed to take the suggestion as an obvious possibility. ‘Oh, he’s gone. He left the city for Dresden on 9th May.’
‘So the rumours that we heard in Spain were right. He’s going to invade Russia.’
Mac
pherson nodded. ‘Yes, quite right. He is not poised to invade England. And he’s certainly not heading for Spain. He’s had his fill of that debacle, if you ask me. He is actually assembling what will be the greatest army ever seen in the modern world. Half a million men, they say, drawn from all parts of the empire. He intends to crush the Russians completely.’
‘Have you sent word of all this to Wellington?’
‘I need it to be absolutely confirmed. You must do that, captain. Then we shall send word.’
‘And what of our disguise? Is it sufficient, do you think?’
‘I have no reason to think otherwise. You know your stories, I presume, all of you?’ He shot a glance at the others.
‘Excuse me, sir, this is Lieutenant Archer, actually Private Archer, but he makes a very passable officer. And Private Silver. Two of my very finest men. I think they’ll do as two of Boney’s Irishmen.’
Macpherson looked at them carefully. ‘The main thing is to know your stories inside out.’ He looked at Archer. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Patrick O’Connell.’
‘Where are you from, Lieutenant O’Connell?’
‘County Cork, sir.’
‘And your father’s name? Your mother’s too?’
Archer hesitated and looked at Keane. ‘I . . . I’m not sure, sir.’
‘Well then, you had better make sure. Your accent is convincing, but you must know everything. Everything from your mother’s maiden name to your tailor.’
He looked at Silver. ‘Your name, man? What is it?’
‘Joseph Lynch, sir, at your service.’
‘Well, Lynch, tell me about yourself and how you come to be in Paris?’
Silver looked at him and spoke in what he hoped would pass for an Irish brogue. ‘Well, sir, you see, your honour, I’m just a private soldier, sir. I’ve no idea who my father was and my mother was a whore from Derry. I was raised in the gutter and taken from there by the British army to fight in Spain and it was there that I deserted, sir, and joined the French, who put me in the Irish Legion. I’m now the soldier servant to Captain Williams here. It’s good work and I love it, because I hate the bloody English, I do. But in my heart of hearts, sir, I can’t wait to get back and see old Ireland again.’