‘I don’t recall seeing her before. Is that man her husband?’
‘Yes, Lieutenant Fourès, one of our cavalry officers. A bit of a firebrand by all accounts. I’m not surprised you haven’t noticed his wife before, sir. She disguised herself as a hussar to accompany her husband on the campaign. She only revealed her true identity after the battle outside Cairo.’
‘Good God!’ Napoleon shook his head in wonder. ‘How could she have managed it? To have survived all that and kept her secret . . .She sounds interesting. I should like to meet her.Would you see to it, Junot? Supper, tonight at my mansion.’
‘Yes, sir. An invitation to Madame Fourès, and the good lieutenant as well?’
‘No. I think I would rather hear her story without any distraction.’
‘I understand, sir. I’ll see to it.’
‘Good.’ Napoleon looked at her for a moment longer and then turned his attention back to his meal. He was aroused at the prospect of meeting the woman, and at the same time felt a vague sense of shame at pulling rank over her husband, and the prospect of being unfaithful to Josephine, in spirit at least. Then his heart hardened. Let Josephine hear of this. Let her suffer the injury he had endured at her hands. As for Lieutenant Fourès? Napoleon shrugged. Perhaps it was time for Fourès to share his general’s knowledge of the perfidy of women.
The sheikh coughed softly. ‘I beg your pardon, General, but how long does this balloon of yours take before it makes its ascent?’
‘What?’ Napoleon shook off his thoughts of Josephine and Pauline Fourès. He looked across the square. Captain Conté was desperately piling more fuel on to the fire. Above it the material of the balloon had barely risen and resembled nothing so much as the flaccid, wrinkled breast of an old woman. Napoleon granted the captain a few minutes’ grace, then discreetly gestured to Junot to come closer.
‘Sir?’
‘Have a word with Conté. Nothing too harsh, you understand, but tell him he’d better get that thing up in the air before he makes complete fools of us.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Junot eased himself up from his divan, strolled across the courtyard and beckoned to the hapless Captain Conté, who emerged from under the platform with his face glistening with sweat and streaked with grime. He listened to Junot for a moment, looked past him towards Napoleon, and shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
‘Is there a problem, General?’
Napoleon turned to the sheikh.‘Not at all. Demonstrations of such complexity take time, that’s all.’
‘It’s just that your captain doesn’t seem very happy. Does he really know what he’s doing?’
‘Who? Captain Conté?’ Napoleon was hurt by the accusation and impulsively rushed to defend the reputation of his officer.‘Captain Conté has one of the most brilliant minds in the French army. That’s why I personally selected him for this campaign.’>
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Napoleon said irritably. ‘The man is a genius. He invented the pencil, you know.’
‘The pencil.’The sheikh nodded slowly. ‘Then, truly, he is not a man to be underestimated.’
Napoleon could not take the humiliation any more. He rose, and made an excuse that he had work to attend to and was sorry but the demonstration would have to wait for another day.
‘I quite understand, General,’ the sheikh responded with a kindly expression. ‘Perhaps when Allah is more willing to permit men to behave like birds.’
‘Yes, quite.’
As soon as the last of the sheikhs and imams had departed Napoleon tore off the turban and hurled it to the ground. ‘So much for appeasing their sensibilities! The smug bastards. Laughing up their sleeves at us!’ He whirled round and stabbed a finger at Conté.‘It’s your fault! You and that worthless balloon of yours! Take it down. Get rid of it. Get it out of my sight before I have it cut to pieces and wipe my arse on it.’
‘Sir!’ Captain Conté tried to explain. ‘It was the day’s heat. I could not make my balloon more buoyant than the surrounding air. It works best in cooler climates.’
‘Really?’ Napoleon snapped. ‘Cooler climates? Then you’d better pack it up and fuck off back to France with it, Captain.’
‘Sir! I . . .Yes, sir.’
Napoleon glared at him a moment, then turned round to look for Junot. ‘Junot! Over here! At once, man!’
Junot ran across the courtyard and stood stiffly to attention before his general. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘That other business. Concerning Madame Fourès. See to it now, please.’
‘Tonight, sir?’
‘Tonight. I need something to take my mind off this disaster.’ A smile flickered across Napoleon’s face. ‘I think that she will prove a most diverting companion.’
The door closed behind the woman as Junot left the room and for a moment Napoleon watched her from his seat on the balcony outside. Pauline Fourès was wearing a sheer silk gown that hid little of her fine figure in the wan glow of the oil lamps burning in a bracket hanging from the ceiling. For a moment she simply stared round the room; then she darted across to a small side table and helped herself to a piece of baklava. Napoleon could not help chuckling and she froze at once.
‘Who’s there? General?’
Napoleon rose and entered the room.
‘Madame Fourès, a pleasure.’ He bowed and kissed her hand. ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’
‘How could I refuse?’ She smiled, and her full lips parted to reveal perfect teeth. ‘Colonel Junot was most insistent. And, after all, you are the most powerful man in Egypt.Your word is law.’
‘It is. Please sit down.’ He gestured to the two chairs beside the side table. ‘Since you have started on the delicacies, feel free to continue.’
‘Ah . . .’ She laughed. ‘Now I am ashamed.’
They sat and Napoleon poured them each a glass of wine, and they picked at the baklava as he asked her to tell the story of her adventures since the expedition had left France. When she had finished Napoleon reflected for a moment before he spoke.
‘I envy a man who inspires such devotion in his wife.’
Pauline stared back at him. ‘I love my husband, General, but I loathed life as an officer’s wife back in France. I have not sacrificed anything to follow him. In truth I escaped the drudgery of eking out a life in a rented room while waiting for him to return. There has to be more to life than that. There has to be adventure.’
‘Indeed.’ Napoleon leaned closer to her. ‘And have you found it?’
‘I thought so, for a while. But now I am a mere lieutenant’s wife once more.’
‘Yes . . .A woman of your beauty deserves better.’
She looked at him for a moment and then tilted her head slightly.‘What are you saying, General? Are you going to offer my husband a promotion?’
‘No.’ Napoleon felt uneasy about what he was about to suggest and his eyes fixed on hers. ‘A general’s position is an isolated one. I cannot acknowledge any man, any friend, as an equal.Yet I need companionship . . .the comfort of intimacy.You understand? I need a woman. A special woman.’
‘But you are married.’
‘Yes,’ Napoleon replied bitterly. ‘And as you have no doubt heard, my wife has found a companion of her own. I will deal with her when I return to France. Under the circumstances I do not feel obliged to remain faithful to her. And I find that I am uncommonly attracted to you.’
‘I see.’ Pauline nodded. ‘And what exactly are you offering me?’
‘A palace here in Cairo.The company of the finest officers and scientific minds in Egypt. Is that not adventure enough for you, Madame Fourès?’
She considered this for a while before replying. ‘And what of my husband? What becomes of him?’
‘I will send him back to France. It would be best for all three of us.’
‘Yes.’ She licked her lips. ‘A palace, you say?’
Napoleon nodded.
‘And what happens when the campaign is o
ver?’
‘I don’t know yet. Let’s see what happens. But I will make no promises.’>
‘No promises, then.’ She took his hand and kissed it. ‘Please, call me Pauline. And when can this . . . adventure begin?’
Napoleon felt his heart beating faster as he gestured towards the arched doorway on the far side of the room. The night suddenly seemed unbearably hot. ‘My bedchamber is over there. The choice is yours.’
Pauline rose from her chair, and staring down at Napoleon she reached up and pulled the pins from her hair, so that it cascaded down over her shoulders.Then she turned away and glided across the room towards the bedchamber.
Chapter 40
‘You have to admire their sense of humour.’ Napoleon smiled as he laid down the dispatch from Alexandria and reached across the bed to stroke her back. ‘Who would have thought the English were capable of it?’
‘Oh, yes, it’s very funny,’ Pauline snapped.‘I can hardly control the mad desire to laugh like a lunatic.’
‘Be fair, my little Cleopatra.’
‘Don’t call me that! That’s what the common soldiers call me. I won’t have it, not here in my bedroom.’
‘Very well, then, Pauline it is.’ Napoleon eased himself closer to her and kissed her bare shoulder as his fingers traced their way down the gentle groove in the flesh above her spine and crept towards the upward curve of her buttocks. But she did not respond with her usual animal purr to his touch, and he withdrew his hand.
‘What’s the matter?’
Pauline opened her eyes and stared at him. ‘What do you think? You contrive to send my husband on an errand back to Paris so that we can be together without complications.Then the wretched Royal Navy capture him, hear his tale, and politely return him to Egypt. Bastards! So what are we going to do? He’ll be back in Cairo any day.’
Napoleon sighed. Another problem to deal with. The very least of his problems, he reflected. Despite his best efforts to convince the fellahin that the French were determined to improve their lot, the natives were still ambushing patrols and murdering any stragglers, or any soldier who dared to venture out of barracks on his own.The collection of taxes was bringing in a fraction of what it should, and even though the task had been subcontracted to local tax officials the natives were adept at concealing their wealth and making any excuse to avoid paying their dues. The difficulty of winning over the local people was exacerbated by the behaviour of his own men. Despite the declared ideals of the revolution, the French soldiers were inclined to pay mere lip service to the high moral values that France was supposed to be spreading through this corner of the world.As soon as they were out of sight of their officers they were liable to loot the nearest village, and were not above raping any women who caught their eye. Napoleon had issued orders that any men found responsible for such deeds must be tried and shot at once. Already he had been obliged to sign two death warrants, and hoped that this would deter any more crimes.
‘Well?’ Pauline nudged him with her hip. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Do?’
‘About my husband!’
‘You must divorce him.There is no other way of dealing with it.’
‘Then I will have nothing. Can’t you send him away again? Somewhere dangerous . . .’
Napoleon propped himself up on an elbow and stared at her. ‘Lieutenant Fourès is a good officer. He doesn’t deserve such a fate. I will not send him to his death. Not even for you, Pauline.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty about what’s happened? I don’t believe it.’
Napleon shrugged. ‘I have done the man an injustice. I will not compound it with murder. So you must divorce him. I will see that the procedure is as swift as possible.Then I will move you into quarters next to mine, and settle an allowance on you.You will live well enough, Pauline.’
‘And when you tire of me? What then? I shall be alone, with no family, no honour.What do you imagine will become of me?’
‘Pauline, how could I grow tired of you?’ Napoleon reached over to her back again and continued his caresses where he had left off, running the tips of his fingers over her buttocks and letting them slide down into the cleavage. She shut her eyes and moaned, pushing back against his touch. He leaned over her, easing her auburn tresses aside so that he could kiss the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, yes . . . Like that.’
He eased Pauline on to her back and entered her gently.
‘My love,’ she muttered. ‘Do you love me?’
‘Of course,’ Napoleon said. ‘Now that’s enough talk. More than enough. We can talk later. Much later.’
Pauline’s divorce was rushed through with what would have seemed indecent haste back in Paris, but the world of the army was less demanding in its values and barely noticed the legal formality. Except for Eugène, who served on Napoleon’s staff and for a while regarded his stepfather with frosty disdain every time they had occasion to confer. Much as he liked the young man, Napoleon felt no compulsion to try to hide his relationship with Pauline. Not after suffering the hurt and humiliation he had endured at the hands of Eugène’s mother.
Pauline continued to affect her taste for military clothing and wore the uniform of a general when she accompanied Napoleon on his tours of the province. Lieutenant Fourès accepted the situation with good grace, as a man must when he has lost out to an officer of such lofty rank with the status of a national hero. He quietly returned to his regiment where his fellow officers and his men regarded him with shaming pity until he could take it no longer. One morning he took a horse and rode into the desert, and neither man nor horse was ever seen again.
In the new year the resistance to the French occupiers increased in both scale and ferocity, despite the measures that Napoleon had taken to win over the fellahin as well as their religious and political leaders in the towns and cities.
‘Nothing we do makes a difference,’ Napoleon complained bitterly to his staff at one of his weekly briefings. ‘Now they attack us almost every day.’
Berthier coughed. ‘With respect, sir, the peasants are not involved in the resistance. It’s mostly what’s left of the Mameluke forces and the Bedouin, raiding from the desert.’
‘But who is supporting them?’ Napoleon shot back. ‘Who is feeding them? Who is passing on intelligence about our movements and the strength of our patrols? The peasant scum, that’s who.’
‘They probably have no choice in the matter, sir. The fellahin are caught between us and the enemy.They’ll swear that they are loyal to us, and the moment we pass on and the enemy turn up they’ll swear loyalty to Murad Bey.You can hardly blame them.’
‘I’m not going to blame them, Berthier. I’m going to teach them a lesson. A very hard lesson, and if they are sensible they will profit from it. I want a declaration issued. I want a thousand copies of it printed off and sent to every town and village in Egypt. From now on, if any French soldiers are murdered, there will be reprisals. If it occurs in the cities or towns then ten natives will be executed for each French life taken. If our patrols are attacked in the country then the nearest village will be burned to the ground and all livestock slaughtered.The heads of those we execute will be prominently displayed as a warning to others.’ Napoleon paused to let his words sink in, then he continued. ‘We will establish order in Egypt, gentlemen. However many lives it costs. And then we shall have peace.’
Some of the staff officers shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, but no one raised any protest, and then Berthier nodded. ‘Very well, sir. I’ll see that to it that the declaration is drafted.’
‘Good.’ Napoleon felt some of the tension drain from him, and he crossed over to the window and gazed out over the rooftops of Cairo. ‘The sooner these people are on our side the better. Especially given the wider situation. Speaking of which . . . Junot, are you ready to make your report?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Junot rose to his feet and cleared his throat befo
re he began. ‘According to our spies, the enemy still fighting us in lower Egypt amounts to some fifteen thousand mounted Arabs, and perhaps as many as fifty thousand infantry. Fortunately for us they have not evolved any effective tactics for engaging our columns. They cannot break our infantry squares and they cannot endure against our massed volleys. So they are limited to the raids that we have been dealing with. They are further weakened by internal disputes between various tribes and religious factions. Accordingly, they do not pose a significant danger to us.The real danger comes from outside.’Junot approached the large map of the region that had been painted on to the wall of the staff officers’ briefing room. He picked up a cane and raised it up to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and lightly tapped the name of a coastal town. ‘I speak of Ahmad Pasha, the ruler of Acre and the Turkish province of Syria. Our latest report, from a merchant who called into Acre for supplies a month ago, is that Ahmad Pasha has amassed an army of fifty thousand men, together with a sizeable artillery train. He has also been feeding supplies and men across the Sinai to support the rebels opposing us in Egypt. That is why they have become more ambitious in their attacks on our forces recently. As a result the general sent a message to Ahmad Pasha demanding that this cease, and offering to agree a peace treaty.’ Junot paused. ‘The merchant reports that the officer sent to deliver the message has been executed.’
THE GENERALS Page 37