The man could only nod. He looked as though he was experiencing a moment of religious rapture, but managed to hold up his right arm by way of confirmation.
“My friend Duroc,” shouted Napoleon to the crowd, “was beside me when we charged our enemies at Arcoli, sweeping them from their fortifications. When I took command in Italy the army was dressed in rags and few even had boots. They had not known victory. Once I arrived they did not know defeat.” There was a rousing cheer at that but Napoleon waved them to silence so he could continue. “Did we plunder and loot that country?” he asked. If he was looking at Duroc for support he was on a sticky wicket, for the man still had the countenance of a stunned ox. Quite a few of the crowd looked uncertain too. So the emperor answered his own question. “No. We took gold certainly but for uniforms and boots.” He was interrupted by a comment from Duroc, who was now gazing adoringly up at his emperor. I could not catch what he said but it made the emperor laugh with delight and give the man another hug. “My friend reminds me that I issued a proclamation calling for boots before bread. Well, we got boots and we marched further and faster than our enemies. We vanquished them everywhere we found them until Italy was free. Then we gave the people of Italy their own republic and their freedom.” He paused again as another cheer ran around the square and used the time to shake hands with Duroc and swing himself back up on his horse so more could see him.
“The allies are wary of me,” he continued, “because I have brought France glory, justice, science and a society where a man rises on his merits and not through his birth. Comrade Duroc can tell his grandchildren how with courage he helped me in my hour of need. What will you tell your grandchildren? Will you explain that your freedom was stolen by a puppet king imposed on France by its enemies? Will you tell your children that you sat back while liberty was snuffed out like a candle and meekly allowed the old ways to return?” Each question had been answered by a chorus of “No,” but now the emperor paused again until you could have heard a pin drop in that square. “Or will you join me in defending our liberty and the glory of France?”
There was a deafening cheer then that echoed off the stone walls. If you had been there I swear that, like me, you would have felt the hair stand up on the back of your neck. God, I was not even French and I was stirred. If he had asked them at that moment then every last one of them in that square would have followed him into the gates of hell itself, and even Flashy would have doffed his hat to wish them well.
“Do you see?” asked Cambronne craning round again and shouting over the noise. “That is why he is the emperor.”
There is no doubt that Bonaparte was a great general, and despite what our people say, he was a very capable politician, but he was a performer too. Maybe that was the secret to his success on the battlefield. It was not just that he could see an enemy’s weakness; he could inspire his own men to exploit it. Certainly Wellington thought his presence was worth forty thousand men on a battlefield and given everything I have seen, I would not disagree.
We rode out of Auxerre and as soon as we were out of sight of the town the emperor stopped and climbed inside his carriage. Secretaries came and went from the vehicle as we travelled and once when I rode past it I saw him inside dictating a report. We stopped at three more towns that day and each time the same thing happened. Bonaparte would mount his horse just out of town and as riders had been sent on ahead, there would be a crowd waiting in the square. Each time he found a familiar face and gave a similar rousing speech. I was getting increasingly alarmed at his uncanny memory, at least, that is, until we got to the last town.
There the emperor found a familiar face that he claimed had been with him at Austerlitz. The fellow looked increasingly uncomfortable as Napoleon reminisced about how they had beaten the combined might of Russia and Austria there together. I doubted the man had been there at all, and certainly not leading the charge. But even if the emperor had chosen some unwitting stooge this time, his speech had the same effect on the populace as in the other places. I also suspect that even today there are children being brought up in a town south of Paris, convinced that Grandpapa was the real victor of Austerlitz with perhaps just a little help from General Bonaparte.
The next day Cambronne happily agreed for me to join his advanced guard. There were already a number of other officers in the party, keen to go on ahead and prepare for the emperor’s arrival. The bulk of the force, though, was the five hundred men of the Old Guard that had gone with their emperor to Elba. Already their number had been augmented by at least a hundred former soldiers of the Guard, who had flocked to their old eagle as soon as they had heard that their emperor had returned. They formed extra ranks at the rear of the column. Some had kept their old uniforms, which they were now wearing proudly, but others only had bits of uniform or civilian clothes. You could tell they were guardsmen, though, whatever they were wearing. Most of the soldiers were adorned with gold earrings and nearly all had long drooping moustaches, which was the fashion in their ranks. But it was the precision and speed with which they marched that gave them away. I have not seen any other soldiers march at such a fast pace and keep in perfect time. They did it without any conscious thought, as though it were second nature to them, which it must have been after so many campaigns.
Without thinking, I complimented Cambronne on his command and if it was possible given his already erect stature, he stiffened further with pride, before a curious frown crossed his face. “Surely you have marched with the Old Guard before, Colonel?”
“Not in Spain, sir,” I said hastily to cover my error. “If there were Old Guard regiments there I never had the honour to march with them.”
“Ah, you should have seen them before we went to Russia,” Cambronne said wistfully. “Thousands of the finest soldiers that ever marched.” He gave a heavy sigh before adding, “But courage could not vanquish the cold.”
That was the closest I ever saw any member of the Old Guard be critical of Napoleon. From what I heard, some fifty thousand members of the Imperial Guard marched into Russia and less than one in ten came back. The Imperial Guard consisted of the veteran elite in the Old Guard together with less experienced Middle Guard and Young Guard regiments. But even these junior regiments took only the best recruits from the wider army.
Quite what they would have done if they knew that a British spy was marching in their midst did not bear thinking about. For despite their suffering over recent years, there was no doubt as to their commitment to the cause. I saw that for myself when we reached a crossroads where the toll gate keeper was defiantly flying a royalist flag from his window. He may have thought differently about that had he known who was marching up the road towards him. With a growl of indignation, a squad of soldiers was sent off to deal with the matter as the rest of us continued past. The door of the cottage was kicked in, the flag torn down and there was the sound of smashing furniture and the scream of a woman. The soldiers emerged a few moments later. There had been no gunfire and their bayonets looked clean. They had obeyed their emperor’s edict that not a drop of blood should be spilt for his return, although several were pushing loot, including a dead chicken into their packs.
Certainly there was some killing over those days, for we passed the corpses of two white-coated royalist officers hanging from a tree beside the road. Cambronne ordered them cut down and buried so that the emperor did not see them when he followed later. The roads were generally quiet but in towns and villages there would be small crowds of people, who even if they weren’t Bonapartists, found it politic to cheer on our formidable band of men. Most were genuinely pleased to see them and everyone asked when the emperor was coming. The size of our band was steadily growing too, for in most of those villages another handful of veterans waited. Several had tears in their eyes as they watched us march towards them and then, calling out greetings to comrades in the ranks, they would step in and join the last lines of men marching along.
I vividly remember going through one town
, the day before we entered Paris, and seeing a grizzled old veteran standing by the side of the road with a sack in his hand. He had the tall erect bearing of a guard, not to mention the moustache and the earrings. I thought he would join us too until I looked down and saw that he also had a wooden leg. I stood to one side to see if he would indeed try to march with us but as the final half-uniformed ranks went by he hobbled up to a guardsman who was still in civilian clothes and handed him this sack.
“Show it glory again,” the old man had shouted as he limped along after the column. The soldier who had taken the sack had not even broken stride until he looked inside it. Then he stepped out from the ranks and came back to the old man.
“I will, brother,” he replied fiercely as he embraced the old man. “It will see glory or my death,” he declared. You could tell he meant it too. Then he reached inside and brought out the carefully brushed bearskin hat worn by the Old Guard. As I watched the soldier run after his comrades, I thanked my stars that I was no longer in the army. There was no Russian winter to stop them this time, some poor devil would have to do it with a bayonet, and I did not fancy their chances. At least, I thought, it would not be me.
Chapter 16
We were just ahead of the emperor when we reached the outskirts of Paris. While he was travelling in his carriage, he did not set off until nine each day and stopped at every major town to give one of his speeches. By starting shortly after dawn and with their fast marching pace, the steadily growing column of the Old Guard had kept in front.
It seemed that every soldier in Paris was on the streets of the city to welcome us and many streamed past us down the road to get their first glimpse of Napoleon. There were plenty of civilians cheering on the streets too, but as I looked closely I saw a few worried faces amongst them, particularly when I looked up at the windows above the shops and businesses. From there, faces had mixed expressions. They perhaps had seen beyond Bonaparte’s bluster and as business owners, they had more to lose. They rightly suspected that his return would inevitably mean a return to war. I did not know it then, but the allies at the Congress of Vienna had already issued an edict declaring Bonaparte an outlaw who must be overthrown; which rather ruled out their involvement in his escape as he had claimed. If he was to keep his throne he would have to beat the combined might of the allies – but as his supporters would not hesitate to point out, he had done that before more than once.
While the Old Guard turned towards their barracks, I thanked Cambronne for his company and headed towards the hotel I had not seen for nearly a month. I was certain that Louisa would not be there, but I needed to check. Then I would head north. If the channel ports were still open, God willing, within a few days I should back on the shores of England. Then France could do what it pleased. I would be tucked up safely in Berkeley Hall, facing nothing more dangerous than the bad breath of my tenant farmers.
Of course plans rarely go that smoothly and I found my first obstacle at the hotel door. It was locked shut and a notice pinned to it announcing that the hotel was closed while the staff went to welcome the emperor to the city. I stood on the step considering what to do. Surely Louisa would not have waited for me? Perhaps I should just head north now? But she may have left things for me at the hotel and some civilian clothes might prove useful later on in the journey. There was also a favourite silver-handled razor I had not packed when I went with Ney, which was probably still in my room.
A silver-handled razor! It was worth a guinea at most; even now I could weep at what that cost me. For with hindsight I should have abandoned the crown jewels in that room if necessary and headed north to the coast. But of course I did not know that then and an extra hour or two before I started my journey did not seem to make a lot of difference. I felt in my pocket; I still had the letter from Ney for his wife. I could at least deliver that while I waited. We had heard on the way into the city that the Napoleonic elite were gathering at the Tuileries Palace and so I headed there. A letter bearing the seal of Marshal Ney was all I needed to be shown into the royal apartments. Soon I was passing through the anteroom that Ney and I had waited in to see the king. It seemed an age ago but it was less than a month before. From the audience chamber itself, I could hear squeals of laughter and occasional cheering. It sounded as though the party had started in there already, but I could never have guessed the scene which would be revealed when I pulled open the door.
I almost fell over the first woman. Judging from the silk dress and bejewelled tiara she wore, she was one of the imperial courtiers. But instead of standing in their finery, all of the women and quite a few of the men in the room were all down on their hands and knees working industriously on the carpet.
“Don’t just stand there,” the woman at my feet barked at me. “Find a knife from somewhere and help. We need the carpet all finished before the emperor gets here.” It was only as she sat back to talk to me that I was able to see what she was doing. She had been using a small knife to pick at the stitching around one of the royal Bourbon fleur de lys sewn all over the carpet. But from under the edge that she had pulled off, I could see that there was something underneath. It was a bee, Napoleon’s imperial symbol that had been woven into the carpet when it was made. Clearly Louis had not wanted to pay for a new carpet and so he had got his people to sew his emblem over the top of the Napoleonic one.
“Yes ma’am,” I replied for I noticed nearer the middle of the room a familiar face. There, crouched on the floor and scratching away at some stubborn stitching, was the Princess of Moscow. She looked up and grinned as I came over.
“I see you have made the acquaintance of the Duchess of Auerstaedt,” she said gesturing at the woman who had hectored me as I entered the room. “She is almost as fearsome as her husband.” I had no idea who the Duke of Auerstaedt was and it must have shown on my face for she added helpfully, “Marshal Davout. Now get down and help or she will tell us both off. Here, have this,” she said, passing me half of a pair of scissors and gesturing to a fleur de lys still undisturbed on the carpet.
“Your husband sent me to give you this note to explain why he changed sides,” I whispered as I got down beside her. I passed her Ney’s letter and with nothing better to do I picked up the scissor and started to attack the silk patch on the carpet.
“Oh, I thought he would,” the princess admitted airily as she tucked the letter unread into some fold of her dress. “While my poor mother would have been heartbroken that the king was forced out again, we were not happy in his court. The emperor will be much better for France.” Her bright blue eyes looked appraisingly at me. Then she stopped attacking the carpet for a moment to ask, “So, Colonel Moreau, where do your loyalties truly lie? Michel tells me that no one knows of your past but you have links with the British. You served my husband as a royalist officer and were appointed by Clarke, who has gone to Ghent with the king. Will you stay or will you quietly slip away for the border too?”
Well that caught me off guard. I had thought that the princess was concentrating on nothing more than the needlework before her. But she had not lived through the Revolution, the Terror, the formation of a republic, an empire, a kingdom and now an empire again without developing an acute political awareness. As I comprehended this I saw that she was watching my reaction closely. I was surprised that Ney had evidently shared what he knew of my background with her. He obviously valued her judgement. I would need to be convincing.
“I swear that I have no loyalty to Louis and I detest Clarke. I would not follow him anywhere,” I answered honestly.
“I believe you,” the princess replied, but before I could relax she added perceptively, “but I suspect that you have no great love for the emperor either. You are simply trying to stay afloat in the political storm that is blowing across France.”
“I can assure you, Princess,” I started to protest, but she held up a hand to forestall me.
“I intend no criticism; many in this room are the same. You probably have heard that the C
ongress of Vienna has declared our emperor an outlaw. That means sooner or later it will be war, France against all of them.”
“I am sure we can still win, Princess,” I replied dutifully while thinking that the allies were working fast. They must have all still been together in Vienna when they had heard that Bonaparte had landed, which would have saved weeks of negotiation with couriers riding all over Europe.
“I pray you are right, Colonel,” murmured the princess so only I could hear and then she gestured to the surrounding throng. “These are all people who have risen in the emperor’s service. The Duke of Auerstaedt, Marshal Davout, was a junior lieutenant at the time of the Revolution, you know my Michel was a cavalry trooper, Soult was a private and the Comte d’Erlon over there was a locksmith. I don’t need to tell you that men follow Napoleon because there are no limits to the heights that they can rise to if they are lucky and serve him well. They could become princes or, like Murat, rise from a haberdasher’s clerk to king of Naples.”
“The emperor is a generous ruler,” I agreed.
“You don’t understand what I am telling you,” interrupted the princess irritably. “The higher a man rises the more he worries about keeping what he has got. Already three of the emperor’s old marshals have decided that he cannot win and have declared for the king. Another three have ruled themselves out of campaigning on either side as they are too old or ill and a further two are out of the country and who knows if they will come back. My Michel could never go back to the king now, even if he wanted to. But some of these,” and here she nodded with her head at the crowd while stabbing viciously down on another fleur de lys, “will be trying to play both sides to protect their position whatever happens. Now the emperor is in the ascendancy they are here, but if things start to go wrong they will desert him like flies on a waking dog.”
I had initially taken the princess as a simple wife and mother who was content to let her husband manage affairs. But I realised now that she was an astute judge and probably a guiding hand in Ney’s career. Maybe that was the reason he appeared so lost when he had to make big decisions without her. I thought it would be foolish not to take advantage of her judgement; it would be useful information to take home. So I asked, “Do you think things will go wrong?”
Flashman's Waterloo (Adventures of Thomas Flashman Book 6) Page 13