Eliza was twenty; cold, hard and snobbish, from having been educated, although by Royal charity, at an academy for young ladies near Paris. She had recently married a Corsican noble, named Pasquale Baciocchi. Her mother had been pleased with the match and permitted it without consulting Napoleon. When he had heard of it, he had been furious as he had intended to provide her with a husband having better brains and fortune.
His elder brother, the pedestrian-minded, yet industrious, Joseph, he had had appointed Ambassador to Rome, but he had already usurped the headship of the family from him, and on that account been even more enraged with his second brother, Lucien, than with Eliza. This young man was such a rabid revolutionary that he had changed his name to Brutus, and some time before, in true democratic style, married a girl named Christine Boyer who acted as barmaid in her father's inn at St. Maxime. In the spring of '96, Roger had bought a property in the South of France not far from that little town. to enable him to give out in Paris that he was going to stay there for a while, as cover for secret returns to England; so it chanced that he knew the girl slightly. He thought her pretty, honest and reasonably intelligent, but that did not make up for her lack of birth and fortune in the eyes of Robespierre's old protégé the poverty stricken little Captain of Artillery now that he had become the uncrowned King of Italy.
Pauline, however, was admirably sustaining her new role as a Princess. She was the beauty of the family, a lovely young creature of seventeen, gay, flirtatious and always surrounded by a group of admirers, although she too was married, and had been so only for a few months. But she had married, under Napoleon's auspices, the handsome and gallant General Charles Leclerc.
Louis, Laetitia's third son, was also there. As the only possible means of giving him an education Napoleon had, after a leave in Corsica as a young Lieutenant, taken him back to France. He had shared with Louis his modest lodging, kept him on his meagre pay and tutored him at nights; so he looked on Louis as a son rather than as a brother. Louis was now nineteen; he had served through the Italian campaign on Napoleon's staff and worshipped him.
Jerome, the youngest boy, as yet only thirteen, was at school under Joseph's care in Rome, and Caroline, the youngest girl, aged sixteen, was with Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's only daughter, at Madam Campan's, a smart finishing school for young ladies outside Paris.
Josephine's son Eugene was also doing his step-father credit. He was short, sturdy and had a waddling walk, but was full of fun, generous and, although still in his teens, had proved his courage in several battles as Napoleon's youngest A.D.C.
Lastly, this semi-royal family circle was completed by Joseph Fesch, Laetitia's half-brother: a mild-mannered little priest. He had inherited nothing of her forceful, narrow, but clear-cut views and iron will to maintain her old principles, yet he was already being fawned upon by the Bishops and Cardinals who came to pay court to his pale, young, dynamic, and terribly explosive nephew.
After supper on Roger's first evening at Montebello, Josephine beckoned him to her and told Napoleon how she had rescued this old friend of theirs in Venice. Close to, Roger found him little changed either physically or in manner. He was as thin as ever, an undersized wisp of a man; yet his feats of endurance, and his having played a bold part in the hand-to-hand fighting on several critical occasions during the campaign, testified to his actual fitness, and the strength that lay concealed in his slender body. His skin seemed a little less yellow but it was stretched as tightly as ever over his high cheekbones, and his prominent nose stood out sharply from them. The greater part of his broad forehead was hidden under a fringe and long lank locks of hair fell down to his collar on either side of his immensely strong jaw. He seemed a little listless and disinterested as Josephine spoke to him of Roger, but his fine eyes had already shown friendly recognition and, when she had done, his mobile mouth breaking into a sudden smile, he said quickly:
'I am pleased that Madame, my wife, should have arrived so opportunely to save you. Sometime you must tell me what you have been up to for all these months. When I have a moment I will send for you.'
For the next two days, Roger mingled with the Court, renewing some acquaintances and making many new ones. Joachin Murat he already knew. It was this handsome, dashing Gascon who, in the pouring rain on the night of 12th Vendemiaire, had fetched the guns from Les Sablons and so enabled Buonaparte to give the Paris mob 'a whiff of grape shot' on the morning of the 13th. Since, starting with a brilliant charge at Borghetto, he had established himself as Boneparte's finest cavalry leader, and now decked himself out in uniforms of his own invention of which the cloth could hardly be seen for gold. Marmont, a young gunner who was Boneparte's special protégé, he had also met, and Alexander Berthier, the Chief-of-Staff, as ugly as Murat was handsome and rivalling him only in the splendour of his uniforms.
Among his new acquaintances were stolid old Serurier, tail stern, gloomy, with a big scar on his lip; Joubert, a young "General who had greatly distinguished himself and in a very short time become one of the most trusted leaders of the army; Andre Massena, tall, dark, thin, Jewish-looking, who seemed a dull man socially, but was said to be a living flame of inspiration on a battlefield. It was he who, in the final advance across the Alps, had stormed the Col de Terwis, and at Rivoli he had led his division in a way which had already earned him immortal glory. Desaix was also there. From discontent at the lack of initiative shown by the Army of the Rhine, he had left it and come down to Italy to offer his homage to Boneparte, His request for employment had been accepted and soon this brilliant soldier was being looked on by the General-in-Chief as one of the ablest of his lieutenants. Lannes was another; as yet only a Brigadier, and still suffering from terrible wounds received in the campaign, but he had been the first man to cross the river Adda and was already regarded as the most audacious leader of infantry assaults.
It was on the third morning that Roger was sent for, and he found the General-in-Chief in one of his tempers. He had been reading some news-sheets financed by the extreme Right which had articles in them deliberately belittling his achievements, because he was regarded as a die-hard republican.
As Roger was shown in, he threw the papers on the ground, trampled on them and cried in his harsh French, with its atrocious Italian accent, 'Lies! Lies! Lies! How dare they say that all my plans are made for me by Berthier, and that old Carnot sends me day-to-day orders from his Cabinet in the Luxemburg.'
Pausing for a moment, he stared at Roger, then went on angrily, 'But you know the truth, Monsieur Breuc; you know the truth. When we had that long talk together in my1 room at the Rue des Capucines, I told you my intentions, did I not?'
'Indeed you did, mon General,' Roger replied enthusiastically, 'and you have carried them out most brilliantly.'
'All but; all but. We should be in Vienna now, had my colleagues accomplished a tenth of what I have done. Four times the Austrians have put armies in the field much greater than mine, and four times I have defeated them.
'And what with, I ask you? What with? When I came to it the army was no more than a rabble. I spoke to the men. I said: "Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed. The Government owes you much; it can give you nothing. Your long suffering, the courage you show among these crags, are splendid, but they bring you no glory; not a ray is reflected upon you. I wish to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, great towns, will be in your power; there you will find honour, glory, riches. Soldiers of the Army of Italy, can you be found lacking in honour, courage and constancy?
As Roger listened, he realised what such a declaration must have meant. Up till them, France had been fighting against a Monarchist coalition to save the Revolution-to defend herself from invasion and having a King put back on her throne by force of arms-and, where her legions had carried the war into other countries, Belgium, Holland and Piedmont, it had been with the proclaimed ideal of liberating these peoples from the tyran
ny of autocratic rulers. But Boneparte had thrown all that overboard. He had altered the whole policy of the war to one of open aggression, declaring it upon peaceful states that in no way threatened France, and inciting his troops to follow him by promises of a free hand to loot and pillage them.
Roger's face remained impassive, but he realised now that the small thin man, dressed so quietly in white breeches, tricolour sash and green coat, who ranted at him, was another Attila who, for his own glory, would stop at nothing and prove a terrible scourge to mankind. Meanwhile the tirade went on:
'I marched them and fought them until they could no longer stand. In eleven days, I forced the Piedmontese out of the war. In a campaign of fourteen days I conquered the Milanese. In fifteen days I forced the Pope to sue for peace. Within thirty-six days of leaving Mantua I was only seventy miles from Vienna. Had I consulted my own interest, and the comfort of the army, I should have remained in Italy. But I threw myself into Germany to extricate the armies of the Rhine. I crossed the Julien and Nordic Alps in three feet of snow. I brought my artillery by roads where not even a cart had ever been and everyone said it was impossible. Had Moreau crossed the Rhine to meet me, we should be in a position to dictate the conditions of peace as masters. As it is, I am left to bluster and intrigue to hold the half of what I have won. Meanwhile, these gentlemen in Paris have the insolence to criticise my treatment of the Milanese and the Venetians. But I shall show them. Yes, I shall show them. I have sent Augereau to Paris and he will know how to deal with such traitors.'
Suddenly he broke off, gave Roger a long stare and snapped, 'And you? What have you been doing?'
Roger told him that knowing that one of his greatest ambitions was to conquer England, he had in the spring of '96 had himself smuggled over to renew his contacts there and to be the better able to report on the chances of a successful invasion.
At first he seemed to be only half listening and thinking of something else; but when Roger went on to say that a chance had arisen for him to go to India, Boneparte's large luminous eyes suddenly lit up.
'India!' he exclaimed. 'The East has always fascinated me. You must tell me about it. Every detail. But not now. Tell them to lay a cover for you at my table. Over dinner I shall have time to please myself in listening to you.'
Among Roger's greatest assets was the ability both to write and talk well; so at dinner he was able to hold his audience enthralled by accounts of the wealth of Calcutta, fairy palaces, tiger shoots, temples, bazaars, and native Princes dripping with jewels. But Boneparte never took long over his meals; so afterwards he carried Roger off to a big room, the walls of which wore covered with maps.
At a large desk in it a man was working who had been pointed out to Roger as Fauvelet de Bourrienne. He had known Boneparte from the age of eight and been his only intimate friend while they were cadets together in the Military Academy at Brienne. Later he had held a diplomatic post in Germany and, as he was an aristocrat, had wisely refused to leave it when recalled to Paris during the Terror. In consequence, had been listed as an émigré and only after considerable pressure by Boneparte been granted permission to come to his headquarters. He had arrived on the day that the peace preliminaries at Leoben had been signed, and Boneparte knowing his great abilities, had at once made him his Chef de Cabinet.
The maps on the wall were all of Italy or Germany, but Bourrienne produced one of India and, knowing his master's habits, spread it out on the floor. Boneparte flopped down in his favourite position at full length on his stomach and Roger knelt beside him.
It was not until Roger began to trace his homeward journey that Boneparte realised that he had returned by way of the Red Sea and Egypt and, at this, his mood changed from that of interested listener to eager questioner.
'If I ever go to India, that is the road I shall take.' he declared after a while. 'The Revolution played the very devil with our fleet, and sailors cannot be made like soldiers in a few months of hard campaigning. It will take years yet before the new officers of our Navy become expert at their business and discipline among the seamen is fully restored. Meanwhile, at sea the British will continue to have the advantage of us. It would be suicide to try to transport an army round the Cape. Besides, there are no lands on which we could live on the way.'
As Roger talked on about Cairo, the Pyramids and the Nile it emerged that the young conqueror's mind had already been, moving in that direction, for he said, 'The Austrians thought themselves clever when in June they anticipated one of the proposals for a peace, by occupying the Venetian territories on the Dalmatian coast: but that gave me just the excuse I needed for seizing Corfu and the Ionian Isles. We took them by clever stratagem, too. I sent General Gentilli to tell the Venetians in the forts that, as the friend and protector of Venice, I was sending French troops to strengthen their garrisons. The fools believed him and admitted our men. We collected most of the Venetian Navy, five hundred cannon and immense stores. But I'd meant to have the Islands anyhow, because they are the first stepping-stone should we decide to go East.'
'Now that you have become of such importance to France, surely the Directory would not agree to your leaving Europe?" Roger hazarded, to draw him out.
'What, those fellows!' He gave a quick laugh. They would give an eye apiece to see me go. And they have often toyed with schemes for getting back our lost foothold in India. It must be that next or the conquest of England, and if the English make peace we will go to Egypt. I'll not see my soldiers disbanded or starving. I owe it to them to find them fresh employment.'
After a moment he went on, 'And whichever it is, you must come with us. Your antecedents, and the knowledge you have acquired of places, will prove most useful. Bourrienne- Bourrienne; do you hear me?'
The Chef de Cabinet had all this time been writing letter after letter at incredible speed. Now he looked up and asked, 'What is it mon General!'
Boneparte got to his feet, dusted his bony knees, and said, 'Breuc, here, is half an Englishman and can pass as one anywhere. If we had invaded the island in '96,1 should have taken him with me. I shall do so if fate assigns that to us as our next task. But I find now that he has spent the past year in the East, and has added Persian and Arabic to the several European tongues he speaks; so he could prove equally valuable to us on the Nile. Besides, he was with me at Toulon, and on 13th Vendemiaire, and I like to have about me faces I know. I shall make him an extra A.D.C., but at one time he was a journalist; so while we have no fighting to do, he could help you.'
Bourrienne stood up, bowed and said, as he and Roger cordially shook hands, 'I have work enough here for ten, and most of the staff are more able at handling a sword than a pen; so I shall be delighted to have Monsieur Breuc's assistance.'
Thus it transpired that, without any striving on Roger's part, the long chain of his previous activities opened wide to him all Boneparte's secrets.
The Corsican's reference to the possibility of England making peace led Roger to take an early opportunity next day of questioning Bourrienne on the subject. He then learnt that despite their humiliation in December, the British Government had again opened negotiations. Of their last attempt, owing to the severe winter weather, Lord Malmesbury's progress to Paris had been so exceptionally slow that Edmund Burke had caustically remarked that 'he must have gone all the way on his knees'. This malicious jibe had been printed in all the Whig news-sheets and so reached France, where it had caused much delighted laughter. Nevertheless, in spite, so French intelligence reported, of strong opposition from King George and a threat by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, to resign, Mr. Pitt had decided to eat humble-pie and try again.
The Directors, fearing that, if Malmesbury came to Paris, now that the Right had become so strong it might be strengthened by him to overthrow them, had decreed that the negotiations should be conducted in Lille, Malmesbury had arrived there in July and the key man among those sent to treat with him was Hugues Bernard Maret, a gifted diplomat who was anxious to
agree a peace, as also were the French Constitutionalists, who now formed the great bulk of the Deputies, Owing to the wretched conditions that prevailed in the interior of France, they would have even met Britain half-way. Carnot and Barthelemy were also strongly of the opinion that now that France could negotiate from strength, owing to her victories in Italy, she should seize the opportunity to get good terms and bring an end to the war. But they were outvoted by their three die-hard Republican colleagues. These insisted that Britain should not be left even a rag to cover the shame of her surrender.
Now that the Austrians were negotiating separately, Mr. Pitt was no longer under any obligation to insist on the return to them of their Belgian territories. He was even willing to give up all the West Indian islands that Britain had taken from the French, and to assist them in suppressing the negro revolt in the richest of all their old colonies San Domingo. But the Jacobin Directors were now sticking out for the return of colonies lost to their allies. They demanded back Trinidad for Spain and the Cape for Holland, knowing that if these were conceded they could make them their own. Realising this, Mr. Pitt had dug his toes in about the Cape, since without it the British route to India would no longer be secure. There the matter rested.
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