The violence of his temper was equalled only by his colossal assurance about his own abilities, and by the vividness of his imagination; as he was always producing grandiose schemes for his own advancement. During the period of his disgrace he had conceived the idea of going off to reorganise the army of the Grand Turk and, without even writing to ask if the Sultan would like to employ him, had applied to the War office for permission to do so. It had been granted, and he had only been prevented from leaving for Turkey because somebody else at the War Office had suddenly discovered that he had ignored an order to report for duty with the Army of La Vendée; so cancelled his permit to go abroad and had his name erased from the list of Generals.
The possibility of improving his fortune by a good marriage had also occupied his imagination. First he had proposed to Désirée Clery; the sister of his elder brother, Joseph’s wife; but she had refused him. Then he had produced an extraordinary project for a triple union between the Permon and Buonaparte families. Albert was to marry his pretty young sister Paulette, Laura was to be given to his boy brother Lucien, and he, although the recently widowed Madame Permon was more than twice his age, was to espouse her. They laughed a lot over this crazy notion, but Madame Permon assured them that he had made the proposal to her in all seriousness.
From the evening’s talk with the Permons Roger formed the impression that Buonaparte had inherited from his half-peasant mother the temper, pride and toughness of a Corsican brigand, and that his mind was subject to erratic twists sufficiently marked for him to be regarded as a little mad.
Next day, however, to get another intimate opinion he invited Andoche Junot to dine with him, and afterwards he felt that he ought to modify his opinion, at least to the extent that the Corsican’s madness generally had method. Making liberal allowances for the young A.D.C.’s passionate devotion, it could not be contested that his idol had frequently displayed a cool head, sound judgment and shrewd foresight.
There had been, for example, the occasion of Buonaparte’s arrest and imprisonment after 9th Thermidor. Had he been sent to Paris, as the protégé of the elder Robespierre and the bosom friend of the younger, his risk of following them to the guillotine would have been a high one. Knowing that, Junot had offered to collect a few friends, break into the prison and rescue him. But Buonaparte had refused the offer, and the reason he afterwards gave for his refusal was that if—as he did succeed in doing—he could get his case dealt with locally, he would stand a good chance of being acquitted, whereas if he allowed himself to be forcibly rescued he would become an outlaw and have lost his Commission for good.
Again, his having ignored the order to proceed to La Vendée had not been a temperamental act, but a calculated risk. For one thing he had not wanted to have it on his record that he had been engaged in fighting French peasants; for another he felt that, although he was then employed only in the Topographical Section of the War Office, if he remained in Paris, where all appointments of importance were made, luck or intrigue might lead to his securing a far better one.
The handsome Junot, now resplendent in the uniform of a Colonel of Hussars, spoke with glowing admiration of Buonaparte’s qualities as a soldier: his eagle eye for a battery position, his instantaneous decisions, and his complete fearlessness in battle; then with a shade of awe in his voice he touched on his General’s other qualities: his intenseness, his extraordinary personal magnetism, and his ability, by no more than the direct glance of his eyes, to reduce men who were much older than himself, and in authority over him, to stammering inanity.
After dining well at the Café Rampollion they parted, and Roger went on to Madame Tallien’s. Tall, graceful, her dark hair cut au Titus, in an aureole of short curls round her shapely head, Theresa Tallien looked as lovely as ever. As Roger edged his way through the court she was holding, to kiss her hand, he thought it by no means surprising that her uncle, whose ward for a time she had been, had gone so mad about her when she was still only fourteen that he had done his utmost to persuade her to marry him. On the other hand, Roger was quite shocked by Tallien’s appearance, as he now looked much more than his age, grey-faced and ill. Later in the evening he heard from a fellow guest that his old colleague of the Commune had recently been subjected to a most unpleasant shock, which, no doubt, partially accounted for his lack-lustre eyes and woebegone appearance.
In order to marry Theresa he had divorced his first wife, but as she was still a young and attractive woman, and remained in love with him, he had continued to feel a tenderness for her, and kept her in their old home. However, his treatment of her had been capricious and so much so in recent months that, on his ignoring an invitation to breakfast with her one morning not long since, she had decided that he had at last made up his mind to abandon her for good. Actually that was far from being the case and he had all the time intended to go as a little surprise for her. On arriving at the house he found her being carried downstairs covered with blood. She had just committed suicide from despair.
The affair had shaken him terribly, but Roger could not help feeling that it was only a very small instalment of what was due to him for his many crimes during the Revolution.
After a while Roger got Madame Tallien to himself for a few moments, and, when they had conversed for a little, he remarked: ‘I have not so far seen General Buonaparte. I had expected to find him here, as he was always a regular attendant at your evenings.’
‘He comes no more,’ she replied, then added with a laugh: ‘He is angry with me. A few weeks ago he suggested that I should divorce poor Tallien, in order to be able to marry him; and when I refused he took great offence. But he consoled himself quickly enough. For the past month he has been dancing attendance on my sweet friend Josephine de Beauharnais.’
‘She has, then, received him more kindly?’ Roger hazarded.
‘Poor dear, she hardly knows what to do. He is pressing her to marry him with the same fierceness as if she were an enemy fortress upon the taking of which the fate of France depended. And his letters to her! You should but see them. The passion he displays for her is quite frightening, and in parts they would make a grandmother blush. Fortunately, she has a pretty sense of humour; so is able to alleviate her fear of him by keeping her mind on the comic spectacle he presents when he declares his passion for her.’
After two more days given mainly to apparently idle chatter with numerous other people many of whom had known Buonaparte for a considerable time, Roger decided that he was now as well briefed as he could hope to be for a meeting with the Corsican. Wishing it to appear a chance one, on the 26th he spent some hours hanging about the Jardin des Plantes as Junot had happened to mention that, either in the morning or afternoon, the General usually took his exercise there; and soon after two o’clock Roger’s patience was rewarded. At a brisk walk, coming down one of the paths towards him, was a short, spare figure wearing a grey overcoat and an enormous hat, the brim of which was turned up in the front and at one side, and had a three-inch wide border of gold galon round it.
On their greeting one another it transpired that Buonaparte had heard of Roger’s return from Barras; so when they had spoken of the South of France and touched on their mutual memories of 13th Vendémiaire, it was quite natural that they should fall into step and continue their walk side by side. Roger had then only to mention the war to set Buonaparte off on a non-stop monologue.
He had an ugly Italian accent and his speech was frequently ungrammatical, but everything he said was lucid, and the trenchant expressions he used were always to the point. As he reviewed each battle area in turn he criticised without mercy the Army and Corps commanders, although he had never handled a Brigade himself, and they were the men who in the past three years had gained France a score of victories. He declared that the failure of the campaigns of’95 on both the Italian and Rhine fronts had been due to scandalous incompetence, and proceeded to lay down the law about what each of the generals should have done and when he should have done it.
When he had talked himself hoarse Roger managed to get a word in, and remarked: ‘No doubt you are right about the Italian campaign; but are you quite convinced that it was not something other than incompetence which led to our armies having to fall back across the Rhine?’
After giving him a sharp glance, Buonaparte rapped out: ‘You have, then, heard these rumours about Pichegru? Do you believe them?’
‘I hardly know what to think,’ replied Roger cautiously. ‘His failure to take Heidelberg was in such striking contrast to the abilities he previously displayed that either the rumours are true, or he has become the victim of a sudden softening of the brain.’
‘The latter must have been the case, or something like it. Even conceding that he may not at heart have been quite such a pure patriot as he pretended, and making allowance for the weakness to which all men are subject, I cannot believe that he sold his country. What could he possibly have stood to gain?’
Roger had now brought the conversation to the point he wanted, and he said casually: ‘I’m told that he was offered the baton of a Marshal of France, a Dukedom, the Governorship of Alsace, the Chateau of Chambord, an income of…’
With an impatient gesture Buonaparte cut him short. ‘What do such baubles and fripperies amount to in these days? Since we now have no Marshals, as the most successful General in the Army of the Republic he was already the equivalent of one. And who but a madman would wish to be called Duke or Excellency at the price of having to dance attendance on that fat fool of a Bourbon Prince? As for Chateaux and incomes, they will fall like ripe plums into the hand of any man who has the ability to carve with his sword a writ for them in the broken armies of our enemies. No, I cannot believe that any sane General who had victory in his hands, as Pichegru had, or even a remote prospect of it, would barter glory for such a mess of pottage.’
So it was that Roger received the answer to his mission. As Buonaparte clearly believed that it was now only a matter of time before he got an opportunity to cut an enemy army into pieces, there could be no doubt whatever that he was unbribable. To wage war and win glory was his lodestar, and had he been offered the Crown Jewels, a Vice-royalty and the Bank of England, he still would not have given such a proposition a second thought.
There was only one thing upon which Roger felt that he could congratulate himself. It was that his approach had been made so skilfully that the young General could not possibly suspect that he had started the conversation with any ulterior motive. He was, therefore, shaken to the roots of his being when, a moment later Buonaparte said:
‘Am I right in believing you to have been born an Englishman?’
25
Desperate Intrigue
The question was a really alarming one. It might mean only that Buonaparte had heard a garbled version of one of the several accounts Roger had given of himself in the past; but it might mean that recently there had been some leak connecting him with London, and that Buonaparte, who now combined the functions of Chief of the Police with his Command, had come upon it in a report; so did in fact suspect him.
‘No,’ he said, after only a second’s hesitation. ‘What gave you that idea?’
‘Your name cropped up at Madame de Staël’s one night a few weeks ago. Someone was asking what had become of you, and an argument developed between the Deputy Fréron and a ci-devant Marquis, whose name I do not recall. The one maintained that you began your career as an English journalist, and having been sent over here, like the Deputy Tom Paine, you abandoned your country out of enthusiasm for the Revolution; the other, that you were an Alsatian who had once been secretary to a nobleman, and later appeated at Versailles, a young exquisite, calling yourself the Chevalier de Breuc.’
Greatly relieved, Roger was able to reply: ‘There is something of truth in both their accounts of me; but I was born a Frenchman and my political convictions have ever been those of a Republican.’ Then, feeling that this was an admirable opportunity once and for all to dovetail the varying beliefs held about him by different stratas of society in Paris, he went on:
‘I was born in Strassburg. My father was a Frenchman of moderate fortune, my mother the daughter of a Scottish Earl who had run away with him. Both died when I was quite young; so my mother’s sister, who had married an English naval officer, took charge of me and I went to live with her in southern England. She gave me a good education, but I always longed to get back to France. At the age of fifteen, I ran away and succeeded in doing so. For some years I devilled in a lawyer’s office in Rennes; then I became secretary to the Marquis de Rochambeau. In ‘87, owing to a duel, I was compelled to fly from France; so naturally returned to England. There I took up journalism, and through it became acquainted with many of the Whig nobility who were eagerly following the agitation for reform in France. Their influence with the French Ambassador secured me a pardon which enabled me to return, and their introductions gained me the entrée at Versailles. But, after a while, the news-letters I sent to my paper proved too revolutionary, for the liking of my paymasters, and when I became a member of the Jacobin Club they cut off my remittance, Having no other source of income I was again compelled to return to England, but my Aunt was also out of sympathy with my revolutionary principles; so refused me help, and for the best part of two years I had a hard time of it making enough by my pen to support myself. By then the Revolution had progressed to a point where I felt that I must play a further part in it; so once more I came back to France. Shortly after my return I was elected a member of the Commune. Later I was given several missions as Citizen Représentant by both Robespierre and Carnot. It was in that capacity, you will remember, that I first met you at the siege of Toulon. My more recent history you already know.’
He had taken certain liberties with his earlier cover stories, such as stating that his mother had been Scottish, and that it was not a godmother but an aunt who had had him educated in England, because he felt that the nearer the truth he could go the safer he would be against future eventualities. But no one would, after all this time, be able to recall with certainty the exact degree of relationships he had given them; and he felt great satisfaction at having at last blended into a concrete whole the two roles he had played.
As he ceased speaking, Buonaparte, seizing upon the one essential that interested him, exclaimed: ‘Then you have lived long in England, and must know that country well! There are matters in which you can be of great use to me, Please return with me to my office. ’
‘With pleasure,’ Roger replied. ‘I take it you refer to your projected invasion of the island?’
The young General halted in his tracks, swung round, and snapped: ‘Who told you aught of that?’
Roger shrugged. ‘Why, Barras, of course. Since it was I who first brought him, Tallien and Dubois-Crancé together for the planning of 9th Thermidor, he naturally takes me into his confidence about many matters.’
‘I am relieved to hear that it was not through idle gossip which might get to one of Mr. Pitt’s agents. This concept is of the highest secrecy, but seeing that you are to be trusted, it is as well that you should know the whole truth. It will enable me to use your knowledge of the country to much better advantage.’
As they walked towards the entrance of the gardens Buonaparte asked: ‘Have you seen Tallien since your return?’
‘Yes. I was at his house three nights ago. I thought him looking very ill.’
The General grunted. ‘Tallien is finished. His first wife’s suicide has disturbed his mind. In any case he played a double game once too often when he ordered the execution of those poor devils of émigrés after Quiberon. The reactionaries will never forgive him, yet we now have proof that he was coquetting with the Royalists, so he will never again be regarded with confidence by the Government. I told his wife as much. But she is a fool, and I have no patience With her.’
Roger, knowing the reason for this outburst, had a quiet laugh to himself, and was even more amused when Buonaparte went on:
By this time they had reached the gate, where the General’s coach was waiting. As they got into it and drove off Roger began to run over in his mind all that had transpired in the past half hour. His original mission had gone up in smoke, as it was clear that he might as well have tried to bribe a brick wall as the fiery little Corsican; but luck and the skilful handling of the conversation had compensated him by providing a new opening. If he continued to play his cards well it looked as if he would at least be able to obtain full particulars of Buonaparte’s plans for the invasion of England.
The coach set them down in the Rue des Capucines, at the fine house Buonaparte now occupied adjacent to his headquarters. Without a word he took Roger straight upstairs, unlocked a door, and led him into a room containing a huge table littered with papers, and having several large maps pinned up on the walls.
The Dark Secret of Josephine Page 47