[Marianne 6] - Marianne and the Crown of Fire

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by Juliette Benzoni


  'Marianne, Marianne, you are very bitter,' the Vicomte said gently. 'I am not the man to defend him, but it's possible that you are painting him blacker than he is.'

  'No, Jolival. I ought to have understood long ago. He is what he is – and I have only got my deserts. There is a limit to how stupid—'

  Her torrent of self-criticism and disillusionment was broken into suddenly by a loud babble of voices among which Marianne had no difficulty in picking out the Emperor's metallic tones. A moment later, the doors of the imperial suite were flung open and Napoleon himself swept through them. He was in his dressing-gown, his hair on end and the nightcap he had just snatched off still in his hand.

  There was instant silence. The hubbub of conversation died away as the Emperor's fulminating eye travelled over the assembled company.

  "Why are you all standing here chattering like a flock of old women? Why was I not called? Why are you none of you at your posts? Fires are breaking out everywhere on account of the indiscipline of my troops and the careless way the inhabitants of this city are leaving their houses—'

  'Sire!' The protest came from a handsome blond giant whose Nordic features were framed in a pair of luxuriant golden whiskers. 'Sire, the men are no more to blame for the fires than we ourselves! It is the Muscovites themselves—'

  'Come, come! They tell me the city is given over to pillage. The soldiers are breaking down doors, bursting into cellars, carrying off tea, coffee, furs, wines and spirits. Well, I will not have it! You, Marshal, are Governor of Moscow. Put an end to this disorder!'

  Marshal Mortier, at whom this censure was directed, made a movement of protest which doubled as a gesture of helplessness, then turned and vanished down the stairs, followed by two officers of his staff.

  Meanwhile, Napoleon was declaiming: 'The Muscovites! The Muscovites! It's easy to blame the Muscovites! I cannot believe these people would set fire to their own houses to deprive us of a night's lodging!'

  Courageously, Marianne made her way towards him.

  'And yet, Sire, it is true. I beg you to believe me! Your troops are not responsible for this tragedy. Rostopchin alone—'

  The imperial gaze fell wrathfully on her.

  'Are you still here, Madame? At this hour a respectable woman should be in her bed. Return to yours!'

  'And there wait patiently until my blankets are on fire and I may burn to death proclaiming my loyalty to the Emperor who is always right? No, thank you, Sire. If you will not listen to me, I would rather be gone from here.'

  'And where to, if I may ask?'

  'Anywhere, as long as it is out of here! I've no desire to wait until it is no longer possible to get out of this accursed palace! Or to form part of the holocaust Rostopchin has prepared to the memory of the Russian troops slain at the Moskva! You may do so if you like, Sire, but I am young and I still wish to live. And so, with your permission—' She swept a curtsy. But the reminder of his recent victory had calmed the Emperor. Bending forward suddenly he took the tip of her ear between his fingers and pulled it, with a force that drew a yelp from her.

  'Calm yourself, Princess,' he said, smiling. 'You will not persuade me that you are afraid. Not you! As to your departure hence, we forbid it. If it becomes necessary to leave, we shall do so together. But for the present, let me tell you, there is no such necessity. You have my permission only to withdraw and rest yourself. We breakfast at eight.'

  But Marianne was not fated to return to her room just yet. As the uneasy crowd which had filled the gallery began to disperse, a platoon of soldiers entered briskly, led by General Durosnel, escorting a number of men dressed in a species of green uniform and several long-haired moujiks, apparently prisoners. Lelorgne d'Ideville, the Emperor's interpreter, came hurrying after them. The Emperor, who had been about to return to his own apartments, turned frowning.

  'Now what is it? Who are these men?'

  Durosnel told him.

  'They are called boutechniks, Sire. They are the law officers whose duty it is to keep order in the streets. They were caught with lighted torches in the act of setting fire to a shop selling wines and spirits. These beggars were with them, assisting them.'

  Napoleon started and his glowering gaze went, automatically, to Marianne's.

  'Are you sure of this?'

  'Quite sure, Sire. Furthermore there are witnesses, in addition to these men who apprehended them – some Polish shopkeepers of the neighbourhood who are coming after us.'

  Silence followed this. Napoleon began pacing up and down slowly in front of the group of frightened prisoners, his hands clasped behind his back, throwing occasional glances at the men, who held their breath instinctively. Suddenly, he stopped.

  'What have they to say for themselves?'

  Baron d'Ideville stepped forward.

  'They claim that they were ordered to set fire to the whole city by Governor Rostopchin before—'

  'That is not true!' the Emperor cried. 'It cannot be true because it does not make sense. The men are lying. They are simply trying to shuffle off responsibility for their crimes, hoping it may earn them a measure of leniency.'

  'Then they must be in collusion, Sire, for here come some more of them and I'll wager we will hear the same tale from them.'

  It was true, another group had appeared, in charge of Marianne's old acquaintance, Sergeant Bourgogne. This time, however, they were followed by an elderly Jew with scorchmarks on his gown. It was he who, with a great many bows and sighs, explained how, but for the providential arrival of the sergeant and his men, he would have been burned, along with the entire contents of a grocer's shop.

  'It's impossible!' Napoleon repeated several times. 'Impossible!' But his voice was losing some of its assurance. It was as if the repetition was intended, above all, to convince himself.

  'Sire,' Marianne intervened quietly, 'these men would rather destroy Moscow than see you enjoy it. That may be a primitive emotion, but it is a facet of love. You yourself, if Paris were in question—'

  'Paris? Burn Paris if the enemy took it? Now indeed you have run mad! I am not one to bury myself in the ruins. A primitive emotion, say you? These people may be Scythians but they have no right to sacrifice the work of many generations to the pride of one. And what is more—'

  But Marianne had ceased to listen to him. Instead, she was staring in horrified fascination at two men standing, deep in argument, at the entrance to the gallery. One was the court's master of ceremonies, the Comte de Ségur. The other was a diminutive priest in a black soutane whom she recognized without difficulty but with great uneasiness. What was Cardinal de Chazay doing here, in the presence of the man he had consistently opposed? What was his business? Why did he want to see the Emperor, for his arrival at the Kremlin in the middle of the night could have no other meaning?

  Before she could so much as hazard a guess, Ségur and his companion had joined the group. Napoleon was already giving out fresh orders, saying that he wanted patrols sent out to every district where the fires had not yet struck and a thorough house-to-house search for more men of the same kind as those still standing sheepishly before him.

  'What is to be done with these?' Durosnel asked.

  The sentence was quick and merciless.

  'We cannot take prisoners. Hang them or shoot them, as you will. They are felons in any case.'

  'But Sire, they are mere tools—'

  'A spy is likewise a tool and yet he can look for no mercy. There is nothing to prevent you from running Rostopchin to earth and hanging him too. Away!'

  Their departure left the way open for the master of ceremonies and his companion. Ségur advanced to meet the Emperor.

  'Sire,' he said, 'here is the Abbé Gauthier, a French priest, who is most anxious to speak to you regarding the present disturbances. He claims to possess reliable information.'

  For no ascertainable reason, Marianne's heart missed a beat and she felt as if an iron hand had suddenly clamped down on her windpipe. While Ségur was speakin
g, she had caught her godfather's eye and read in it such a hardness of purpose that it sent a chill up her spine. Never before had she seen in him this icy calm, this authority, wordlessly forbidding her to interfere in what might come. But it was only for a moment. Then the priest was bowing with the assumed awkwardness of one unused to consorting with the great ones of the world.

  Napoleon, meanwhile, was observing him closely.

  'You are a Frenchman, Monsieur l'Abbé? An émigré perhaps?'

  'No, Sire. A humble priest but, owing to my knowledge of latin, I was engaged some years since to tutor the children of Count Rostopchin in that noble language, and also in French.'

  'A language no less noble, Monsieur l'Abbé. So you were a member of the household of one who, I am told, although I cannot believe it, is an incendiary?'

  'And yet you must believe it, Sire. I am in a position to assure your Majesty that those were indeed the governor's orders. The city was to be razed to the ground, and the Kremlin also.'

  'But this is absurd! It is pure madness!'

  'No, Sire. It is the Russian way. There is only one way for your Majesty to save this ancient and renowned city.'

  'And what is that?'

  'Leave it. Withdraw from it immediately. There is still time. Abandon your intention to remain here and go back to France, and then the fires will stop.'

  'How can you be sure of this?'

  'I heard the Count give his orders. He has left certain trusted men who know where to find the fire engines. It could all be over in an hour… if your Majesty were to announce your immediate withdrawal.'

  Clasping her hands tightly together, Marianne listened breathlessly to this exchange which, to her, was totally incomprehensible. She could not imagine why her godfather should be trying to save the imperial army on pretence of saving Moscow. At the same time something which the Duc de Richelieu had said in Odessa recurred unbidden to her mind: 'He is going to Moscow where a great task awaits him, should the wretched Corsican ever get so far…'

  The Corsican was here. And here, facing him, the man whose secret power he could not know, a man sworn to a great task, and a man who had vowed to bring about his ruin. And now it was the cardinal's calm, quiet voice that filled Marianne with foreboding, far more than the Emperor's curt, incisive tones, although it was he who was speaking now, and with a note of menace.

  'My immediate withdrawal? Announce it to whom?'

  'To the night, Sire. A simple command or two from the Kremlin walls would be enough. It would be understood.'

  The silence that followed was so absolute that it seemed to Marianne that her own heartbeats must be heard by everyone.

  'Monsieur l'Abbé, you seem to me to be remarkably well-informed for a humble priest. You are a Frenchman, surrounded by Frenchmen. We have conquered and you should be proud. Yet you talk shamefully of flight.'

  'There is no shame in a flight from the elements, Sire, even for a conqueror. I am a Frenchman, yes, but I am also a man of God and I am thinking of how many men of yours will perish if you persist in opposing God.'

  'Are you going to tell me God is a Russian?'

  'God is the God of all nations. You have defeated the armies of this one but there are still the people, and the people reject you with all their might, even to destroying themselves with you. Believe me and go!'

  The last word rang out so imperiously that Marianne trembled. Gauthier de Chazay must have taken leave of his senses to address the Emperor of the French in such a tone, nor could she imagine what he hoped to achieve by it. Did he really believe that Napoleon would abandon Moscow just because he told him to? One look at that pale face, with its pinched nostrils and hard jaw-line, was enough to show that the situation was becoming dangerous.

  Sure enough, Napoleon jerked up his chin and spoke suddenly, with great vehemence.

  'I respect your cloth, Monsieur, but you are mad! Get out of my sight before I lose patience with you.'

  'No. I will not go. Not until I have made you understand, for once in your life, before your pride leads you into the abyss, and all your followers with you. Once, in time past, you took France, soiled and bleeding from the excesses of the Revolution, eaten away by the leprosy of jobbery and profiteering under the Directorate, and you stood her on her feet, swept and garnished, and you grew in stature with her. Yes, even I, who was never of your faction, I tell you you were great.'

  'And am I so no longer?' the Emperor asked haughtily.

  'You ceased to be so on the day you ceased to serve France and made her serve you. You had yourself made by a crime and since then to establish your sacrilegious power on a firmer footing you have taken from her, year by year, the best of her children and sent them to perish on every battlefield in Europe.'

  'It is to Europe, Monsieur, that you should address your complaint. It is Europe who could never bear to see France become France again, but greater and more powerful than before.'

  'Europe would have borne it had France remained France as you say. But you have swollen her belly with a host of kingdoms and annexations she had no need of. But you had to have thrones for your brothers, did you not, and fortunes for those who followed you? And to set up these paper kings you have ruined and destroyed the oldest families in Europe.'

  'You have said it! Old, dead, worn-out, finished! What is it about my crown that irks you? Are you one of those who would have had me seek the foolish glory of a Monk? Who want to see the decrepit line of the Bourbons restored to the throne?'

  'No!'

  That one, emphatic cry left Marianne if anything more bewildered than before. What was happening? Was Gauthier de Chazay, secret agent of the Comte de Provence, who called himself Louis XVIII, now denying his master? She had not long to wonder.

  'No,' the cardinal said again. 'I do not deny that I wished it once. That I do so no longer is a matter for myself alone. I might even have come to accept you. But you have ceased to do your country good. You think only of your conquests and if you were allowed to do so would unpeople France for the glory of doing as Alexander the Great and reaching for the Indies to place the crown of Akbar on your head! No! It is enough! Go! Go, while there is yet time! Before God wearies of you!'

  'Leave God out of it! I have heard enough! You are a mad old man. Get out before I have you put under guard!'

  'Arrest me if you will. You will not arrest the wrath of God. Look, all of you!'

  Such was the passion that inhabited the frail body that all those present turned, automatically, and followed the direction of his pointing hand.

  'See! The fire from heaven is upon you. Unless you quit this city by tonight there will be no stone left upon another and you will all be buried in the ruins! Truly, I say unto you—'

  'Enough!'

  Napoleon, white-faced, bore down on his antagonist with clenched fists.

  'Your impudence is equalled only by your folly. Who sent you here? What is your purpose?'

  'No one sent me – no one but God! And I have spoken for your good—'

  'Indeed? Who do you expect will believe that tale? You were with Rostopchin, were you not? You must know a great deal more than you have told. And you thought, you and those who paid you, that you had only to come here and pour your curses into my ears and I would pick up my skirts and run, like some foolish old woman, and make myself a laughing-stock for you? Well, abbé, I am not an old woman and the terrors you may rouse in simple souls in the darkness of your confessionals cannot touch me. I am not going. I have conquered Moscow and I mean to keep it.'

  'Then you will lose your Empire. And your son, the son you fathered, sacrilegiously, upon that unhappy princess who thinks herself your wife but who is nothing but your concubine, will never reign. And so much the better, for if he ever reigned it would be over a desert.'

  'Duroc!'

  The stunned and obscurely frightened onlookers gave way automatically to allow the Grand Marshal of the Palace to approach.

  'Sire?'

  'Arrest this
man! Lock him up well! He is a spy in Russian pay. Let him be locked up to await my orders. He shall die before I leave this palace.'

  'No!'

  Marianne's cry of anguish was lost in the general hubbub. Immediately, the cardinal was surrounded by guards and his hands tied behind his back. He was led away, still shouting.

  'You are on the edge of an abyss, Napoleon Bonaparte! Fly before it opens under your feet and drags you down, you and all those with you!'

  Napoleon, cursing furiously, made for his own apartments, accompanied by various members of his suite expressing shock and indignation at what had passed. Marianne hurried after them and caught up with the Emperor just as he was entering his bedchamber. She slipped in after him before the door closed on them both.

  'Sire,' she cried, 'I must speak to you!'

  Half-way across the room, he swung round and Marianne found herself shivering at the blackness of the look he bent on her.

  'I have heard a great deal of speech this morning, Madame. A deal too much, indeed! I had thought my command to you was to go back to your bed. Do as I bid you and leave me in peace.'

  She half knelt, as if she would have thrown herself at his feet, and clasped her hands in an instinctive gesture of supplication.

  'Sire! I beseech you! Do as the priest bade you and begone from here!'

  'Ha! Not you too? Will no one give me any peace? I wish to be alone, do you hear me? Alone!'

  Seizing the first object which came to hand, which happened to be a Chinese vase, he hurled it violently across the room. As ill luck would have it, Marianne was just that instant rising. The vase caught her on the temple and with a little moan she subsided on to the carpet.

  The bitter reek of sal volatile and a shattering headache were Marianne's first indications of returning consciousness. They were followed almost immediately by the voice of the invaluable Constant, speaking in soft and deferential reassurance.

 

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