Napoleon's Exile

by Patrick Rambaud

  NAPOLEON’S EXILE

  Patrick Rambaud

  Translated from the French by

  Shaun Whiteside

  Copyright © 2003 by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle

  Translation copyright © 2005 by Macmillan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

  First published in English in 2005 by Picador,

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd., London, England

  Originally published in 2003 as L ‘Absent

  by Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rambaud, Patrick.

  [Absent. English]

  Napoleon’s exile : a novel / Patrick Rambaud ; translated by Shaun Whiteside.

  p. cm.

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9805-1

  I. Whiteside, Shaun. II. Title.

  PQ2678.A455A6413 2006

  843'.914—dc22 2005055017

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  To Tieu Hong

  To Messieurs Paul Morans, Jean Renoir

  and Dino Risi, les patrons

  To Madame Arundhati Roy,

  my statue of Liberty

  Also by Patrick Rambaud

  THE BATTLE

  THE RETREAT

  ON 29 MARCH 1814, the Emperor spent a sleepless night on a farm near Troyes that had been sacked by Prussian cavalry. While there, he received some alarming news: the enemy was massing on the shores of the Marne, and the reduced forces of Mortier and Marmont were turning back towards the tollgates of Paris, which they would not be fit to defend. The Marshals were yielding ground. Augereau, routed from Lyons, was retreating to Valence. Davout had shut himself away in Hamburg, and Prince Eugene’s army was trudging across Italy. And Murat? He was involved in negotiations with Austria to save his Neapolitan throne.

  Europe was invading France. In the south, some of Wellington’s divisions, swollen by elite Spanish and Portuguese troops, had occupied Bordeaux and the surrounding region. In the north, Holland was in revolt, and Bernadotte’s Sweden remained a threat. To the east, the Russians, the Austrians and the Prussians had passed through the Vosges and crossed the Rhine; converging on the capital from three directions. For two months they had been fighting a war-weary campaign; from dazzling victories to costly defeats, in frozen fog, in the rain, in the mud, they took and retook villages, bridges and hills; they were short of provisions, and the men were exhausted.

  Marshal Ney, known as ‘the redhead’, Prince of the Moskva, knelt on the ground and fed the fire with pieces of a chair. His features tired, in a face that had grown puffy, with his paunch thrust forward and his hands held under his coat-tails, the Emperor asked him: ‘How long will it take us to get back to Paris?’

  ‘According to Macdonald’s last message, the allies are at Meaux, they’re holding the Marne ...’

  ‘We’ll skirt the obstacle via Sens and Melun and make it to Fontainebleau. How long’s that?’

  ‘The army won’t be there for at least four days, sire, and in such a state!’

  ‘I’ll put our battalions under your command, and I’ll go on ahead. At a gallop, with an escort, I’ll be in Paris tomorrow morning to organize the resistance.’

  ‘That’s madness, sire!’

  ‘You sound like Berthier, Marshal, but I’m still capable of unnerving people.’

  With cocked beaver hat pulled low over his eyes, coat buttoned to the chin and collar turned up, and with his whip fastened to his right wrist, the Emperor was ready to leave the farm at sunrise. Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel and Wagram, had predicted his master’s caprice, and was waiting in the cold grey light, wrapped in a muddy coat. Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, and Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig, stood ready, along with ‘virtuous’ Drouot - a general and a baker’s son - and Count Bertrand, the Grand Marshal of the palace. Similarly swaddled in grey or brown, the four men stamped their heels against the frozen earth. The dragoons and chasseurs were already mounted, their helmets drab and battered, their bearskin hats moth-eaten, their coats torn, threadbare and dirty, and their teeth chattering in faces blue with cold.

  Berthier and Caulaincourt hoisted the Emperor on to his horse and they set off, passing through the still slumbering town of Troyes, and galloping along the road to Sens. Soon the group was stretched out and scattered: the horses were exhausted, some fell, while others couldn’t muster a trot, or else they lagged and bridled; even the Emperor’s horse kept to a walking pace despite the harsh digs of the spurs that drew blood from its flanks. At noon, the ten survivors of this pitiful race stopped at the inn in Villeneuve-l’Archevêque. Napoleon dismounted, and some villagers approached; passive yet suspicious, they looked at him. Meanwhile the officers embarked on a quest for coaches and fresh horses, questioning the Mayor, who had come running upon learning that the Emperor was passing through. The Russians had requisitioned the vehicles, and those that were left weren’t exactly . . .

  ‘They’ll do,’ pronounced the Emperor.

  There were three such vehicles: a wicker cabriolet the butcher agreed to lend them, and two carts. The post-horses, which had fortunately been fed, were immediately harnessed. Napoleon climbed into the wicker cabriolet with Caulaincourt, and the Marshals shared the carts between them. The rest could fend for themselves. The postilion cracked his whip and the pathetic cortège set off back along the Sens road.

  ‘Faster!’ cried the Emperor. ‘Faster!’

  One

  THE CONSPIRATORS

  OCTAVE ADJUSTED his white English-style wig, which was combed back with fake nonchalance. He studied himself in the mirror. Pale grey eyes, pinched nostrils, a lipless mouth. His neutral face lent itself to change, and it made him smile. ‘I can play any part I like,’ he thought with satisfaction.

  Just then there was a knock at his door and someone called his name. Octave drew back the bolt and opened the door to reveal Marquis de la Grange, the former commander of the Vendee, who had been involved in several failed conspiracies and who was now plotting in Paris, beneath the very noses of the imperial police. Tall, lean, rather severe, wearing a blue woollen frock-coat with an astrakhan collar, the Marquis had not visited Octave’s apartment before.

  Octave occupied a long and sparsely furnished room on the first floor of the Hôtel de Salerne, in the rue Saint-Sauveur: a candlestick on the pine table, a bed, an enormous wardrobe. The velvet of the armchairs was as faded as that of the canopy of the bed, and Octave had to make do without a valet or chambermaid, with logs piled up beside the fireplace.

  ‘My good man,’ said the Marquis, ‘these lodgings of yours are a little rough ...’

  ‘But they are both temporary and discreet.’

  ‘I grant you that, and in any case I’m not here to inspect you but to give you a warning.’

  ‘Has someone spotted me?’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry about that. The bluebottles down at the Préfecture are far too stupid to do anything of the sort. I wanted to tell you that we appear to
have managed a complete revolution.’

  ‘A revolution ...’

  ‘In the astronomical sense: the return of a planet to the initial point of its orbit.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that we are about to return to our starting-point: the monarchy.’

  ‘I still don’t get what you’re on about.’

  ‘I’ll take you there, and then you’ll understand.’

  The Marquis lifted Octave’s three-cornered hat from a peg, threw him his coat, thrust his own wide-brimmed black felt hat back on and dragged Octave to the staircase.

  Outside the front door, in the rue des Deux-Portes, a rented cabriolet awaited, a large number painted on its door. The coachman asked no questions, since the journey had already been decided: the coach - amid a great din of wheels, tinkling bells, hoofs and curses, all of which discouraged conversation - was taking them to the Louvre.

  On that Monday, 29 March, the weather was finally clear after weeks of fine and freezing rain. Once they had reached their destination, the Marquis took Octave’s arm and the two men passed beneath the wicket-gate. On the other side, behind the railings on either side of a triumphal arch, a crowd of a hundred or so onlookers stood and watched.

  Squat, melancholy and austere, the Tuilerie Palace completed the two wings of the Louvre Palace and separated it from the Jardin des Tuileries. That morning, the Place du Carrousel was filled not with its usual parades, but with a great hustle and bustle. As always, there were large numbers of grey-caped cavalrymen in attendance, but they stood motionless, impatient, alert for an order.

  As Octave and La Grange mingled among the spectators, a fellow with greying sideburns, dressed as a bourgeois, came over to them and murmured by way of explanation, ‘Marquis, the ground-floor French windows, towards the Pavillon de Flore, were lit before dawn . . .’

  ‘And where does that leave us, my dear Michaud?’

  ‘The move is happening, and happening quickly, as you can see.’

  In Empress Marie-Louise’s apartments, valets in green livery were wrapping chandeliers, while others carried numbered cases, clocks, tables, passing gilded chairs to men clad in overalls, who were loading them on to vans and wagons. Further behind, lancers and grenadiers of the Guard stood around the twelve berlins, harnessed since morning, and the coronation carriage, covered with tarpaulins. The Marquis was delighted.

  ‘They’re sneaking off with all the silver and the crockery, like thieves.’

  ‘But they are thieves, Marquis.’

  La Grange turned towards Octave.

  ‘Michaud’s a printer, an active member of our Committee.’

  ‘Very well,’ replied Octave, ‘but if the Empress is leaving Paris, does that mean the end of the Empire?’

  ‘Of course it does, my dear sir, of course it does, because the government will come apart at the seams.’ Then, to Michaud: ‘The Chevalier de Blacé is arriving from London, he’s been following our dealings from a distance.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the printer deferentially.

  Standing next to them, a red-haired man in a patched waistcoat muttered, ‘Off they go.’

  As he spoke, a yellow-faced, bent-backed beanpole dressed in an embroidered outfit from another era descended the palace steps, accompanied by his two confidants. The three climbed into the first berlin, followed by a young woman with hollow cheeks and fat lips, and a fair-haired child who struggled in the arms of an equerry before clutching the wrought-iron railings and howling at the top of his voice. For the benefit of the London envoy, the Marquis leaned forward and commented: ‘The one with the wig is Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès, the second most important person in the regime. The lost-looking young woman with the hood is Empress Marie-Louise ...’

  ‘And the child is the King of Rome,’ said Octave.

  With the armoured berlins at its head, the procession now passed slowly through the gate of the Pont-Royal, followed by the luggage carts and the vans and their cavalry escort. The onlookers dispersed, their faces uneasy; some - Octave and the Marquis among them - strolled towards the Quai to see what was left of the Imperial court leaving for Rambouillet.

  ‘That’s the end of the usurper,’ said the Marquis. ‘But you don’t seem all that convinced.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Bonaparte is finished, my dear sir. So let’s get going! He’ll pick up a reduced and exhausted army between the Marne and the Seine; after three short-lived attempts at grand gestures he’ll hesitate, he’ll make a wrong move, then he’ll push into the devastated Champagne region with a few children who couldn’t load a musket if you paid them to, with the dubious support of a few goat-whiskered veterans. They’re finished, I tell you!’

  ‘But we haven’t won yet.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. We’ll run and tell our friends about the flight of the Empress, and then we can discuss what to do next.’

  ‘You’ll have to guide me, I’ve forgotten my way around Paris.’

  ‘You’ll see, it’s filthier than London.’

  ‘I already have: take a look at my boots.’

  *

  Although La Grange was delighted with a situation which he believed served the interests of the royalists, most of the rest of the population lived in fear of invasion. Carried on the north wind, the sound of cannon seemed to be getting closer from one hour to the next; gangs of beggars and wounded men wandered the streets of Paris, and contradictory rumours circulated. One newspaper supplied the name of Russian generals killed in combat, another called the people to resist, to protect the capital: ‘Arm yourselves with arsenic, poison the fountains and wells, slit the throats of the Prussians in their beds with your cutlasses!’

  On the Pont-Neuf, at the Palais-Royal, conmen in the pay of the police tried to mobilize people by fear, like this hoarse old man, standing on a stepladder: ‘I was in Rheims, I saw the Cossacks, they’re raping the women over their husbands’ bodies, they’re getting the girls and children drunk before grilling them over their bivouac fires and then throwing in exploding cartridges!’ The theatres and shops were closing; bricklayers and joiners hurried through the streets to install hiding-places for jewels and gold in the homes of the bourgeoisie. Crowds gathered around the proclamation that Joseph Bonaparte - who was now in charge of Paris - had ordered to be posted on the walls: ‘The Emperor,’ it read, ‘is marching to our aid!’ One sceptic improvised a song:

  Good King Joseph, pale and wan,

  Stay a while and save us!

  And if you don’t, then leg it

  While the foreigners enslave us!

  One had to go to the boulevards to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Thousands of peasants were flooding towards the capital, driven out of their homes by the advancing allies who were ravaging the countryside, and Octave and the Marquis found their progress hindered by a crush of carts piled high with pots and pans, furniture and blankets. Strapping young men in straw-covered clogs led herds of cattle and sheep through the chaos. Weeping women and children bunched up in a horse-drawn wagon. The most fortunate rode on donkeys but most were on foot, all of them lamenting the loss of their homes and fields. The sound of mooing, baaing and sobbing swelled the hubbub of wheels and clogs. A man carrying a mattress over his back rebuked La Grange, calling him a toff; laments turned into insults directed against the luckier ones.

  Clinging to the door-handle, a peasant woman set her little boy on the footplate of the cabriolet: ‘The Cossacks are at Bondy! And you’ve no idea what them Cossacks are like!’

  ‘We went and hid in the woods!’

  ‘We’ve nothing but the shirts on our backs!’

  ‘They’re going to come to Paris and torch the place!’

  ‘It’s going to be like Moscow!’

  ‘They’re going to take their revenge!’

  Just before they reached the unfinished Temple of the Madeleine, a shady-looking fellow in blue overalls climbed on to one of the horses pulling the cabriolet. About to whip him
for his insolence, the coachman suddenly found himself threatened by a great giant of a man brandishing a pitchfork. Turning to ask his passengers for some advice, if not an order, the coachman found that they had disappeared, and his vehicle was filling up with bundles and exhausted children.

  Octave and the Marquis had dodged into the rue Basse-du-Rempart, down on the north side of the boulevard. ‘I caught a strong smell of the cowshed there,’ said the Marquis, taking a deep breath from a little vial of eau de Cologne and pointing towards a three-storey townhouse on the corner of the rue de la Concorde. Its shutters were closed and it appeared to be deserted, but the Marquis opened the door a crack and they slipped through. Inside, a big cartload of victuals sat beneath a vaulted ceiling; porters carried bags of flour and rice up stone staircases. Provisions were piled on the landing and in the corridors - enough to get them through several weeks of siege. The first-floor drawing-room was in semi-darkness. Silhouetted in the tremulous light of the chandeliers, beneath hams suspended on ropes from the ceiling, grave-looking men and terrified ladies prattled, agitated as sparrows.

  ‘Europe is bringing us the disasters that we have imposed upon it,’ announced a pointy-nosed viscount.

  ‘Nonetheless, we do have some friends.’

  ‘That’s true, Rochechouart was on the Tsar’s administrative staff.’

  ‘And Langeron, too!’

  ‘That didn’t stop their Cossacks disembowelling decent folk who refused to serve them raw herring.’

  ‘Raw herring? How perfectly frightful!’

  ‘The Empress will protect us from those savages!’

  Everyone thought the presence of Marie-Louise — Napoleon’s wife by an arranged marriage but daughter of the Emperor of Austria — would be enough to restrain the allied armies if by any misfortune they should take the capital. The Marquis de la Grange firmly shattered these illusions.

  ‘Alas, your ladyship, the Empress has just left Paris.’

  ‘Go and tell my husband!’

  ‘So the Count of Sémallé is back?’