Napoleon's Exile

by Patrick Rambaud

  ‘Boiron is a shoemaker,’ Chauvin explained to Octave.

  ‘Shoemaker,’ repeated Boiron.

  ‘When Bonaparte is in Fontainebleau and I have secrets to divulge to the Committee, he’s the one who takes the messages.’

  ‘I’m the one.’

  The girl was now restitching the livery that Octave was wearing, but he suddenly started back and she pricked him in the arm.

  ‘Ouch!’

  A chasseur of the Guard, bearskin cap in his hand, came out of the neighbouring bedroom. This apparition had startled Octave, and as the soldier approached the lamp, his face reminded him of someone. He had seen that hollow face, that veiled expression before, but what clothes had the man been wearing then? The soldier addressed Octave in a slow and haughty voice.

  ‘Are you the Chevalier de Blacé?’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Marie Armand de Guéry de Maubreuil, Marquis d’Orvault.’

  Maubreuil, the same Marquis who had tied his Légion d’honneur to the tail of his horse the other morning, when the allies were processing through the boulevards, Maubreuil disguised in a uniform taken from the shops of the military school, an adventurer, a Chouan, a relative of the Caulaincourts through his brother-in-law, former equerry to Jérôme Bonaparte, a speculator on army supplies...

  From the pocket of his dolman Maubreuil drew letters stamped and signed by the new Parisian authorities, an order from Sacken to have foreign troops placed at his disposal, a passport, a permit authorizing the holder to commandeer post-horses as a matter of priority.

  ‘Fine,’ said Octave, taking off his altered clothing, ‘but why are you showing us these documents?’

  ‘So that you too will help to make my task easier. I have come to carry out a confidential order from Monsieur Talleyrand, head of the provisional government. He has reached an agreement with the entourage of Monseigneur the Count of Artois. That is to say, with the members of your Committee.’

  ‘So what is your mission?’

  ‘To kill Bonaparte.’

  *

  On the morning of the following day, Saturday 2 April, Chauvin had received his wages and was buckling up a saddlebag beneath Octave’s amused eyes. Taking the lackey’s place, Octave had adopted his unruffled manners along with his suit - that most excellent green suit with its gold-embroidered collar, black breeches and white stockings. As agreed, Chauvin would go into town; shoemaker Boiron would find him a greengrocer’s cart to take him away from Fontainebleau. If he happened to bump into foreign solders on the Orléans road, as was entirely possible, the pass Octave had given him would prove very useful. Before disappearing, happy to escape the worrying noises of war, Chauvin left a number of recommendations.

  ‘You will start your service at midday, in place of Monsieur Hubert, who will have been keeping watch in the antechamber throughout the night. You have only to carry out the orders of Monsieur Constant. The Emperor’s timetables are not currently as regular as they have been in the past, you will have to be prepared for anything, at all times. You’ll get used to it, and you will no longer need to know to the last minute how the tyrant’s normal days are organized. Things are breaking down, my friend, everything’s breaking down ...’

  The two men’s footsteps echoed down the corridor as they passed beneath ceilings with coffers of gilded wood that framed bucolic and irrelevant mythological scenes. The entrances leading into the ceremonial rooms were closed with dark velvet doors and, among the unlit candelabras, in the pale daylight, groups of officers and servants spoke in muffled voices. Caulaincourt had returned from Paris, they were saying, he had spent a long time last night talking to His Majesty, that was all they knew, but they were absolutely sure that the offensive would be launched within three days - as Chauvin would hurry to confirm with shoemaker Boiron.

  ‘Monsieur de Maubreuil is going to need to have his ambush prepared as soon as possible,’ he said to Octave.

  ‘It’s no longer anything to do with you, Chauvin.’

  ‘Are you up to the task?’

  ‘I’m dealing with this man Maubreuil.’

  As they passed a high window opened by some curious members of staff, they heard delirious cries: ‘Long live the Emperor! To Paris! Down with the traitors!’ Over the heads and shoulders of the soldiers and valets, in the courtyard of the White Horse, they saw grenadiers and chasseurs in bearskins standing at attention: they were presenting arms and shouting enthusiastically, grey with dust and soil from their shoes to their wool epaulettes, but clean-shaven, chins pressed into their horsecloth ties. Napoleon was passing them in review, his hat in his hand to salute them, and they wept with joy as they called, ‘To Paris! To Paris!’ before setting off in perfect columns, their feet striking the cobbles to the sound of the drums. The Old Guard was in the town, and had detached two battalions to serve the Palace.

  ‘That’s not going to make your work any easier,’ Chauvin murmured into Octave’s ear. ‘Will the Marquis de Maubreuil be able to kill the usurper if he’s surrounded by all these people?’

  ‘He’s got his uniform.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Chauvin agreed, failing to reflect that Maubreuil would be the only person wearing a clean, new uniform, and that this would render him conspicuous and suspect, but Chauvin’s thoughts were focused entirely on his escape. When he left by one of the staff entrances, he whispered faintly, ‘Vive le roi...’ and winked. Octave crossed his arms and sighed as he saw him trotting down the road; he would happily have strangled that pest, had his disappearance not risked alerting shoemaker Boiron, Maubreuil and the members of the Committee.

  *

  The Emperor was dining in the heavily gilded salon of his aides-de-camp. His appetite tended to reflect his mood, and on this particular evening he was hungry. The loyal Dunan, son of a cook to the Prince de Condé, who had served aristocrats in the past, was setting down covered silver platters on a pedestal table with a napkin thrown over it as a tablecloth. Napoleon lifted the lids, poked his fingers into the various dishes, and swallowed down partridge crépinettes and macaroni under a layer of parmesan. Between mouthfuls he wiped his hands on his white breeches, and chatted and joked as though he was sure of sending the foreigners packing to the border. The members of his entourage were more serious, and stood around him as ceremony had so far decreed. A prefect dressed all in pale green, hat under his arm, checked the sealed bottle of Chambertin and the food that was arriving from another room, where the butler kept it warm over bains-marie. The Emperor gulped down big mouthfuls. Reinvigorated by his Guard’s applause, he took pleasure in hearing the latest news that reached him from the invaded capital, and in hearing it over and over again.

  ‘Read me again the proclamation by that damned fool Talleyrand,’ he said, stuffing down two chicken dumplings at the same time.

  Count Bertrand, Grand Marshal of the palace, with his hang-dog expression, nodded his bald pate, wiggling the corkscrew hair that fluffed from his temples:

  ‘I shall read it, sire: You are no longer the soldiers of Napoleon; the Senate and the whole of France free you from your oaths. . .’

  ‘The whole of France! The Senate, that ragbag of revolutionaries that I trounced! ‘By what right? You knew Lodi, Bertrand, and the Pyramids, you took command at Austerlitz, can you imagine Talleyrand’s bunglers faced with my troops? He can barely make it from his bed to his chair! Can you see my soldiers taking commands from the King of Prussia?’

  Since Caulaincourt’s report the previous day, Napoleon was aware of the climate in Paris, but he did not let it trouble him. The newspapers were insulting him, calling him an ogre and a tyrant, but that was in the order of things: the new government had installed editors who would do what they wanted. He also knew that the Tsar had been acclaimed at the Opera. Did the people go to the Opera? The belles in the balconies had thrown white ribbons into the auditorium; the morning-coated spectators had yelled, ‘Down with the bird! Down with the eagle!’ so loudly that a machinist had had t
o cover over the emblem adorning the pediment of the Imperial box. A former convict called Vidocq, who was in charge of a police brigade, had climbed up the Vendôme column to topple the statue of the Emperor wearing a toga. (It had not fallen, however, but merely leaned over to taunt the hooligans and threaten the passers-by, and all of a sudden the Russians had stopped people getting anywhere near it...) Napoleon disdained even the suggestions of Caulaincourt, who was trying to save him: What? Was he proposing that he abdicate in favour of the King of Rome? The Emperor was discussing the matter when his butler served him his daily cup of coffee.

  ‘The Regency is a decoy, Bertrand, do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sire, I hear you: a decoy.’

  ‘The Duke of Vicenza is devoted, but he still doesn’t understand! My son is a child, the Empress knows nothing about the running of things. The truth is that our enemies want me to disappear, Bertrand, because they know they’re sunk, without ammunition, trapped in Paris! Who can they trust, eh? There may well be lots of them, but they’re divided. I’ve got the Guard, Bertrand, the Guard, the mere sight of whom scares the living daylights out of them. My Old Guard stretches all the way to Étampes. The regiments of Oudinot and Gérard have arrived, Macdonald’s cavalry is at Melun. Marmont is holding Essonnes and Corbeil, with Mortier further to the west.’

  The Duke of Bassano came in just as the Emperor was finishing his coffee. He had received a reply from Prefect Pasquier, to whom he had sent a note: a man from the countryside had pierced the Austrian lines by travelling along forest paths. He told the Emperor that the Senate had announced his defeat, and that some generals were preparing to rally the new government. As Napoleon did not blink, the Duke broke off and looked at him, but at a gesture he continued reading.

  ‘“We are assured that there are a number of plans to approach the Emperor and that the individuals thinking that way include Jacobins. The bankers are offering twelve million. . .”’

  The Emperor held out his hand, took the letter, recognized Pasquier’s handwriting and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It’s not the first time people have wanted to “approach” me, as this chap Pasquier writes so cautiously. Do you remember that old clown in the Tuileries who was hauled out from behind the curtains of my study?’

  ‘Ah yes, sire, he had got past the patrols and the sentries ...’

  ‘He claimed he had found his father’s soul in the lights of the palace!’

  ‘A lunatic, we sent him to Charenton, sire. But we are dealing with lunatics no longer.’

  ‘The bankers’ money is dreadful in a different way, isn’t it?’

  ‘Many people are betraying us. Even Pasquier adds at the end of his letter that we shouldn’t even turn to him.’

  ‘Let’s see. He who warns does not betray.’

  *

  Octave would never forget 4 April. It was a Monday. He had spent the night doing Chauvin’s job. His work consisted of placing a plate with two glasses covered by a napkin, a silver sugar bowl with a shell-shaped lid, a small spoon and a jug full of water on the chest of drawers in the Emperor’s bedroom. Apart from that, Octave had to be available at all times. He had seen officers going gloomily in and out of the study; he had heard the sound of voices, but had been unable to make out what they were discussing, or what orders were being given. He had already warned Bassano of Maubreuil’s murderous plans, but the Duke was convinced that the Emperor was in no immediate danger. Octave would talk to him again in the morning so that they could put their heads together and weigh up the threat, which was confirmed by Pasquier’s letter.

  As soon as Napoleon was safely shut up in his bedroom, Octave had taken off his livery to avoid creasing it, and lain down on a sofa, still wearing his waistcoat. The Mameluke Roustan also laid his velvet turban and his curved sabre on a chair, and pushed his trestle bed against the door. Fat, flirtatious, foolish, usually this child of Tiflis - a sultan’s slave before becoming General Bonaparte’s lapdog in Egypt – talked tirelessly about the lottery office that the Emperor had just bestowed upon him, but on this occasion he spared Octave this tale by quickly going to sleep. Alas, the chap started snoring; he snored in changing rhythms, and the night was an ordeal, the kind that stirred discordant thoughts in a maddening half-sleep that tugged reality out of shape. Was Maubreuil telling the truth? He was famous in Paris for his boasting, after all. If his word was to be trusted, though, why was Sémallé's royalist Committee now supporting the idea of a murder it had not dreamed of two days ago? Talleyrand must have something to do with it. And what about the Count of Artois? There were connections there, because Maubreuil had used the royalist network in Fontainebleau. Why had Octave not had a note to warn him? Who was he to believe? By his night light, everything blurred and then came into perspective.

  Hubert, the polite and cultured valet, relieved Octave at dawn. Finally able to leave that uncomfortable antechamber, Octave passed through the line of grenadiers who ensured the safety of the Imperial apartments, and set off down the corridors, rubbing the small of his back. He encountered more soldiers and over-excited servants; patrols of soldiers were circulating in the courtyard intoning battle-hymns to the sound of fifes, or shouting, ‘To Paris! To Paris!’ to maintain the spirit of excitement that precedes a battle. When Octave reached the door, a young wardrobe attendant was waiting for him with a cloth bag that he held out.

  ‘It’s for you, sir.’

  ‘For me?’ asked Octave, surprised.

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Damn right!’

  ‘So you know me?’

  ‘Course I do, you’re Chauvin’s cousin.’

  ‘Chauvin’s cousin, fine, but how do you know that?’

  ‘In the castle, word gets round.’

  ‘And have you been waiting for me for a long time?’

  ‘Oh no, I found out.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your hours.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘The Palace Prefect, of all people.’

  Octave had taken the bag and opened it to see what was inside.

  ‘Boots?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Why so, brat?’

  ‘Old Boiron left’ em here for you at the sentry post, yesterday evening.’

  ‘So you know old Boiron as well?’

  ‘Everyone knows him, everyone in the staff here in the castle.’

  ‘Does he come often?’

  ‘He does services, that’s all.’

  ‘Of what kind?’

  ‘Well, he’s a shoemaker, so he repairs things.’

  ‘Has he ever been inside the palace?’

  ‘Only when His Majesty ain’t there, otherwise ...’

  ‘Otherwise?’

  ‘Some of the soldiers ain’t from these parts, and they don’t let him through.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let him through?’

  ‘Like I said, but I was there and I took your parcel.’

  ‘Did the soldiers look inside?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘They saw some boots, I said they were for you and I said who you were. Did I do the right thing, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I go?’

  ‘Be off with you!’

  Octave threw the bag on his bed and took out a pair of new boots. Inside the turned-down top of one of them he found a sheet of paper, which he unfolded:

  Monsieur le Chevalier, it’s about this evening. Our allies are in a hurry. They know that Bonaparte is going to attack them on Tuesday, and they are keen to avoid a new and uncertain war. They are even talking about abandoning Paris and retreating to Meaux. It is therefore a matter of urgency. If my uniform allows me to enter the castle, yours must surely allow me to enter the tyrant’s apartment at night. I have a sword.

  Maubreuil

  *

  The Duke of Bassano put Maubreuil’s note down on his desk. He smiled faintly
, as he always did, but at the same time he wrinkled the fat black eyebrows that caterpillared across his forehead. Octave stood behind him, in civilian clothes. With a slow and composed movement of his head, for he was copying the disdainful manners that he thought typical of the true aristocracy, the Duke said in his unctuous voice: ‘Your Marquis is a dilettante. What a ludicrous idea, a message in a pair of boots; even a farce-writer like Désaugiers wouldn’t have risked that. And his plan is the plan of a fantasist.’

  ‘Fantasist or not, your grace, his intention is clear.’

  ‘Certainly ...’

  ‘His family is dedicated to the royal cause; he is related to the La Rochejaqueleins.’

  ‘The fact that he’s from the Vendée proves neither his courage nor his skill. How can he imagine that a valet might open the doors to the Imperial apartment in the middle of the night? There are the aides-de-camp, there’s Monsieur Constant, whose bedroom communicates with the Emperor’s via a spiral staircase, that fool Roustan down below, the corridors full of soldiers...’

  Ever since that infernal machine had exploded in the rue Saint-Niçaise fourteen years previously, all attempts on Napoleon’s life had been foiled. The aristocratic hired killers dispatched from England by the Count of Artois had been swept away, all of them: the Cadoudals, the Rivières, the Bouvets, Burbans and Polignacs. Those attempted assassinations had in fact benefited the Empire; as a result, public opinion had been happier to accept the strengthening of measures taken by the police and the censors, the assertion of authority, the plethora of banishments or executions - but could this one, which was bound to fail, be exploited? Octave dragged Bassano from his reflections.