Napoleon, meanwhile, was taking, with the ladies of the theatre, such relaxation as he could snatch from his endless commitments. Little Mademoiselle George, honest, sweet-natured, unambitious, devoted, the perfect companion for a tired man, remained his favourite. But from time to time others were summoned, among them the superb actress Mademoiselle Mars and the pert, mentally agile Therese Bourgoin. The latter he took from his Minister of Finance, Chaptal, who had long kept her, to that elderly gentleman's fury and, not long afterwards, Therese's disgust; because she had given up a rich permanent lover for the mercurial Napoleon who, tiring of her rapacity, soon threw her aside.
The usual procedure was for Constant, Napoleon's valet, to collect these ladies from the theatre at which they were playing and conduct them in a coach, driven by the First Consul's faithful but notoriously drunken coachman, to St. Cloud. There Rustem, Napoleon's Mameluke bodyguard, took over, escorted them to a vast room with a bed in one corner and reported their arrival to his master; after which these delectable young ladies might wait for anything from ten minutes to four hours before being received by their host, according to what other matters might be occupying his immediate attention.
Josephine, of course, knew all about these goings-on and, occasionally, threw jealous scenes during which she wept copiously; but in the main she accepted them with resignation, on other nights reading Napoleon to sleep and consoling herself with his abiding affection for her.
Early in November Roger suffered a severe blow to his self-esteem. On the nights when he was able to visit Pauline in secret, which averaged about twice a week, it had become customary for him to undress in a small closet on the far side of Pauline's boudoir from her bedroom. On this occasion he had spent some two hours with her and returned to the closet to dress. The little room held only a marble basin, in which Aimec always left a covered jug of hot water for him, hooks on which to hang clothes and a shelf holding a few toilet things.
He was just about to blow out the candle and leave the room when he noticed among the scent bottles and powder jars a round pocket mirror. His attention was caught by the elaborate gold cipher on the leather back, and he recognized it at once as that which the flamboyant Murat had emblazoned a foot high on the doors of his coaches and carriages.
To come upon the little mirror in that particular place gave Roger furiously to think. But it was possible that on some occasion Pauline, finding that she had neglected to put her mirror in her reticule, had borrowed it from her vain brother-in-law and had forgotten to return it. Picking it up he walked across the boudoir into Pauline's bedroom and, as she sat up in bed for him to kiss her goodnight, he held it out to her and asked:
'How did you come by this pretty thing?'
Smothering a yawn, she replied sleepily, 'Oh, that is Joachim Murat's. He is always looking at himself in it and must have left it on the table in the boudoir when he was taking coffee with me this afternoon.'
By admitting that Murat had been there that day she had given herself away; as there was no lavatory in the closet nor water, except that brought up by Aimee at night in a can. If he had wanted to wash he would have done so downstairs; so he could have used the closet only to undress in.
After a moment, Roger said, 'Drinking coffee was not the only thing you did together, was it? You see, I found this in the closet.'
'Oh dear!' Pauline sighed. 'How very careless of him to leave it there. He... he went in to... to, yes, fetch me some scent.'
'Stop lying!' he told her sharply. 'You keep all the scents you use yourself in your own bathroom. You went to bed with him, didn't you?'
Now wide awake and very flushed, she stammered, 'I.. .well... if you must know the truth, yes.'
'And he your sister's husband!'
'What has that to do with it?' she asked peevishly. 'Caroline goes to bed with lots of men, and would have with Lcclerc if she had had half a chance. Camillo had ridden out to Chantilly to see a race horse he wants to buy; so was out of the way and ... well, Joachim and I just felt like it.'
'I don't doubt he did. I remember hearing Napoleon once say of him, "Apparently Murat has to sleep with a woman every night but any woman does for him". But you! Damn it! And knowing that I was coming to you tonight!'
'Oh, Roje, please don't be unreasonable. How could I refuse an old friend?'
'So this wasn't the first time?'
'No, oh no. The first time was years ago, when I was a girl at Montebello.'
'And how many other old friends have you?' Roger demanded angrily.
Becoming angry too, she snapped at him, 'Since you insist on prying into my affairs, quite a number. And I don't see what you have to complain about.'
'Don't you, indeed! I thought you loved me.'
'But I do. I put you before all others. I let you come to me any night you choose.'
'D'you mean that on the nights I don't, you have other men here?'
'Well, now and then. After all, when you have to go to the coast you are sometimes away for a week or more. You can't expect me not to have a little fun with someone else occasionally.' Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears.
Angry as he was, he could not bring himself to upbraid her further, and she clung to him until he said he would forgive her.
While walking back down the Champs Elysees across the Place de la Concorde, then through the dark, older streets of Paris to La Belle Etoile, he sadly took stock of this new situation. Scandalous stories had come back from San Domingo about Pauline's immoralities while she was there—even that she had participated in orgies and had had a giant negro as a lover. Those he still did not believe, but it was now beyond doubt that she was a nymphomaniac and so unable to control her sexual urges. He then admitted to himself that her attraction for him was solely a physical one, and that his distress was not really because he had a deep love for her but because his pride was hurt. There remained the question of whether he should break off the affaire or continue it knowing that she had other lovers.
Having slept upon it, he decided that since going to bed with her gave him so much pleasure, and he apparently held first place in her affections, to break with her would only be to cut off his nose to spite his face; so during the next week he went to her again on two occasions, both of them tacitly ignoring the scene they had had after her revelation that he was not her only lover.
Yet fate decreed that their liaison should shortly be brought to an abrupt termination. One night near the middle of November, when Aimee took him up to Pauline's room he found her in the depths of depression. Borghese had for some time tired of Paris and wanted to return to his own palace in Rome. Pauline had told him to go if he wished but that she had no intention of accompanying liim. Loath to leave her behind, Borghesc had spoken to Napoleon and he had written to her from Boulogne. In his letter he said that she must go with her husband and at once, as otherwise snow would make the Alps impassable. There had followed injunctions to 'love her husband, be respectful to his relatives, conform to the customs of the country, admire everything, never say "in Paris we have better than that", show attachment to the Holy Father, receive only people of unblemished reputation and never the English, etc., etc., and above all not to be wanton or capricious.' The lecture ended by pointing out that she was twenty-four so ought now to be mature and sensible. In fact she was barely twenty-three, but that did not make the letter less an order that must be obeyed.
Packing had started, the house was already upside down and arrangements had been made for the Borgheses to set out for Italy in three days' time. Roger did his best to console Pauline, but he was able to make her forget that she was being driven into exile only for the duration of a last long passionate embrace. Then they took a sad farewell of one another.
Had Roger not learned of Pauline's infidelity he would have felt their parting much more grievously; but his love affair with her had lasted, with only the two-month interval he had spent at Bruges, for very nearly a year, so the edge h
ad already been taken off their physical desire. Even so, her going left a sad gap in his life and he continued to think of her with longing. Then, early in December, he was given a far more serious matter to think about.
Somewhat to his surprise he received a politely worded letter from Talleyrand, not inviting him to supper but requesting him to come the following evening to St. Cloud to discuss a certain matter. Having ridden out through the Bois to the Palace in its well-wooded grounds on the far bank of the Seine. Roger enquired for the Foreign Minister and was shown up to a magnificent apartment.
The tall windows were now screened by curtains of blue satin embroidered with the golden eagles and bees that Napoleon had already taken as his emblems. The furniture was of gilt and marble embellished with sphinx's heads and winged griffons which was to become known to posterity as 'Empire'. Talleyrand was seated there behind a vast desk, as impeccably dressed and smiling as ever. As Roger bowed to him, he said:
'Cher ami, I must apologize for having brought you all the way from Paris, but our little man has now insisted that I should spend a certain amount of my time here. At least he has had the decency to provide me with a pleasant setting for me to take my naps between attending to tiresome business. Do you approve it?'
Roger glanced round and smiled, 'Your Excellency was born of a princely family and even a Prince could not complain about having to work in such luxurious surroundings.'
'True, true, cher Colonel. But alas, work I must to justify these trappings. And I need your advice. Your mother, I recall, was a Scottish lady.'
'Yes,' replied Roger, somewhat surprised. 'She was a McElfic and a daughter of the then Earl of Kildonan.'
'Then my memory has not failed me. And he was a Jacobite, was he not?'
'Yes. He led his clan in the rising of '45, which sought to place Prince Charles Edward on the throne of his Stuart ancestors. After its failure the Earl was heavily penalized and all but a small part of his lands were confiscated. Naturally he became embittered on that account and remained a staunch Jacobite. He would have followed the Pretender to Rome had his health permitted. As things were, you can imagine the antagonism with which he would have regarded a match between his daughter and my father, Admiral Sir Christopher Brook, who was a staunch Hanoverian. In consequence, they eloped and married without his consent; so my contact with my Scottish relatives has always been exceedingly slender.'
Talleyrand nodded, 'That is unfortunate, because it was information on the present feeling of Jacobites in Scotland that I sought from you. Ireland, of course, has long been a thorn in Britain's side, and by stirring up trouble there we have several times made good use of it. But it has now occurred to our master that when the invasion of England takes place we might also create a valuable diversion by making a landing in Scotland and rousing the Jacobites there against their Hanoverian King. What think you of the prospects of such a project?'
Roger shook his head, 'Far from good. The rebellion of '45 took place nearly sixty years ago. The Hanoverian Kings have since then ruled Scotland wisely, on a light rein, and won over the greater part of the country's inhabitants. Only a few die-hards would again take up arms against King George and most of those, like my cousin the present Earl, are powerless to raise their clans because they have for long lived abroad, to begin with as exiles at the Court of the Pretender in Rome and since his death cither there or at other places on the Continent.'
With a quiet smile Talleyrand said, 'That is much as I supposed. It seems though that you are not aware that your cousin died above a year ago.'
Suddenly an alarm bell began to ring in Roger's brain. After a slight hesitation he said, 'No. I did not know that. And I am sorry to hear it, for he was the last of his line and the peerage has become extinct upon his death.'
Talleyrand took snuff, flicked the fallen grains from his lace cravat and remarked with, for him, unusual gravity, 'Enquiries through our Ambassador in Rome about these Jacobite nobles has led to my receiving certain authentic information about them. Over three years ago your cousin was knocked down by a runaway horse. The injuries he sustained were so serious that he was never afterwards able to do more than limp about the apartment that he occupied. He met his death when his crutch slipped on a polished floorboard and he fell down the stairs, breaking his neck. It is, therefore, obvious that it could not have been he whom Duroc mistook for you when in St. Petersburg. What have you to say about that?'
20
Poised on the Precipice
The alarm bell that had begun to tinkle in Roger's brain a few minutes earlier suddenly increased to a shrill clangour. He knew Talleyrand far too well not to realize now why he had been sent for. It was not to get his opinion on the chances of stirring up a Jacobite rising in Scotland. That had been only his devious lead in—the sort of cat and mouse game that he loved—before resurrecting this dangerous question of the identity of the man Duroc had met in Moscow.
Masking his perturbation with a shrug, Roger replied, 'Then since it could not have been my cousin it must have been some other person who closely resembles me.'
Talleyrand had ceased to smile as he asked, 'And who could be so near a twin to yourself as that English Admiral's son, Mr. Roger Brook?'
Roger had rarely felt less like laughing; but he threw back his head, chuckled and said, 'Oh come. Excellence! To you it has been no secret since we first met that he and I are one and the same person. But you will recall that within a fortnight of Duroc's having imagined that he saw me in St. Petersburg I attended a reception you gave in the Rue du Bac. For me to have made such a journey in so short a time would have been utterly impossible.'
'I wonder,' the Minister picked up an ivory paper-knife and began to twirl it between his elegant hands. 'Impossible I grant you to all but a very few exceptionally determined men capable of great endurance... such as yourself.'
'You flatter me mightily by the comparison.' Roger made a little bow. 'But I do protest. After being wounded at Marengo I could not possibly have travelled at such speed over a distance of seventeen hundred miles.'
Still unsmiling, Talleyrand returned the bow, 'I congratulate you on your knowledge of geography. It must be considerable to be able to give the distance between the two capitals without reference to a map.'
Silently Roger cursed himself for having made such a slip, while the deep melodious voice went on, 'As to your wound, a year had elapsed since Marengo; ample time for your health to have been fully restored. Yet, I recall, you arrived at my reception so exhausted that you could hardly stand and I sent you off to bed. Your explanation was that you had just returned from recuperating at your chateau in the south of France, that to test your recovery you had ridden thirty leagues that day, and it had proved too much for you. Might the fact not have been that you had fully recovered and were exhausted from having ridden fifty leagues?'
That was indeed the distance Roger had ridden. Intensely anxious now about the outcome of this interview, he could only hope that Talleyrand was simply fishing and had no definite information to support his evident suspicions. Raising a smile, he said in as light a tone as he could manage:
'That is a hundred and fifty English miles; and even before Marengo I could ne'er have done it. For the life of me I cannot imagine what could have put such an idea into Your Excellency's head.'
Talleyrand ceased toying with the paper-knife, laid it down and said with cold deliberation, 'Then I will tell you. Reluctant as I have ever been to give my mind to business, I much enjoy allowing it to roam in idle speculation. From the first Duroc's report intrigued me and, knowing your antecedents, I wondered if it could possibly have been you that he met in St. Petersburg. The alibi you produced appeared indestructible; but when some weeks ago I received a report about the Jacobite nobles living in exile in Rome and learned that it could not possibly have been the Lord Kildonan that Duroc saw, I once more began to speculate upon the matter. So intrigued was I that I went further. I instructed my agents to make
certain enquiries.'
Pausing, the Minister continued to hold Roger's gaze steadily while taking a pinch of snuff. Roger, meanwhile, felt his heart beginning to pound so that he had difficulty in keeping his breathing even. He knew now that the cat and mouse game was over and the cat was coming in for the kill.
Flicking away the grains of snuff from the satin lapels of his coat the elegant human cat went on, 'Having been given the relevant dates my agents reported to me that during the first half of 1801 you did not at any time occupy your chateau at St. Maxime and that the register of post services chargeable to the Army shows that on June 6th a Colonel Brcuc was furnished with a mount in Frankfurt, lay in Verdun for a few hours the following night and arrived in Paris on the 8th, the evening of my reception.' Suddenly Talleyrand leaned forward and pointed an accusing finger:
'Touchc, Mistair Brook; et touche encore'
With a sigh Roger put up both his hands palms outward, ‘I admit it. I might have known that although I could fool Duroc I could not fool you. That is if it occurred to you to go into the matter; but I saw no reason why you should.'
Talleyrand smiled but his smile had no humour in it, 'The gamble you took was a good one. It would have corns off had I not learned of Lord Kildonan's accident and its having made it impossible for him to leave Rome during the last years of his life. 'Tis upon just such slender chances that the fate of empires hang. In this case it is your own. Now, Mr. Brook, be good enough to inform me of your reason for going to St. Petersburg.'
'I spent some time there in '87 and, having become bored by my long convalescence after Marengo, I thought it would be interesting to pay another visit to the city.'
'Indeed!' The Minister's mobile mouth curved into a sneer. 'And, no doubt, you found a swift cure for your boredom in plotting the murder of the Czar?'
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