‘Ah,’ said Monsieur Beyle, seeing him. ‘A man who can read! Providence has sent you, Monsieur le secrétaire. I almost had to travel with these chimpanzees in uniform!’ He took Sebastian’s arm. ‘Take a look at what I’ve looted from that pretty white house there, you see? A volume of Chesterfield and the Facéties by Voltaire. It’s spoiled the Complete Works, I grant you, but still, these books are better in my pocket than in the flames. Do you have a carriage?’
‘No …’
‘Me neither. My servants have stuffed it with baggage and I’ve been forced to invite that tedious fellow Bonnaire along. Do you know who I mean?’
‘No …’
‘Auditor to the State Council and a crashing bore to boot!’
‘I’m not really in a fit state to chat …’
‘I understand, I understand. We’re surrounded by boors. This fire is a grand and beautiful spectacle, but one needs to be alone to truly enjoy it. What a pity to have to share it with people who’d belittle the Colosseum and the Bay of Naples! And what’s more …’
‘Yes, Monsieur Beyle?’
‘I have an appalling toothache.’
He held his cheek. Sebastian moved off without a word, heading nowhere in particular except further on, his mind clouded by the punch. Administrators were trying to squeeze into packed berlines, arguments were breaking out, tussles, insults; office colleagues were hurling home truths in one another’s faces. Nerves were fraying through fear. It was all taking too long. In the glow of the fires devastating Moscow, groups of troopers were riding alongside the column of carriages while others set off on reconnaissance to clear a path for the convoy. Sitting on his bag, his chin in his hands, Sebastian Roque closed his eyes; the punch hadn’t affected his memory, words of his dear Seneca came to him: ‘All things must be made light of and borne with good humour; it is more human to laugh at life than bewail it.’ How human I am, he thought to himself, hiccupping. The hiccup became a giggle, then the giggle uncontrollable laughter and the berlines’ passengers looked at this young man overcome by mirth. ‘The poor lad has gone mad,’ sighed a coachman. ‘Lucky blighter,’ like an echo, answered a passenger leaning on his carriage door.
*
A tingling sensation made Sebastian jump. His sleeve was on fire. He stood up, slapping his arm. How long had he been asleep, his head on his bag? The carriages had gone, no one had bothered about him, he was alone on the boulevard; he had shooting pains in his head and a stiff neck. He heard hammering – no, it was hooves and wooden wheels echoing on the cobbles. He saw riders outlined against the smoke. The light of the fires accentuated the outlandishness of their headgear. The one leading the way, a strapping great rogue, was wearing an enormous fur hat, the others Tartar hats, Cossack regulars’ caps or brass helmets. They rode closer, their getups becoming clearer. Russians were they, with those boots some of them wore that turned up at the toe? A detachment come to put the finishing touches to the disaster? The one at the front had a long nose, a pale, walrus moustache, a green Guard’s coat; an abbot in a hitched-up soutane followed, then men in long embroidered coats with scimitars at their belts. They were towing a chest on casters; their little long-maned horses were laden with booty. This motley troupe stopped in front of Sebastian, who stood up, thinking that they were going to kill him. ‘And I don’t even care! It must be the punch, or fatigue …’ Two of the troopers were whispering in each other’s ear, and then their leader said, in French, ‘Don’t stay there, Monsieur Roque, you’ll brown like a side of beef.’
‘You know my name?’
‘Rouen, the spinning-mills …’
‘You’re from Normandy?’
‘Herbigny, does that ring any bells? Herbigny, on the way to Canteleu, just before Croisset.’
‘I know the chateau, yes, with the limes, the meadow slopes down to the Seine …’
‘That’s my name, and that’s been my house since the death of my father who knew yours.’
‘So you are d’Herbigny, goodness!’
‘Paulin! Put Monsieur Roque’s bag with my portmanteau and you, Bonet, give him your nag. You’ll walk, that’ll teach you to play the parish priest!’
‘I can walk,’ said Sebastian.
‘So can he. Shall we get on with it, Bonet?’ To Sebastian, he added, ‘I needed to do something to that good-for-nothing, his soutane is putting me to shame.’
‘What about Martinon’s horse?’ said Trooper Bonet.
‘You think it hasn’t got enough already with our cloth and provisions? Anyway, it’s an order, for Heaven’s sake!’
They set off at a walk again though passable streets, taking the long way round to skirt the fire and get out into the countryside. The sound of flames and crashing roofs was accompanied by the howling of guard dogs which, as was customary in Moscow, were chained up outside many of the palaces; forgotten, they were burning to death. Sebastian saw some under a peristyle. Driven into a frenzy by the heat, the creatures were scrabbling at their scalding chains but the metal wouldn’t give, the fire was surrounding them, holding them prisoner, they were darting in every direction to try to stop the pads of their feet from burning. Beams were crashing to the ground, showering them with sparks, their coats were catching fire, and they were howling themselves hoarse one last time before they roasted alive.
Then the troopers followed the banks of the Moskova, passing charred bridges; the piles were breaking off and smoking and spitting in the water. They took a stone bridge, which had withstood the fire in that suburb; below, the river washed along blackened timbers. The road was lit by the blaze. In the plain, homelier fires marked the bivouacs of Davout’s army corps.
They turned their backs on the torrid city and set off towards Petrovsky, which the Emperor had retired to. The road was narrow (it cannot have been more than three metres wide), so they were unable to pass a berline that had stopped in the middle, taking it up completely. The captain dismounted grouchily, intending to give some postilion in a drunken stupor a good shake, and walked round the berline. An open barouche had overturned on the verge; the occupants of both vehicles were straining to get it back on its wheels with a lot of panting and shouts of ‘Ho!’
‘Excellent timing,’ exclaimed one of the passengers, who was brick red and running with sweat, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up; he was mopping his forehead with a lace petticoat.
‘Anybody hurt?’ asked the captain.
‘Just some bumps and spoiled flour.’ He pointed to the torn sacks in the ditch. ‘I know this damned road is difficult, but if the coachman hadn’t drunk so much … It is not as if you can complain about the light!’
His cheeks quivered as he looked at Moscow. Somewhere a grating melody began which set their teeth on edge; suddenly downcast, the man exclaimed, ‘It’s Bonnaire! He thinks he can play the violin.’
‘Monsieur Beyle?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Ah, it’s you, is it, Monsieur le secrétaire? Bonnaire, yes, Bonnaire, the stupidest, most timorous spoilt child I have ever met! Hey! You there, stop him murdering Cimarosa! That’s what he claims to be doing, Monsieur le secrétaire – playing Cimarosa on an out-of-tune violin he stole a moment ago!’
At a signal from the captain, Trooper Bonet marched up to the violinist who was mangling Cimarosa’s ‘Secret Wedding’ and grabbed his instrument. ‘Confiscated!’
‘Leave me alone!’ cried Bonnaire. ‘What gives you the right?’
‘Our ears! These gentlemen don’t like your noise.’
‘Noise? Boeotians!’ Bonnaire protested, hitting the dragoon with the bow. Bonet parried the blows with the violin, which he held like a racket; a string broke with a crack and whipped Bonnaire in the cheek, who began yelping, then sniffling, tears pricking his eyes, before running off and shutting himself in the berline to sulk in earnest. Bonet threw the violin onto the plain, then rejoined his companions and helped them set about righting the barouche. Even with the extra pairs of hands, it took a long time before they
got the carriage back on its wheels. Then, dog-tired, they continued on their way together in silence. It was eleven o’clock at night.
As they pulled away from the city, they saw the moon shining above the canopy of smoke. Bivouacs began to proliferate in the plain; they were approaching Petrovsky. The troops grew denser. Massed in the middle of fields, soon they formed a vast camp around a column of sofas and pianos looked from palaces that rose up like a pathetic obelisk. There was no way of carrying on through that horde of soldiers at rest. D’Herbigny and the others had to abandon their carriages at Prince Eugene’s Italian cantonments, which surrounded the chateau. The dragoons went off to find their brigade, so they said, but in fact they were looking for a good spot to eat their ham and sleep off their wine. Sebastian fetched his bag and gave Bonet his horse back; when he dismounted, his boots sank into a thick mire, which explained why the soldiers had spread straw on the cold, wet ground, laid planks on the straw and covered the planks with furs and material. They were feeding their fires with window sashes, gilt-handled doors and billets of mahogany as they sprawled, with exaggerated languor, in armchairs upholstered with tapestry. Resting on their knees were silver dishes of black mush baked in the ash, which they pushed around with their fingers, rolled into balls and tossed into their mouths between bites of bloody, half-cooked chunks of horsemeat. Sebastian’s stomach heaved.
‘Not hungry any more, Monsieur le secrétaire?’ joked Henri Beyle.
‘These people spoil my appetite.’
‘I have some figs, some raw fish and a poor white wine from the cellars of the English Club. For someone from supplies, this seems pretty pitiful, I know, but do let’s share it, if you fancy, and let’s not wake Bonnaire up, for pity’s sake.’
Sebastian accepted the invitation. They took a chest out of the berline to sit on and a basket of the aforementioned provisions and started to eat, looking pensively back at the city. Sebastian chewed the sticky, tasteless flesh of a freshwater fish, and found himself involuntarily thinking of Ornella. It exasperated him, but how could he get her out of his mind? He saw her in the Kremlin’s cellars, in the barouche, he heard her saying ‘It’s the saltfish-sellers’ street, Monsieur Sebastian …’ He sighed, his mouth full. He would have liked to talk about his anxieties, but with whom? This Henri Beyle? He spat some bones onto the ground.
‘What are you thinking about, Monsieur le secrétaire?’
‘The burning of Rome,’ lied the young man.
‘Let’s hope Moscow’s won’t last nine days! When I think people have blamed Nero for starting it!’
‘There’s no doubt Rostopchin organized Moscow’s fire, Monsieur Beyle.’
‘This Rostopchin will either be a scoundrel or a hero. We’ll have to see how his plan turns out.’
‘The Russian historians will accuse Napoleon, the way the Latin historians accused Nero.’
‘Suetonius? Tacitus? Those aristocrats who hated an Emperor who was too well liked by the people? Add the slanders of the victorious Christians and you have an odious reputation to last for centuries.’
The two Imperial functionaries drank their lukewarm white wine out of Chinese porcelain cups, and spoke about the destruction of Rome as they gazed on that of Moscow. That night they needed to escape into the past in order to feel they belonged to history.
‘Did Nero really have nothing to do with it?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Listen … The fire caught at the foot of the Palatine in some sheds which were used to store oil. The wind was blowing from the south. The conflagration, like today, spread quickly through a town made up of little woodframe houses jammed up against one another. Nero returns from Antium, where he has been resting, sees his capital devastated, its treasures from all over the world in flames – his library, the former Temple of the Moon, Romulus’s sanctuary, the great amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus … And what does the Emperor do? Rejoice? Not a bit of it! He organizes emergency relief, takes care of the refugees, constructs temporary shelters, distributes food to those who have been impoverished by the fire, lowers the price of corn for everyone else, posts guards around burnt-out houses to prevent looting. At one point, exhausted and bitter, he takes up his lyre and sings a dirge. His enemies immediately twist this to their advantage: Nero, they say, has set Rome on fire to have a subject for song.’
‘Nevertheless, he did blame the Christians …’
‘Forget Suetonius and the other scandalmongers. The Emperor ordered an inquiry, and it was the Roman people who indicted the Christians. Throughout the catastrophe, the leaders of the sect just laughed at Rome’s misfortunes! The Christians weren’t persecuted for their religion but for their refusal to abide by the laws, their constant cavilling. The reprisals were severe but brief. Fewer Christians were killed under Nero than under the clement Marcus Aurelius …’
‘And us? What will they say about us, Monsieur Beyle?’
‘Horrors, no doubt, Monsieur le secrétaire. Would you like another fig?’
*
Moscow was still burning the following morning. Sebastian Roque had resumed his duties in the Petrovsky Palace, the Tsars’ baroque summer residence, a brick and tile castle with Greek towers and Tartar walls. In the middle of an immense circular room, under a dome that gave light, Napoleon had had his great wax- and ink-stained map of Russia laid out. The chubby, dishevelled figure of Baron Bacler d’Albe, head of the Topographical Department, had gone down on all fours to stick coloured pins in the map indicating the positions of the two camps. The Emperor was considering the enemy armies’ possible movements.
‘We are only fifteen marches from St Petersburg,’ he said eventually. ‘Our scouts assure us the road is clear.’
‘Winter is on its way,’ said Berthier. ‘Are we going to seek it further north?’
The major general and the officers were concerned. The Emperor pressed on, ‘The Tsar dreads our offensive. He has had his archives and treasures evacuated to London.’
‘We have that from the Cossacks, but how do they know? Aren’t they trying to trick us?’
‘Be quiet! Murat’s reports should steady us, you bunch of cowards! The Russian army is disheartened, their soldiers are deserting before the King of Naples’ eyes, the Cossacks are ready to go over to him!’
‘The Cossacks admire the King of Naples’ courage, sire, but you know him …’
‘Go on!’
‘Murat is easily convinced because they flatter him.’
‘And then,’ Duroc broke in, ‘the King of Naples has only encountered their rearguard. Where has Kutuzov’s army got to?’
‘Carried straight on, no doubt about it, he’s to the east of us.’
‘We’re not certain of that, sire.’
‘I know how he reasons, that one-eyed oaf!’
‘What if he had gone down south, which is fertile country, to restore his strength?’
‘Where?’
‘Towards Kaluga, perhaps.’
‘Show me this Caligula!’
‘Kaluga, sire, under your left foot …’
‘Conjecture!’
The Emperor got down on all fours like his topographer; he moved pins around, commentating as he did so, ‘The Viceroy of Italy’s divisions will make quick time along the Petersburg road, here, while the other corps pretend to follow but in fact only give support … Understood? The rearguard will hold Moscow’s environs. In the plains, our columns will effect a circular movement, like this, to link up with Gouvion-Saint-Cyr’s Bavarians and take the Russians in the rear …’
‘Bravo, sire!’ exclaimed Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, with his clipped moustache and sparse hair.
‘Oh no, sire, if it does turn out that Kutuzov is going down towards Kaluga, then he is trying to cut off our return route.’
‘Berthier! Who is talking about returning? I cannot retreat! Do you want me to lose face? I will go and seek the peace at St Petersburg!’
‘If he wanted to negotiate, the Tsar would not
have destroyed Moscow.’
‘Alexander holds me in high esteem, and he didn’t give the order to burn his capital!’
‘Sire,’ intervened Count Daru, who was in charge of the Imperial commissariat, ‘in any case, we should retire before winter. The men are exhausted.’
‘They are not men, they’re soldiers!’
‘Even soldiers must eat …’
‘As soon as this wretched fire is brought under control, we’ll search the cellars, we’ll find leather, hides for winter.’
‘Provisions?’
‘Those too! If need be we’ll have them brought from Danzig!’
Crouching lower, his hands flat on the floor and nose buried in the map, the Emperor grew fervent. He created a Russia to suit his convenience, running roads through marshes, bringing in imaginary harvests, launching cavalry charges, snapping up victories. Advancing in this whirlwind fashion on St Petersburg, he bumped heads with his geographer, let out a yell and abused him in Corsican dialect. No one had the heart to smile. The fate of a hundred thousand men depended on a word; for once, everyone knew that reality would not yield to one man’s whims.
*
The fire was laying siege to the stone church in which the actors had taken refuge. The cobblestones of the square insulated the building from the burning houses, and, having nothing to feed on, the fire stopped well before it, but the heat was suffocating as soon as you left the nave. Wrapped in their tablecloths, Ornella and her friend Catherine had ventured a little way outside, onto the scalding steps, before quickly retreating, drenched in sweat. They may have been hungry, like their companions, but, above all, they needed water; their tongues and throats were parched, even their saliva had dried up. When he’d gone, Captain d’Herbigny had left them the keg of brandy, but alcohol staves off thirst rather than quenches it and they had no way to escape to the river or the lake Mme Aurore knew of in the west, where the wind was coming from. In the middle of this fire, if they didn’t die in the flames, the actors were going to die of thirst. The Great Vialatoux had been caught with his head in a stoup, lapping at the brackish water, and was now doubled up on the flagstones with a vicious stomach ache. Mme Aurore had had to stop her juvenile lead chewing the candles, lest he exacerbate his thirst. They hoped for a miracle, for rain, for the fire to die down for lack of fuel. Could they hold out without drinking? They waited for a storm, they called one down, but all they heard on all sides was the din of buildings crashing to the ground, the crackle of beams, the spit of flames, the howls of men and animals trapped by the fire. A stained-glass window, its lead lattice melted clean away, shattered at the foot of a pillar; a splinter of blue glass cut Ornella in the shoulder.
The Retreat Page 8