It was after midnight when I was ushered in to the Palace of the Tuileries, but Napoleon was still at his desk, wearing evening clothes as though he had come from some reception first.
"Sire," I said, sinking into a deep courtesy.
"Madame St. Elme," he said, looking up from his papers and putting them aside. "Do you take coffee?"
"Yes, sire," I said, somewhat bemused as a servant poured out a cup for me from a pot left standing on the sideboard, steaming hot and very black. He refilled the Emperor's cup as well, and then bowed himself out.
Napoleon gestured to the chair before the desk. "You may as well sit down. I do not expect this conversation will be brief."
"All the better to have in the middle of the night," I said, thinking of the long lines of people waiting in the antechamber during the day.
He laughed. "Not that sort of conversation, Madame, though I did find you delightful company! I had something different in mind. Are you engaged for the summer?"
"No, sire," I said. "I have not yet signed anywhere."
"Good, for I do not expect you will have time for it. Have you a lover?"
"Not at present, sire," I said, and was pleased that I did not color at all.
"Also to the good, as no one will be asking too many questions." He slid a brown Morocco folder in front of him and looked up at me keenly. "You know we plan to invade England."
"Everyone knows that," I said. Our armies had been poised by the channel for nearly a year, in camp from Boulogne to the Pas de Calais, waiting for the war that would inevitably come.
"Everyone does, but everyone does not know when it will happen, or how."
"And the British very much would like to," I said, trying to sound as though I discussed the highest matters of foreign policy with heads of state every day.
"Indeed. But of course they do not. Yet." He let the last word fall ominously in the air. "You can imagine, Madame, the difference in our casualties, and indeed in the success of our expedition, depending on whether or not they know the date and location of our landings in advance."
"Yes," I said. There was a tremendous difference between an unopposed landing on a deserted bit of beach, and a pitched battle to get ashore, with the British Navy picking off targets among our transports.
"They have spies, of course." He took a sip of his coffee and I followed suit. It was scalding hot. "And we have spies. The usual minuet. However, a situation has arisen that gives me particular pause." Napoleon looked at me over the rim of the cup. "There is a spy in the camp of the Grand Army, Madame. A spy who is either someone so highly placed that they are in the midst of the most delicate planning, or someone who is very close to someone who is. And not a wife or companion. A wife or companion would not have access to headquarters documents that do not leave the custody of the most senior officers. A very senior officer, Madame, or the aide to such."
It clicked into place for me. "You think it's one of the Marshals."
"Eighteen men," he said. "I have raised eighteen men to the highest military title France has ever had. Eighteen men who have fought for the Republic and shed their blood for ten years."
"And one of them is a traitor." I nodded slowly. "Like Moreau."
"Exactly like Moreau, Madame. The rewards are the same, after all."
"To be the new head of state, or to be the power behind the throne of a Bourbon restoration," I said. Oh yes, the rewards were easy to imagine.
"Four of the eighteen hold honorary titles with no real military responsibility," he said. "So I believe we can clear Kellermann, Lefebvre, Perignon and Serurier. And while there are others who are not part of the Army of the Coasts of Ocean, they must to some extent be part of any plans at the highest levels eventually. That is why those plans are being prepared in absolute secrecy, and only myself, Marshal Berthier, and two others are as yet aware of their contents. But before long we must open the secret to the men who must execute it."
"And so you must trap the spy before then," I said. I met his eyes across the desk. "Before the end of summer?"
The Emperor just smiled. "For a number of reasons which will be made clear, I am quite certain that the agent is working in the camps of the Grand Army at Boulogne or Montreuil-Sur-Mer. I need you to catch him for me."
"Why me?" I asked.
"Because I cannot be certain that Fouché himself is not in communication with the Royalists," he said. "And because I need someone who can move about freely, outside of the chain of command, and yet have plenty of good reasons to be in our camps."
Michel was stationed at Montreuil. I did know that, but it did not bear thinking about. I took a cautious sip of my coffee. "What about the aides?" I asked.
Napoleon shrugged. "There are dozens, of course. And while some of the Marshals are discreet, there are others who are careless. Too much said to the wrong person, codes too easily accessible, letters and correspondence too easily reached by a trusted aide. To make matters more complicated, Montreuil is also the site of the new School of War."
I must have looked blank, for he continued. "Marshal Ney and I have ventured to begin a new thing. In other trades and professions, a man must study a great deal to master his work. And indeed, military academies are not new. I attended one myself as a boy. But that was not the case with many of our officers. Most, like Marshal Ney, came up through the ranks learning as they went, putting together a bit of practical experience and a bit out of dog-eared copies of Caesar. Of course such training is incomplete. They have never had any comprehensive study of their work." He got up from the desk and paced to the curtained windows, his hands behind his back. "And how shall we get better, except by study and by fighting against our equals in the field? The School of War gives us the opportunity to not only fight one another on paper, but to take the field in miniature against the greatest masters of any age. I understand it was quite something to watch, last month, when Marshal Lannes and Marshal Ney refought the Battle of Gaugamela!" He sounded amused, but I could not see his face.
"And who was who, sire?" I asked.
"I understand that Darius won this time," he said. "But it is only fair, as Marshal Lannes knew what Darius did not and made far better use of his horse archers on the Macedonian right." He turned around in front of the windows. "And that is to whom I am sending you. Marshal Lannes will be your contact and your commander in this."
"Lannes?" I had never met the man, though of course I had heard of him. He had been with Bonaparte in Italy rather than on the Rhine with Moreau and Ney.
"Marshal Lannes is the only one I am certain of. Not only would he never treat with Fouché or the British, but he is also the only one discreet enough that I am certain of his staff. Davout, Ney…." He waved a hand and I knew what he meant. They might trust the wrong people. "I am sure you and Marshal Lannes can think of an adequate cover story for why you are there."
"I am sure we can," I said. The obvious sprang to mind. Right in front of Michel, who would think….
"I will not tell you to trust no one else. You must do as you see fit in the situation, and confide as you need to." He looked at me, and I thought he sounded amused. "I will not tell you not to tell Ney, to spare your conscience when you do!"
"Sire, Ney and I have been done these three years," I said a bit stiffly. "As you should well know, having had a hand in bringing it about."
His eyebrows rose. "I arranged his marriage. Why should I think he would throw you over for it? What reasonable man would, Madame?"
"None," I said dryly. "Except him. But that is all distant history, sire. I assure you I have no desire to confide anything in Ney."
"Marshal Lannes will give you a complete briefing when you arrive in Boulogne," he said. "And explain what we know of the matter. You may go to him for assistance at any point, and he will request periodic updates from you. You may also request from him any incidentals you may need, transportation, funds, a troop of grenadiers…." He grinned at me like a schoolboy who is enjoying a game of
spies. "I trust you will not be too extravagant in your requests."
"I will not be, sire," I said. I hesitated, and then said what I meant. "I am sensible of the opportunity to serve. It is not something I expected."
"You will do well, Madame," the Emperor said. "I have faith in you."
And so I journeyed to the camp of the Army of the Coasts of Ocean, hugging that faith close in my heart. If he believed in me, surely I could not fail!
I had never met Marshal Lannes before, and as I approached the camp of the Grand Army at Boulogne the weather became decidedly uncooperative. Thus it was with a sodden bonnet and dripping plumes that I was escorted into his headquarters.
Despite the dismal weather, or perhaps because of it, it was extremely crowded. Young men in the uniforms of every branch of the service hurried to and fro, while four desks strained with the paperwork upon them, uniformed clerks struggling to keep up. The nearest appeared to be dealing with provisioning, which was hardly a surprise as there must be more than fifty thousand men encamped along this coast. The logistics of supply were daunting.
Of course it took forever to get the attention of someone who would give me the time of day.
"A letter!" I shouted over the din. "A letter from Marshal Berthier. For Marshal Lannes. I am to give it to him myself."
"Give it to me, Madame," the aide assured me, so young he still gangled. "I'll pass it on."
"I will not," I said. "I am to give it to him myself."
He looked doubtful. "Your name?"
"Madame St. Elme." I could barely hear myself over the din. A pair of messengers had come in muddy and were flinging droplets of water in the air as they took their cloaks off.
"You will wait a long time, Madame," he said. "The Marshal does not meet with ladies."
I sighed. Not that kind of meeting. "I have been sent by Marshal Berthier…." I began again.
"So you've said." He turned his back quite rudely and went to attend to the messengers.
I found it mildly humiliating to be taken for a woman on the make, an aging courtesan desperate for a pretext to talk to a famous man. But I could hardly shout to the room at large that I was on the Emperor's business. So I sat down to wait.
It was after five o'clock before a more senior officer deigned to notice me. He was a large man with perfectly massive brown sideburns and moustache, gorgeously attired in hussar's uniform with acres of gold lace across his chest. "Madame St. Elme? I understand you are carrying a message from Marshal Berthier?" He came and sat down in the wooden chair beside mine, and while I could see he did not believe me, his hazel eyes were at least frank and open. "I am Colonel Subervie, aide de camp to the Marshal."
"I am," I said, and produced the packet, showing it to him but not putting it in his hands. "May I have your word, sir, that you will put this into his hands immediately? I will wait here, if you like, but it is not to be put in a stack somewhere and forgotten about, or opened by a clerk."
"I'm not in the habit of losing the Marshal's correspondence," he said without heat, looking down at the packet. "I suppose it's too small to have a snake in it or something."
"A snake?" I almost laughed. "I would try to kill Marshal Lannes by handing him a letter with a snake in it? Why not a scorpion? Or a pit viper? Or a cobra? I might have a cobra in my reticule!"
Subervie looked abashed. "Stranger things have happened, Madame." He took the packet and stood up. "If you will wait a few moments, I will attend to this."
Having little other choice, I nodded and sat back to wait, hoping that he would indeed do this with dispatch. I should like to find the necessary, and I hated to leave while I was supposed to be waiting. Still, he seemed like a reliable man. I had long since learned to trust an impression that strong.
It could not have been five minutes before he returned, and Subervie's demeanor had changed entirely. "Come this way, Madame," he said, taking my elbow and hustling me quickly down the hall to the Marshal's office. "Marshal Lannes will see you right away."
The office was in the back, away from the din, with rain-slicked windows that looked out toward the sea, not that anything could be seen today. On an ordinary day, I supposed, one might even be able to see the topsails of the British ships patrolling just offshore, the Channel Fleet at their endless stations.
Lannes rose to his feet as I entered. Thirty-something, he was only of medium height, with a classically handsome face and light brown hair and the whippy body of a fencer, alert and keen. "Madame St. Elme," he said.
"Marshal Lannes."
Subervie shut the door behind me, staying inside.
Lannes' gaze ran up and down, from my sensible boots beneath my hem to the sodden plume on my bonnet. "So you are the Emperor's agent."
"I am," I said, coming in and taking the chair Subervie held for me, so that both of them might sit once more. "And you are the Emperor's friend."
He looked startled. "I like to think I am one of his friends."
"The one he trusts not to be spying for the Royalists," I said. "Wittingly or unwittingly. He has sent me to assist in your endeavors, and to find this man for you."
"So I see," he said, gesturing to the paper spread on his desk, the Emperor's own hand and his own seal. His eyes met mine squarely. Whatever doubts he might have, he did not give them harbor in the face of the Emperor's plan. "We have a leak. A substantial leak. And under the circumstances, a leak of our plans to the British could be the ruination of all. It would cost thousands of lives, to put it bluntly."
I nodded gravely. "So the Emperor said," I replied. "He said that the evidence pointed to a senior officer or one of their aides."
"Or one of the officers of the General Staff assigned to the School of War," Lannes said. "They also have access to some operational materials."
Subervie shifted in the other hard chair beside mine, and my eyes flew to him involuntarily.
"I've known Subervie since he was a boy," Lannes said, following my thought. "I'd stake my honor on him. But he's about the only one."
"There are too many people," Subervie said. "You saw the office out there. There are a hundred men in and out every day on business. We can't be certain that it's someone with legitimate access to the operational documents. There are just too many people."
"Don't you keep them locked up?"
"Of course." Lannes leaned back in his chair a little. "And many of them are in cipher. But it's not possible to keep everything locked up that could add up. Logistics and supply, for example. We have to order food, stockpile it, have powder and shot prepared and in the right locations. Every carter's order can't be in cipher or kept in a strongbox. Things add up. It's not the big plans I'm worried about. It's the hundreds of less secure things that add up."
"But surely everyone already knows we're going to invade England," I said. "Are the logistics that plain about date and time?"
Subervie and Lannes' eyes met over my head. The Marshal shrugged. "I think a smart man could put enough together," he said. "If he had the right pieces. Which is why we need to trap the spy, not just keep him away from the most classified materials. There are too many things that could give away something."
I had to accept that. "Do you have any suspicions, justified or unjustified? Any place I should start?"
"With the operational documents," Lannes said. "Subervie will give you a list of the men who have legitimate access, though I doubt that will tell you much. And then there are the aides. Dozens of them, and some of them aren't even French."
"No?"
"Jomini's all right," Subervie said. He looked at me. "He's Swiss, a volunteer who impressed Marshal Ney with his theories about classical warfare. Ney made him an aide and he teaches at the School of War."
I tried not to sigh. I had hoped to be here a few days before anything pointed straight there. But I knew Michel. If anyone was likely to hire a spy without realizing it, it was Michel, who always gave each man the best chance. "And what does this Jomini do?" I asked.
"He's been restaging classical battles for training purposes," Subervie said. "We fight each other in miniature, some of the great battles of history, learning what went right and seeing if we can change the outcome."
"The Emperor mentioned that," I said, looking at Lannes. "He said you recently won Gaugamela as the Persians."
Lannes laughed. "Oh that! Well, I had the advantage of knowing what mistakes Darius made. And besides, Hephaistion's no Alexander."
I must have started, because he looked at me a little sharply. "Marshal Ney was playing Hephaistion. In the game."
"Of course," I said.
A Passage of Blades
Colonel Subervie was charged with finding me lodgings in Boulogne, and I declined to accompany him, thinking that perhaps I had best be about my work as quickly as possible. After all, I had never done this before, and if I could not demonstrate expertise I could at least demonstrate energy. Subervie seemed to be under the impression that I was an agent of long standing, an experienced player in the espionage game, and I didn't want to disabuse either him or Lannes of the notion.
Of course it occurred to me to suspect Michel. How could it not? His wife's father had been an aristocrat, and her mother had killed herself when Marie Antoinette was guillotined. Aglae surely had no love for the Revolution, and I wondered, perhaps unfairly, if she had any for Michel. He was such a poor player at politics that I thought it would take very little for someone, either his wife or an aide recommended to him, to play him for a fool. He would trust the wrong person and betray his country unwittingly. I did not want the trail to lead to him, but I suspected that it might. I wondered if the Emperor thought the same, and if my employment in this matter had something to do with how close I might get to Michel.
Or could have once. I had not spoken with him in three years, since the summer of 1802. Passion does not well stand the test of time, especially apart. Especially with a wife in the middle. Especially with all that had passed between us.
I could not be fair about him, and wondered if I were rather too quick to indict where no crime had occurred. No, I must try other avenues first, and hope that the trail lead away from Michel, to someone else. I must try to investigate with as open a mind as possible.
Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05] Page 7