“I will do so, Citoyen Fouché,” Fourchette vowed, and, departed, after stubbing his cigarro out on the fireplace surround. And wondering, if the woman had been Lewrie’s lover, would she be entertaining enough and pretty enough to interview himself?
BOOK III
Their hearts battered by this din.
Were torn in two and much afraid.
Flight by land, said one . . .
The sea is better, said another.
GAIUS PETRONIUS,
THE ROAD TO CROTON, 330–33
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Napoleon Bonaparte, all-conquering general and the First Consul of France, always rose at dawn, when the brain was keenest. After one cup of tea in his bedroom, he spent an hour in the marble bath tub, in water kept so hot that Constant, his valet who read the morning papers to him, sometimes had to open a door and duck out into the hallway to escape the thick, foggy steam.
“. . . at the levee this afternoon, the First Consul will receive an embassy from Great Britain, represented by chargé d’aff aires Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton, escorting Capitaine de Vaisseau Alan Lewrie of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy, and his lady . . . ,” Constant intoned.
“A prissy, primping pédé,” Bonaparte grumbled. “A shit in silk stockings. They send me titled boy-fuckers, not a real ambassador . . . and how long has it been since the peace was ratified? Even though my man, Andréossy, has been named to them for months? This salaud’s old sword had been found?”
“It has, First Consul,” Constant told him. “Rustam has it.”
“Well, let me see the damned thing,” Bonaparte snapped. Usually his steaming bath relaxed him immensely and eased his constant problem of needing to pee, yet being unable for long, impatient minutes. But today, it was one vexation after another.
Rustam, his Mameluke servant brought back from his Egyptian Campaign, stepped closer, dressed in magnificent native garb, holding out a scabbarded sword. “Cleaned and polished, General,” Rustam assured.
A hanger-sword, no grander than the sabre-briquet a Grenadier of the Guard might carry on his hip: royal blue scabbard with sterling silver fittings, its only decorative touches being a hand-guard shaped like a sea-shell, silver wire wound round its blue shark-skin grip, and a matching sea-shell catch on the throat to fit it into a baldric, or a sword belt. The pommel was the usual lion’s head, also in silver.
“And where the Devil did I get it? Remind me, Constant,” Napoleon demanded. Young General Bonaparte had always awed his troops with a steel-trap memory for names, ranks, faces, and past heroic deeds. . . . Unknown to them was his preparation, and prompting by officers on his staff to provide those names, ranks, and deeds.
“Toulon, towards the end of our siege, First Consul,” Constant read from notes made in Napoleon’s own hand in the inventory of his personal armory. “The British officer was in command of a commandeered French two-decker, lowered by one deck and converted to a mortar ship. She was shelling Fort Le Garde, quite successfully, until you gathered General La Poype’s heavy artillery and shelled her in return, scoring a direct hit and blowing her up.”
“Ah, oui . . . now I remember.” Napoleon brightened up, enjoying the memory. “The survivors swam ashore, and we rode down to take them prisoner. The officer. . . . ?”
“Lewrie, General,” Constant provided. “Your note says that despite your offer of parole, he preferred to surrender his sword and go with his men.”
“He looked like a drowned rat . . . but he had hair on his ass.” Bonaparte hooted with glee. “Oui, just after I took his sword, those ‘yellow-jackets,’ Spanish cavalry, approached from Fort Sainte-Marguerite, and we had to scramble for our lives, hawn hawn! It was quite a day, Constant . . . quite a day. Doesn’t look all that valuable, though, to me. Not enough sterling silver to make a tea-pot, really. The blade is more valuable. Unsheathe it, Rustam, aha! Made by Gills’s. Even better than Sheffield or Wilkinson, or a German’s Kligenthal. Now I see why that Anglais fumier wants it back.”
When Napoleon Bonaparte shaved himself (not using a servant to do it), he secretly preferred pearl-handled razor sets smuggled in from Birmingham, England, since French steel could not take so fine an edge.
“Put it where we remember it, Rustam,” Bonaparte ordered. “Any more interesting items, Constant?”
“Indeed, First Consul. Shall I continue?”
“Red velvet suit today, General?” Rustam asked.
“Non,” Bonaparte decided. “If that preening fop Talleyrand is desirous of a theatric with the Anglais, then I must dress for my part . . . and I do not wish to portray the smiling, peaceful dunce. No one pulls my strings like a puppet! The British lie, stall, and delay . . . with such wonderful smiles. They play the same game they did with the Américains after they lost the Revolution over there. They keep hold of French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies the same way they kept New York and New England, the settlements on the upper Missouri and Mississippi . . . on the Américain side of the Great Lakes. Do the British even say when they will evacuate Malta, for instance? Pah, they do not!
“Today, Rustam,” Napoleon Bonaparte instructed, wiping his face free of sweat with a fresh, dry hand towel, “I will appear more martial . . . as a sign of my displeasure. Lay out my Colonel of Chasseurs uniform.”
Though it was but a short distance from their lodgings in Rue Honoré to the main entrance to the Tuileries Palace, a coach-and-four was de rigueur, laid on by the embassy and Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton.
“Oh, lovely suitings, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Anthony gushed once they’d gotten aboard. “You used my tailor? But, of course you did . . . and Mistress Lewrie, enchantée! Your humble servant, Mar’m, and allow me to tender my regrets that we have not, ’til this instance, met. I beg your pardons, but I must also express how lovely you look today, as well. Congratulations. My, won’t it be fine, though, as I said to Captain Lewrie, for you to be presented to the First Consul? A day to remember the rest of your lives, aha!”
Stop yer gob, ’fore I do it for ye, Lewrie thought, in no better takings than the first time he’d been exposed to the simpering young twit; Christ, but he will prattle on!
“I am led to understand that a factotum from the First Consul’s staff came round to retrieve the swords you are to present to him. . . . All is in order, Captain Lewrie?” Paisley-Templeton enquired.
“Aye, all done,” Lewrie told him. “Shifty-lookin’ cove.”
“You will be thrilled to learn that the First Consul’s office sent me a letter, informing me that your old sword has been discovered in Bonaparte’s trophy room,” Sir Anthony further enthused (languidly), “and will be on-hand to return to you, once the pacific speeches about our new relations are done. Erm . . . you would not mind looking over a few thoughts that might go down well, were you to express them to the First Consul during the time he gives you, Captain Lewrie?”
“Some actor’s lines t’be learned, sir?” Lewrie balked. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of ’em?”
“Just a phrase or two, some hopes for a long, continued peace,” Paisley-Templeton assured him, producing a sheet of paper from his velvet and embroidered silk coat.
“Well, Hell,” Lewrie said with a put-upon sigh, quickly looking them over. “Damn my eyes, sir! Do people . . . real people ever talk in such stilted fashion?”
“Well, erm . . . ,” Sir Anthony daintily objected, blushing a bit.
“Captain Lewrie will phrase things his own way, Sir Anthony,” Caroline told the prim diplomat. “With luck, he will be able to get the gist of what you wish said across. Won’t you, my dear?”
She was too impressed by the grandness of the occasion to be angry with him today, and sounded almost supportive, as if she’d tease the young fop, too. Almost like a fond wife of long-standing content.
“And, here we are!” Paisley-Templeton said with overt relief as the coach rocked to a stop and a liveried palace lackey opened the kerb-side door. This sea-dog was being a bit too gru
ff this afternoon for Paisley-Templeton’s liking.
“You do look lovely, Caroline,” Lewrie whispered to her as they debarked from the coach, into a sea of onlookers and other attendees garbed in their own grandeur. “Especially so.”
That put a broader grin on her face and a twinkle in her eyes as she lifted her head to gaze over the incoming crowd. Lady Imogene had done her proud, with a choice of gown in the latest Paris fashion, with the puffy half sleeves, low-cut bodice, and high-waisted style of the moment. Caroline’s gown was a delicate light peach colour, trimmed with a waist sash and hemmings of braided gilt and amber twine, with an additional trim of white lace; all carefully attuned to her complexion, her sandy light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. A gilt lamé stole hung on her shoulders, draped over long white gloved arms, and nigh to the bottom hem of the gown. Some of the late Granny Lewrie’s gold and diamond jewelry adorned her ears and wrists, while a gold and amber necklace encircled her neck. Her hair was done up in the convoluted Grecian style, with a braided gilt and amber circlet sporting egret plumes bound about her forehead. And, in the style of the times, her gown was racily shimmery semi-opaque, which, in the right light, revealed almost all of a woman’s secrets. In Caroline’s case, her gown hinted at a woman who, despite three children and a hearty cook, had kept her figure slim and nearly girlish.
She did frown for a second, though, to look down at her feet to see if her white silk knee stockings or gilt lamé slippers had gotten scuffed or stained. Satisfied that all was still well, she looked back up and rewarded both Sir Anthony and Lewrie with another pleased grin.
“Beard the lion in his den?” Lewrie japed in a whisper to her.
“The ogre in his cave,” Caroline quipped right back.
“The troll under the bridge,” Lewrie added.
“The dragon in his golden lair,” she said with a chuckle, and leaned her head close to Lewrie’s for a moment.
“Those feathers’ll make me sneeze,” Lewrie said.
“Pardon, m’sieur. Permettez-moi, s’il vous plaît,” a uniformed officer in the Police Nationale said to Lewrie, once they were in the large formal receiving hall. “Un moment?” the young officer beckoned to draw him into an alcove, away from the others.
“What for?” Lewrie asked. “Sir Anthony?” He looked for aid.
“I do not know, Captain Lewrie. Un problème, m’sieur? Damme! He says no one presented to the First Consul can do so without being searched for weapons, Captain Lewrie! This is outrageous!”
“But understandable,” Lewrie said, after thinking about it for a moment. “Proceed, sir. Produit, m’sieur,” he told the officer as he held out his arms to cooperate. Muttering to himself in English, “And I hope ye’re not one t’prefer the ‘windward passage.’ ”
Lewrie got a rather thorough pat-down, though it was obvious that the snug tailoring of his suit precluded hidden weapons; even the inside of his lower sleeves, the tops of his half-boots held nought.
“Lui, aussi, maintenant, m’sieur?” Lewrie asked in his halting French, pointing to Paisley-Templeton. “Him too, now?”
“They will not dare!” Sir Anthony snapped. “This is an insult to his Britannic Majesty, King George, and all Great Britain! A stiff note of displeasure will be on Minister Talleyrand’s desk before nightfall, dare they man-handle me, sir!”
“C’est de rigueur, comprenez, messieurs?” the officer said with an apologetic shrug, waving them both back towards the hall doors, and the two men rejoined Caroline at their place in line before those tall double doors, as tall as a longboat stood on end. They were surrounded by a rainbow of brightly coloured uniforms of the various branches of Napoleon’s army, some clanking with spurs on their boots and swords at their hips, which raised Lewrie’s eyebrows over his recent search. By those officers and ornately dressed civilian gentlemen stood an host of elegantly gowned women, some of them young, lovely, and flirtatious as they waited for entrée; lovers and mistresses, Lewrie determined. Wives seemed more dowdy, even though gaudied up something sinful in the same semi-translucent fabrics as the young and firm-bodied. And there were so many egret plumes in hats and hairdos that Lewrie could conjure that every bird in Europe was now bare-arsed.
A majordomo or master of ceremonies loudly announced each pair as they were allowed in, crying above the soft strains of a string orchestra over in one corner of the vast baroque hall. Their turn came at last; first Sir Anthony, then, “Capitaine de Vaisseau à la Marine de Guerre Britannique, Alain Lui . . . Lew-rie, et Madame Caroline Lewrie!”
That turned quite a number of heads, made officers grip their sword hilts or pause with their champagne glasses halfway to their lips, forced women to goggle or comment behind their fans, and flutter them in faint alarm, as if a fox had been allowed into their chicken coop.
“Are we so infamous?” Caroline had to ask in a soft mutter near his ear once more, her cool and regal smile still plastered on her face.
“We’re English. . . . We must be,” Lewrie chuckled back. “How do, all,” he said to the crowd in a soft voice, nodding and smiling, almost waving in their general direction as they paced down the centre of the reception hall. “Now, Sir Anthony . . . where the Devil do they keep the bloody champagne?”
First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte had completed his toilet after leaving his bath; his usual routine followed to the letter. He washed his hands with almond paste, his face, neck, and ears with scented soap (from La Contessa’s, in point of fact, in the Place Victor), picked his teeth with a boxwood stem, brushed twice, with paste then powdered coral. Stripped to the waist, dressing robe tossed aside and standing in a flannel vest and underdrawers, he had Constant trickle eau de cologne over his head (also from Phoebe Aretino’s) whilst he brushed his skin with stiff bristles, and had Constant do his back.
Napoleon donned stockings, white cashmere breeches, and a silk shirt with a fine muslin cravat, with a white cashmere waist-coat over that. He spent his morning at work ’til eleven, when he dined lightly. Then, still in a foul mood, he at last made his decision about what he would wear to the levee. The scarlet-trimmed dark green Chasseur uniform was militant, but not nearly enough.
Bonaparte ordered his dress general’s uniform, the long blue tail-coat with the lavish gilt lace trim and scrolls of acanthus leaves. Top-boots, and a red-white-blue Tricolour sash about his waist, over the double-breasted uniform coat.
“Bon,” he decided, looking in the cheval mirror. Lastly, he stuck a scented handkerchief in a pocket and a small snuff box into another, nodded to Constant, and headed down to attend the levee . . . and put those damned Anglais, those lying sanglants, in their place.
Oh, it was an elegant crowd attending the levee! Lewrie expected a scruffy Jacobin mob of sans culottes in ill-fitting coats and red Liberty caps, perhaps leaving their scythes and pitchforks at the door, a bunch of old peasant women knitting and rocking where they could get a good view of the next beheading, but . . . there were frosty foreign ministers from half of Europe (minus the Prussians and Austrians, of course) with their wives or temporary local courtesans; there were all those aforementioned officers from the Guard, the Chasseurs, the Line infantry, Lancers, and Light Dragoons, the heavy cavalry Cuirassiers and allied officers from the Dutch Batavian Republic, and all of Napoleon’s Italian allies . . . the conquered but cooperative.
Instead of ragged commoners with unshaven chins and loose, long hair, the civilian male attendees were dressed so well they could give Sir Pulteney Plumb a run for his money, and a fair number of them had the graceful and languid airs that Lewrie thought more commonly seen at a royal reception, a gathering of aristocrats, which all the world knew were so despised by staunch French Republicans.
“One’d think they were all titled . . . waitin’ for King Louis the Sixteenth t’come dancin’ in,” Lewrie pointed out to Sir Anthony as the three of them made a slow counter-clockwise circuit of the hall. “What happened t’all that ‘noble commoner’ nonsense?”
“Mos
t of the great voices of the Revolution are now conveniently dead, sir,” Sir Anthony simpered back. “Napoleon has even gone so far as to allow the churches to re-open, and the Catholic Church to restore its presence . . . with power only over its priests and nuns, not over the state, and of course, without its former wealth. That’s gone for muskets and cannon. The joie de vivre of your common Frenchman cannot be suppressed. The draconian edicts of the Jacobins against riches, their dour insistence on Equality and Fraternity, were too much a pie-eyed idyllic dream, d’ye see, Captain Lewrie. It’s against all human nature to believe that one could invent a classless society, with all individual effort directed in support of the state!
“Besides, drinking, eating, and living well, having fine things, and making money is every man’s fondest wish,” Sir Anthony said with a wry chuckle as he touched his nose with a scented hendkerchief. “Next thing you know, this Bonaparte will make himself First Consul for Life, and surround himself with a royal court. Titles will come back, just you wait and see. It’ll be m’sieur vicomte and madame baroness ’stead of citoyen and citoyenne, you mark my words.”
“Pity our own politicians, like Fox or Priestley, who admired the French Revolution,” Caroline said. “How disappointed they must be to see the French slip back to having aristocracy.”
“We should begin to introduce you and your good lady about,” their young diplomat announced. “The civilian sorts, I’d expect. The military types might be a tad too gruff with us.”
“Sounds good,” Lewrie began to say, then froze in his tracks.
Holy Christ, it’s ’96 all over again! he thought, goggling at two people he hadn’t seen since a night ashore in Genoa in one case, and a night in bed at shore lodgings in Leghorn, in the other.
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