Roger looked up quickly, ‘What staggering figures. No man can ever have had a more overwhelming testimony to the nation’s confidence in him.’
‘Yes it is a veritable triumph; the more so as, against my advice, no attempt was made to rig the polls. Naturally, he is overjoyed; so I do not think you will suffer even a temporary eclipse from the radiance of our new Soleil.’
‘You comfort me greatly. I had feared at least a period of some months before he would again wish to see me about him. And your comparison of him with the sun is apt. He has already brought light and cheerfulness into the streets of Paris. It has become a different city since I left it.’
‘That is no wonder; for he keeps us as busy as a whole hive of bees, working up to sixteen hours a day and every day issuing a dozen or more new ordinances. Moreover he loves his work, even singing at it in that awful voice of his. Nothing escapes him and he has a finger in every pie. One moment he is arranging for the formation of a National Bank of France to support trade; at another striking the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI and other holidays from the list of public festivals, so that more work will get done, the next planning a vast system of free education for all. Did you know that last year there were no more than twenty four Elementary Schools in Paris and they could take only one thousand pupils? There is no limit to the schemes that jostle one another in his fertile brain.’
‘I can well believe you. But, well informed though he is on many subjects, I would have thought that he knew little about such matters as finance and education.’
While pouring Roger and himself another glass of wine, Talleyrand replied, ‘That is so; but he is an amazingly quick learner. He attends nearly every meeting of the Council of State, listens avidly to everyone there whose experience of a subject entitles him to express an opinion, and only afterwards takes a decision. Neither is he too proud to accept advice from his Ministers. In that Fouché and I are specially favoured; for he decided that, unlike the others, who are required to carry their problems to all three Consuls, Police matters and Foreign Affairs should be discussed by us with him alone. Each time I see him he welcomes me warmly, and he has given me the opportunity to coach him for many hours on international relationships.’
‘Then your position with him must be an exceptionally strong one,’ Roger smiled, ‘and I congratulate you on it.’
‘Thanks, my dear fellow. It is certainly most satisfactory. Of course, his impetuous nature gets the better of him at times. But I have a remedy for that. My congenital idleness is known to you, and on occasion I make use of it. When he orders me to take some measure on which I think his judgment to be at fault I leave the matter unattended for a few days. By the time I broach it again he has almost always realised that to pursue it would be folly, and he saves his face by telling me to hold it over. Then no more is said of it.’
Roger laughed, ‘I count him fortunate, Monsieur le Ministre, to have you in his service. With your guidance he should do great things for France.’
Talleyrand shrugged, ‘If he lasts a year he will go far.’
‘Surely you cannot doubt his lasting that long?’ Roger said, much surprised. ‘This overwhelming vote of confidence from the French people shows them to have taken him to their hearts.’
‘The memory of the public is extraordinarily short. They will lionise a man one month and his opponent the next. In any case, should they still be loyal to him, their feelings will be of no account, because real power is never vested in the masses. Bonaparte has many enemies, and they may combine to pull him down.’
‘I can well believe that several of his fellow Generals are mightily jealous of him.’
‘That is so; Moreau, Bernadotte and Masséna particularly. But that is not his greatest danger. It lies in the fact that he has secretly abandoned the principles of the Revolution, yet at the same time is averse to a restoration of the Monarchy. Both factions will in due course seek to destroy him: the one because the Jacobins will find out that he has nothing but detestation and contempt for their doctrine of equality, the other because they will wish to replace him by a coup d’état with some other prominent man more likely to invite Louis XVIII to ascend the throne.’
‘He is, then, walking a tightrope.’
‘Exactly. And with commendable skill. He displayed it in his selection of his two fellow Consuls. Cambacérès was a member of the Convention which sent Louis XVI to the guillotine, Lebrun, on the other hand, played no part in the Terror and is believed to be, in secret, a Royalist. Again, observe his choice of his two most prominent Ministers. It was reported to me that he remarked to his brother Joseph “What revolutionary would not have confidence in an order of things where Fouché is a Minister? And what gentleman would not expect to find existence possible under a former Bishop such as Talleyrand?”
‘Since he has made such a promising start, more’s the pity that the war should continue, at least with England, and so divert his attention from the reforms he is undertaking.’
‘With Austria too. Owing, no doubt, to the recent successes of his armies in Italy, the Emperor Francis has refused our offer to treat on the basis reached at Campo Formio. But matters might be worse. That timid, spineless creature, young Frederick William of Prussia, is more than ever enamoured of neutrality, so will continue to sit upon the fence; and the Czar Paul has recently withdrawn from the Coalition. It is our good fortune that he became disgruntled by the Emperor’s treatment of the Army sent under Suvarov to aid the Austrians in Italy, and still more so at the mishandling by that stupid Duke of York of the Russian expeditionary force sent last autumn to Holland, which led to the surrender of the Allied forces there. We are now intent on wooing the Czar, and should we succeed in winning him over to us we’ll cook the Austrian goose between two fires.’
‘Is Moreau still commanding on the Rhine?’
‘Yes. As a soldier he is rated second only to our little man; and since he must be regarded as a potential enemy it was a wise move to confirm him in his command. As long as he remains out of Paris ‘tis unlikely that he will be persuaded to enter into any intrigue against the new Government. Masséna, too, might have proved a danger. Only four months ago, just before Bonaparte’s return from Egypt, he had been acclaimed a national hero owing to his great victory in Switzerland which saved France from invasion by the Russians. But at present he has more than enough to keep him busy defending the Ligurian Republic.’
‘From what I heard in London I gathered that things are going far from well with our army in Italy.’
Talleyrand nodded, ‘That is so. Masséna is several times outnumbered by the Austrians, so is hard-pressed to hold his own. ‘Tis my opinion that, should Bonaparte decide to take the field in person again, it is to Masséna’s assistance that he will march in the Spring. But for the moment my instinct tells me that he is rather pleased than otherwise that his brother General should be taking some hard knocks.’
After wiping his lips with a lace-edged napkin, Talleyrand went on:
‘And now, cher ami, you must excuse me. I’d willingly sit here gossiping with you all morning but, alas, to keep my position I must at times do a little work, and numerous people wait to see me. No doubt we’ll meet again at the Tuileries this evening.’
‘Is there a reception there then?’
‘Yes, for the First Consul to receive congratulations on the result of the plebiscite. I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt to beard him in his den this morning, but to refrain from showing yourself until he is surrounded by smiling faces.’
Roger bowed, ‘Your Excellency’s advice has always proved invaluable to me, and I’ll certainly take it now.’
The Minister smiled and laid a beautifully-kept hand on his arm. ‘It will always be at your disposal. I’ll never forget that you saved me from being sent to the guillotine during the Revolution.’
At seven o’clock that evening Roger joined the throng of men, most of whom were in brilliant uniforms, and silk-clad bejewell
ed women, that was making its way slowly up the grand staircase in the Palais des Tuileries. The last time he had done so was at Bonaparte’s reception on Christmas Day, a date deliberately chosen by him to indicate that the Christian festival was to be revived and the persecution of the Church to cease. Since Brumaire he had occupied the Luxembourg, but now that the plebiscite had confirmed him in power it was being said that he intended to take up his residence in the Tuileries permanently as from the following day.
At length Roger came opposite him and made his bow. Bonaparte was then aged thirty, a little under medium height and still slim. His large head was finely shaped, his forehead superb, his eyes big and luminous, his nose and mouth well modelled, his jaw exceptionally powerful and his face pale. His reactions to what people said to him were as swift as lightning and conveyed instantly pleasure, doubt, sorrow or anger. He had beautiful hands of which he was very proud and while conversing would often glance at them with complacency. When Roger had first met him at the siege of Toulon he had been an out-at-elbow Artillery officer with lank, ill-kept dark hair falling to his shoulders. He had since become fastidious in his dress, never wearing a shirt twice, and scrupulously clean in his person, frequently spending up to two hours a day in his bath while dictating to his secretary.
‘Ha, Breuc!’ he exclaimed in his rasping voice with its heavy Italian accent. ‘So those pig-headed fools have kicked you out of England. Talleyrand told me this evening of your return. You must be glad to be back in Paris after surviving two months of London fog. What a country! But one day that fog shall prove the undoing of those stubborn people. Under cover of it I’ll land there with a hundred thousand men.’
‘My dearest hope is to be with you then, Consul,’ Roger smiled.
‘You shall,’ came the instant reply. ‘You’ve proved yourself little good as a diplomat, but you are still le brave Breuc and speak their uncouth language.’
‘I thank you, General. Meantime I trust you will find me some suitable employment.’
‘Since you wield a pen as ably as a sword, I can. Bourri-enne is up to his eyes in work. Report to him tomorrow.’
Greatly relieved, Roger passed on and made his bow to Josephine. She was a few years older than her husband, an alluring brunette with a strikingly voluptuous figure. Her looks were marred only by her bad teeth and, from habit, she kept her lips closed as she smiled at Roger. In more than one crisis in their lives they had rendered one another invaluable services; so she spoke to him most kindly.
Ranged in a semi-circle behind the First Consul and his wife stood the Bonaparte family. The mother, a tall, lean, handsome, commanding presence, whose expression showed a suggestion of disapproval at the adulation being showered on her amazing son. On her right her other sons: Joseph, a year older than Napoleon—an amiable man now becoming a little portly—with his wife Julie, already regarded as an angel of charity; Lucien, a short-sighted man with thin, gangling limbs—the firebrand of the family whose fervour for the Revolution had caused him in his teens to rename himself Brutus, but who had now, as the recently-appointed Minister of the Interior, become respectable—with his simple, sweet-natured, ex-barmaid wife Catherine; Louis, a handsome young man whom Bonaparte, while still a poor cadet at the Military Academy in Paris, had personally brought up; and Jerome, as yet only a youngster of sixteen.
On Madame Letizia Bonaparte’s left were her daughters. Eliza most closely resembled Napoleon but, having heavy masculine features redeemed only by flashing black eyes, was the plainest of the girls. Beside her was her Corsican husband, a dolt named Pascal Bacciocchi. Caroline came next; a shrewd, ambitious, clever girl, good-looking and with a beautiful complexion but a bust and hips too large for her dumpy body. With her was Joachim Murat, Bonaparte’s crack cavalry General, to marry whom she had only lately left Madame Campan’s Academy for Young Ladies. Pauline stood alone, as her husband General Leclerc had been given command of a Division on the Rhine. She was such a ravishing young creature that she had been nicknamed ‘La Belle des Belles’.
Roger knew them, all, and that they were a grasping, scheming crew who thought of little but feathering their nests out of the pocket of their now rich and powerful brother. They were also bitterly jealous of one another and united only in one thing—their hatred of his wife. It was on Pauline that Roger’s glance lingered, for he had long admired her; and, to his delight, she gave him a charming smile.
To the left of Bonaparte’s sisters stood Josephine’s two children by her earlier marriage to the Vicomte de Beauhar-nais: Eugene, a pleasant, round-faced young man whom, while still in his teens, Bonaparte had taken with him as an A.D.C. in both his Italian and Egyptian campaigns; and Hortense, a pretty girl with a mop of fair curls. Their stepfather was extremely fond of them and treated them as his own children.
The assembly was an extraordinarily mixed one. Men who had been responsible for massacres during the Terror, but who had been clever enough to save themselves from the reaction after the fall of Robespierre, rubbed shoulders with ci-devant nobles who had succeeded in getting permission to return from exile. There were financiers like Ouverard who had made vast fortunes out of supplying the Armies, eminent lawyers with Liberal principles who had lived in hiding throughout the worst years of the Revolution, learned men who were members of the Institute, the diplomatic representatives of a score of nations and many soldiers whose exploits had caused their names to become household words.
The looks of the women were much above the average for such a gathering because in recent years blue blood had become a liability rather than an asset and rich families had been deprived of their possessions; so, instead of seeking a wife who could bring them a coat-of-arms or a big dowry, most of the men who were carving careers for themselves had chosen brides solely for their beauty.
This was particularly the case with the soldiers. Several of the most distinguished were absent: Moreau arid St. Cyr were on the Rhine, Masséna, Soult, Suchet and Oudinot were in Italy, Kléber, Desaix and Junot had been left by Bonaparte marooned in Egypt; but among those present were:
Berthier, Bonaparte’s ugly, ill-formed little Chief of Staff in whose overbig head everything to do with the Army was filed like a vast card index; Marmont, the brilliant young Artilleryman who, at the siege of Toulon, had been Bonaparte’s first A.D.C; Brune, who despite his very limited abilities, being opposed only to the hopelessly incompetent Duke of York, had, the previous autumn, destroyed the Allied armies in Holland; Davoust, clever, taciturn, the harshest disciplinarian of them all, whom Bonaparte had discovered in Egypt; Bessiéres, another discovery in the same campaign and, although still only a dashing young Colonel, now charged with making the Consular Guard into what was to become the finest élite Corps in the world; Ney, the red-headed son of a cooper, whose sole ambition was to win glory, with beside him the loveliest wife of them all; Augereau, the tall, terrible swashbuckler, who had saved the day for Bonaparte at Castiglione; Moncey, the hero of the Battle of the Pyramids; Lannes, the foul-mouthed little Gascon who, as a Brigadier in Italy in ’96 and later at the siege of Acre, had won fame by his indomitable courage, and who also had an exquisitely beautiful wife; Bernadotte, another Gascon, still wearing his black hair long, who hated Bonaparte. He had, when Minister of War, proposed to arrest him for having deserted his Army in Egypt and, alone among the Generals, had refused to support him in the coup d’état of Brumaire.
Besides these there were the veterans of the Revolutionary wars; Carnot, once a member of the dread Committee of Public Safety, never a General but, from having created seven armies out of a rabble and kept them supplied, christened ‘The Organiser of Victories’; Kellerman of Valmy fame; Jourdan, the victor of Fleuras; Sérurier, Perignon and old Lefebvre—still looking like a tough Sergeant-Major—whose wife had once taken in and washed on credit young Lieutenant Bonaparte’s patched underclothes.
Chatting with them and their ladies were scores of Brigadiers, Colonels, Adjutants and A.D.C.s. All were wearing thei
r smartest uniforms; the plumed hats they carried under their arms, their tunics and their sabretaches glittered with gold lace, and jewels sparkled in the sword hilts of the senior officers as they strutted, their spurs jingling, across the polished floors.
Roger was acquainted with at least half the civilians and soldiers there and, having served with most of the latter in Italy and Egypt, looked on many of them as well-tried friends. As he moved from group to group it was borne in on him that whereas he knew well comparatively few people in England, here he was hailed on all sides as a gallant comrade of the wars; so he felt more than ever that his decision to return permanently to France had been sound, and that few lives could be better than one lived among these gay, brave men and lovely women.
At one of the long buffet supper tables he ran into Joseph Fouché. The Minister of Police was the very antithesis of Talleyrand. He was tall and lean, his face looked like that of a corpse warmed up, his shifty eyes, with which he never gazed at anyone direct, reminded one of those of a dead fish. He was untidily dressed, his waistcoat was stained with snuff and, as usual, he was snivelling from the cold in the head that never left him.
He had been a Terrorist on the grand scale. As the convention’s Commissioner in Nevers he had sacked all the churches and cowed the citizens by his murderous ferocity. In Lyons he had had hundreds of Liberals lined up—men, women and children—turned a battery of cannon on them and mowed them down with grape shot. When the reaction came he had been lucky to escape with only banishment from Paris, and nobody had ever expected to hear of him again. But, after for a while scraping a living breeding pigs, he had somehow managed to make money as an Army contractor then, by intrigue and blackmail, miraculously emerged as a high official of the corrupt Directory. Owing to his unscrupu-lousness, cold, calculating mind and immense capacity for work, he had now become, after Bonaparte, the most powerful man in France. With him was his dowdy, pathetically ugly wife to whom he had always been completely faithful.
The Wanton Princess Page 6