The Wanton Princess

by Dennis Wheatley

  While respecting Fouché for his great ability, Roger regarded him with distrust and dislike but, as the principal enforcer of law and order, he was now on the side of the angels; so for a while they talked amicably together.

  He was rescued from this unprepossessing couple by Duroc and Hortense de Beauharnais, who had been dancing together. The former, a puritanical but charming man, had been Bonaparte’s A.D.C.-in-Chief, and was one of Roger’s closest friends. Now, after greeting him with delight, Duroc told him that he had just been given a new appointment as Controller of the Palace. From Hortense’s starry-eyed expression as she gazed at the handsome Duroc, Roger guessed her to be madly in love with him; but he did not appear to be particularly interested in her and, pleading duty as an excuse, soon left her with Roger.

  After dancing with her and returning her to her mother Roger caught sight of Talleyrand. Immaculate as ever, his hair powdered just as it would have been had his hostess been Queen Marie Antoinette instead of Josephine Bonaparte, he was limping gracefully away from the ballroom. Catching him up, Roger thanked him for having broken the news of his return to Bonaparte.

  The ci-devant Bishop smiled, ‘Think nothing of it, eher ami. You are too useful a man for him to have vented his displeasure on for long. I did no more than prevent him from cutting off his nose to spite his face by depriving himself of your services for a few months.’

  An hour or so later Roger left the Palace having enjoyed a thoroughly happy evening, and entirely content with the future that he had chosen for himself.

  Next morning he found Fauvelet de Bourrienne installed in his new office in the Tuileries—now rechristened ‘The Palace of the Government’—and duly reported to him. De Bourrienne was the same age as Bonaparte and had been one of his few friends when they had been students together at the Military College at Brienne. Later he had entered the diplomatic service and during the early days of the revolution had been en poste in Germany. On the mounting of the Terror he had been recalled but, realising that as an aristocrat a return to Paris meant for him the guillotine, he had wisely remained in voluntary exile. Then, after Bonaparte’s victorious campaign in Italy, the General had written to him and invited him to become his Chef-de-Cabinet, De Bourrienne had accepted and neither had since had cause to regret this arrangement. Bonaparte found Bourrienne’s swift grasp of affairs invaluable, Bourrienne delighted in enjoying the great man’s complete confidence, and their intimacy was now such that he could go in and talk to the General even when he had just retired to bed with his wife.

  It was towards the end of the Italian campaign that, owing to his having recently returned from Egypt and India, Roger had first attracted Bonaparte’s special notice, for he was already dreaming of becoming another Alexander and making himself the Emperor of the East. These countries held such a fascination for him that, while an armistice with Austria was being negotiated, he had spent many evenings conversing with Roger about them. As a result, he had discovered that, unlike his other A.D.C.s, Roger was not only a beau sabreur, but also a well-educated young man with an extensive knowledge of international affairs. In consequence, as for the time being there was no fighting to be done, he had made him Bourrienne’s assistant.

  Roger resumed this work with interest and enthusiasm. It now consisted of drafting reports on the suitability of individuals for new civil appointments and making précis from a mass of information on the matters in which the First Consul was interesting himself, and they were innumerable.

  There was the question of religion. In ’97, when Bonaparte bad overrun middle Italy, the Directory had ordered him to depose the Pope. Realising that, regardless of the official enforcement of atheism since ‘93, the great majority of the French people were still believers in Christianity, he had been shrewd enough to avoid the act which would have permanently damaged his popularity, ignored the order and, instead, only extracted from His Holiness a huge indemnity. Now, appreciating that religion was a discipline of value in maintaining a stable government, he initiated measures to protect from further persecution such Roman Catholic priests as still remained in France, decreed that those willing to subscribe to the National Church should no longer be required to take an oath to the Constitution, but only give a promise of fidelity to it; and, having reclaimed a number of churches in Paris that were being used as dance halls and gaming hells, permitted again in them the public celebration of the Mass.

  Another matter in which he showed concern was the situation of the émigrés. Since the fall of Robespierre some three hundred thousand ci-devant nobles and others had secretly returned to France, but under the laws of the Convention they were still liable to arrest. Now they were to be given security of tenure and, although he did not yet feel himself strong enough to defy the Jacobins and permit the return of the exiles still abroad, he passed a law that there should be no further proscriptions.

  In order to reunite further the two factions that had torn France apart he was anxious to put an end to the insurrections in La Vendée. In ’94 he had himself been nominated for this task; but again, foreseeing that the shedding of French blood would harm his future popularity, he had skilfully evaded being sent to Brittany. In January, favouring the methods of Generals Hoch and D’Hedouville, both of whom had in the past used conciliation to bring about temporary cessations of hostilities, he had sent General Brune to open negotiations with the rebels. The Count d’Artois had promised to support them by landing from England with a Royalist Army but, on his failing to do so, a village priest named Bernier had offered himself as a negotiator and, in spite of the violent protests of the fiery insurgent leaders, he had persuaded the others to agree a pacification.

  But it was not only Brittany and Normandy that had long been in a state of anarchy. Every Province in France was infested with bands of marauders. Measures were being taken to put them down, others to make travel swifter by forcing Communes to have the roads put into sound repair, and others again to recreate a reliable service for posting along them by horse and diligence.

  Closely associated with this policing of the Provinces was the restoration in them of regularly held Courts of Law, the dispensation of proper justice, and the collection of taxes. At the date of Brumaire there had been the huge sum of eleven hundred million francs owing and less than one hundred thousand in the Treasury. To deal with this fantastic situation Bonaparte had appointed Gaudin Minister of Finance. He had worked in the Finance Department for thirty-seven years, was skilful, honest and industrious, and the sound measures he was taking had already led to a rise in the price of Government annuities from seven francs to forty-four, but a vast amount was still outstanding and, as a result of the Revolution, the collection of taxes had become nearly impossible.

  In consequence Bonaparte resolved to revolutionise the entire administrative system of the country. His intention was to deprive the Communes of the right to elect their own officials, great numbers of whom were corrupt or inefficient, and replace the Mayors with men of his own choosing to be called Prefects. They would be accountable only to the Central Government, and in turn be given the power to appoint their own subordinates. This, in fact, would amount to a restoration of the old Monarchical system of Royal Intendants and would, at one stroke, abolish the freedom from rule by autocracy that the people had won in the Revolution.

  The leading Jacobins saw at once that this concentration of all power in Bonaparte’s hands foreshadowed his intention to become a Dictator. His brother Lucien led the Opposition, upbraiding him fiercely for seeking to pass a law contrary to the oath he had taken to adhere to the Constitution and preserve the liberties of the people; then, as Minister of the Interior, he had refused to lend himself to such a measure.

  Bonaparte, determined to have his way, promptly dismissed Lucien. His other critics he could afford to ignore as, owing to his tremendous popularity, the vast majority of the people did not care how he ran the country as long as he continued to clean it up and give them the security they had lac
ked for so long.

  There remained one danger—that his enemies might bring the attention of the masses to his real intentions and cause them to rise against him. For long periods during the Revolution, the Press had been suppressed; but recently it had regained its freedom, and editors of the Left were already making full use of it to criticise the Government. In order to prevent discussion of his projects he instructed Fouché to bring the Press to heel. Henceforth only journals favourable to him were allowed to continue publication and even they were subjected to a severe censorship, with the result that without fully realising it the French people let him deprive them of their rights as citizens.

  This replacement of democracy by a hierarchy entailing as it did the selection and instruction of a vast number of new officials meant an immense amount of work for Bonaparte and his personal staff; and on top of it there were the projects concerning education, the Church, finance, the posts, émigrés and many others; so throughout the Spring Roger was kept hard at it. But he felt that he was doing a tremendously worth-while job and tackled with enthusiasm the scores of problems that came his way.

  The only relaxation he got was when on Decedais—the ‘tenth-day,’ substituted during the Revolution for Sunday—he accompanied Bourrienne to Malmaison, the charming property outside Paris that Josephine had purchased and furnished at great cost while Bonaparte was in Egypt. There she was under no necessity to receive her enemies—the members of his family. Such parties usually consisted of no more than a dozen people; her two children, a few close friends, Duroc and Bonaparte’s personal assistants. With the latter he would spend hours walking under the trees of the avenue, his hands clasped behind his back, discussing new projects. But in the evenings he cast all cares aside. Gathered in the big drawing room they amused themselves with amateur theatricals and charades into which he threw himself with zest, crawling about the floor making comical grimaces and laughing with the abandon of a school boy. Sometimes he would make up and tell stories and, as he had a taste for the horrific, have all but one candle put out, delighting to make the women give little exclamations of fright in the gloom as he described ghosts and vampires. It was on such evenings that he displayed all his best qualities as an affectionate husband and father, with a love of gaiety for which he had so little time, a charming host and generous friend.

  But as the Spring advanced his thoughts turned to war. In Germany, Moreau had crossed the Rhine, inflicted a series of defeats on the Austrian General, Kray, and was pushing him back upon the stronghold of Ulm; but things were far from well with the Army of Italy. Greatly outnumbered by the Austrians, the French Army had been cut in two. The left wing under Suchet had been driven through Nice and now, only with difficulty, was holding the line of the Var; while the main force had been compelled to retire on Genoa. Masséna and his other two divisional commanders, Soult and Oudinot, were putting up a stubborn resistance but they were now besieged in the city with only fifteen thousand troops, and a hundred and ten thousand civilians to feed. As a British Fleet under Admiral Lord Keith was blockading the port no reinforcements or supplies could be sent to them; so their situation must soon become desperate.

  On April 20th an officer who had succeeded in passing through the enemy lines reached Paris and reported Masséna’s plight to Bonaparte. He had replied that he would cross the Alps himself and relieve Genoa. In the meantime Masséna must somehow manage to hold out.

  Had the public been informed of the situation they would have believed Bonaparte to have been caught napping as, to all appearances, he had no troops available to form another Army of any size. But that was far from being the case. On the rejection of his peace offers he had at once decided to take the field again in the early summer and had charged Berthier with creating an Army of Reserve. This had attracted no attention, as the units for its composition had been mustered and trained far from one another, scattered all over France. Now, they were already concentrating and on the way to Lausanne and Geneva, where large quantities of stores had been collected. To conceal his intentions for as long as possible from the enemy’s spies Bonaparte selected Dijon as the Headquarters of the Army of Reserve, but in March Berthier left that city for Zurich. As First Consul, Bonaparte was debarred from taking command of an Army so, nominally, Berthier remained its Commander-in-Chief. But on May 6th Bonaparte set out for Geneva.

  Roger accompanied him. As he mounted his horse he little thought that he would come very close to death before he saw Paris again.

  5

  Marengo

  While centred on Dijon the Army of Reserve constituted a threat to both the Austrian fronts, for it could have moved with equal ease towards Swabia to reinforce Moreau or down into Italy to rescue Masséna, and so swift was the transition to Geneva that the Austrians had no idea that its Headquarters had moved. Bonaparte’s immediate staff was aware that he intended to descend into Italy but he did not make up his own mind until the last moment about what route he would take. To cross the Alps by the Simplon Pass was the obvious route, but the St. Bernard would bring him immediately upon the rear of the Austrian Army, cut its communications and force General Melas to fight him with his back to Masséna’s forces in Genoa. The difficulties of conveying a large Army and all its gear over the Great St. Bernard were immense, but after Bonaparte’s engineers had reported that only fifteen miles of the route were impassable for carriages, he decided to take it.

  Working tirelessly by day and through the greater part of the night he dealt with the thousand and one matters necessary to ensure the success of the crossing. On May 15th, satisfied that no more could be done, he ordered the crossing to begin. Five days later he set out himself; not, as was afterwards depicted by the famous painter, David, on a prancing steed, but on a sure-footed mule led by a Swiss mountaineer of long experience.

  Up in the mountains the cold was bitter, and in some places the many thousands of men had to progress along narrow ledges where a false step would have meant a fall into the abyss and death on the rocks far below. The horses could be led and the gun carriages carried in sections, so the great problem had been how to transport the weighty cannon. Marmont had solved it by having tree trunks hollowed out and the great iron barrels wedged inside them, then hiring hundreds of peasants to draw these home-made sledges. On the steepest slopes the peasants gave up exhausted; so the troops, filled with enthusiasm for this great adventure on which they were being led, volunteered to replace them. To the strains of martial music from the bands and singing patriotic songs, they managed to drag the cannons to the summit of the pass.

  There stood the ancient monastery of St. Bernard. Bonaparte had sent on to it in advance a great store of provisions and the hospitable monks added to them from their own reserves. As the seemingly endless column of half-frozen soldiers passed the monastery, from behind long tables set out in front of it the monks supplemented their hard biscuits and cheese with bowls of hot soup and spiced wine. The troops then began to slither down the even more dangerous descent.

  Lannes was in command of the vanguard and when Bonaparte reached the monastery, to his great annoyance, he learned from him that unexpectedly the descent into Italy was blocked. The Army had to pass through the narrow valley of Dora Baltea and at its entrance lay the village and fort of Bard, which was being held by an Austrian garrison.

  Hurrying forward, Bonaparte personally surveyed the position. Marmont had got some of his cannon remounted but, owing to the position of the fort on a pinnacle of rock, it could not be bombarded; and the fusillades of musketry directed at it by the French were having little effect on its stubborn defence by the Austrians.

  Led by the intrepid Lannes, a body of infantry worked their way round the fort by a goat track and, on the 22nd, took the town of Ivrea; but it would have been impossible to follow with the guns, and without artillery Bonaparte could not hope to defeat the main Austrian Army down in the plains of Italy.

  With his usual resourcefulness, Bonaparte devised a way to overcome th
e obstacle that threatened to ruin his plans. All the Austrian troops in the village had retired into the fort, so he ordered that when darkness fell straw should be spread thickly in the village street; then, taking advantage of a night of storm which further muffled the rumble of their wheels, the guns were sent forward. It was not until the greater part of the artillery train was through the village that the Austrians realised what was happening and when they opened fire their cannon did little damage.

  Bonaparte passed the Alps with forty-one thousand troops, only a handful of whom had become casualties, and his men acclaimed him as having achieved the impossible. But Roger, having read his classics, was secretly of the opinion that Hannibal’s crossing had been a much greater achievement; for Bonaparte had met with only the slight opposition at Bard, whereas the Carthaginian General had been harassed the whole way by swarms of fierce Gauls and Helvetians.

  Nevertheless, the Austrians, too, had thought it impossible, and their General, Melas, was taken entirely by surprise. Concentrating his Army as swiftly as he could in the neighbourhood of Turin, he planned to fall upon Bonaparte’s flank as he advanced to the relief of Genoa.

  Anticipating this, the First Consul decided on a new and bolder stroke. Further east Moncey was crossing the St. Gotthard with another eighteen thousand men and Tur-reau’s division was coming over the Mont Cenis pass. By leaving Masséna temporarily to his fate and joining them instead, Bonaparte would have under him a force of seventy thousand. With it he could throw the Austrians out of Lombardy, thus cutting Melas’ lines of communications and isolating him between two French Armies. Lannes had already surprised and occupied Aosta. On June 2nd Bonaparte, almost unopposed, arrived in Milan, the capital of Lombardy.

  He was greeted with wild acclaim by the pro-French population, and at once re-established the Cisalpine Republic which he had founded there in ’96. For seven days he remained in the city reinstating the officials who had been proscribed when the Austrians had recaptured it during his absence in Egypt. Meanwhile his troops had seized Cremona, with its great store of enemy provisions and war material, and he had despatched Murat and Lannes across the Po to take Piacenza.