Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements

by Anthony Burgess

  N danced with rage. “Troops? He wants me to send troops? Where the hell does he think I can find troops? Does he think I can make them out of this damned clay? Does he think I’m fucking Prom—”

  Seven-thirty. Five battalions of the Guard sent to Ney for his final assault.

  “They’re retreating, Sire. It’s over.” Panic, rout. N was incredulous, then he could believe only too well. Everything could be explained, everything always could.

  “I’m beat. I’m so tired I could drop.” Helped him onto his horse. A thing never before seen. Helped onto his horse. Retreat to Charleroi. Riding to Charleroi he could explain everything. Strategy had never really changed, even from his first battle. Now well-known, now common knowledge. Now, in their reports, Bonaparte predictably—And growing old, though only in forties still, really growing old. Body fags, brain fags. We are not what we were. No initiative among the generals, but then I never wanted them to have it. Initiative was my monopoly. A rational explanation is, though, always a kind of victory. I reject superstition. All those double vees. To Souk he said:

  “What’s the meaning of the name? Waterloo, I mean?”

  Soult told him. I reject superstition. All is not lost. I can still lay my hands on one hundred and fifty thousand men. To Paris quickly. I can guess what is happening in Paris. Dissolve the legislature? Reign by the axe? No. And by now the two Chambers will have announced that a decree of dissolution is treason. The National Guard will be protecting them. Another abdication. I proclaim my son Napoleon II, Emperor of the French. But the boy is a prisoner of the Austrians. I need a new great traitor, of Talleyrand’s stamp. Fouché is well qualified for the post. He will be waiting in Paris, welcoming the victorious Allies.

  The victorious Allies marched into Paris, firm pounding crotchets of battalion after battalion after battalion of infantry, the more skittish quarter-notes of the hoofs of cavalry on the cobbles. The sun of early July set the helmets and stirrups on fire and the brass of the horns and trumpets. Blücher looked murderous, the war not yet won until he could with his own hand shoot that outlaw and enemy of mankind. Wellington pointed his stern bony nose into a grim future. There were no flowers thrown. It was, for many reasons, no time of glory. The words of his own report, set to his mount’s clatter, beat in the Duke’s ears. Most desperate business I ever was in ever was in. Never took trouble about any battle about any battle so much so much. Never so never so near being beat. Losses immense especially infantry. Specially infantry. After the infantry and cavalry and gunners and sappers the baggage train came.

  After the baggage train, bloated, gouty, reclaiming his own again rode His Gallic Majesty Louis XVIII (would have preferred Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, really, said Fouché, trusted Head of Police sliding into Talleyrand slot, but there was just no time to bargain), King of the French, restorer to France of whatever had to be restored. Horns and trumpets in hollow hunting harmonies, drums drums drums. All over.

  IV

  “Not all over,” he cried to the squawking seas. “Not in the least all over. I will not have these mad desperate rages.” Bastille tuiler massac siviss guaaaaaaar sept massac. “You, Bertrand, must, I say it with appropriate er er, control your lady wife. I will not have her attempting to leap overboard.” Nat conven proclam 1st rpblc exec louis 16 reign terror marie antoin 9 thermidooooooor.

  “Marchand, Sire, said something of your intention to—”

  “Kill myself, eh? Never take the word of a valet, Bertrand.” Robes fall pierre end of reign of 13 vendem coup estab directoooooory. “I merely said that a man should always conduct himself as if every day was his last.”

  But he’d tried it. Rather than abdicate.’ The poison didn’t work, though. Got stale or something.

  “Gives savor to life. Come, who knows what the future may hold? I am removed from the European scene as a personage but now may enter the world scene as a principle. Read the Acts of the Apostles. Not, Bertrand, you understand, that I would commit the blasphemy of—”

  “I did not think for one moment, Sire, that you would think—”

  But all Judases, the whole lot. Even that Mameluke, pockets bulging with gold and silver.

  “Nevertheless, the parallel is intriguing.” Marriage jsphn jsphn jsphn general buon bon campaign Italy love. “I showed them a resurrection was possible. And now it is the word that counts, Bertrand, the scripture. Besides, I may be called upon. Even England. Their Whigs want me. The people want me, you saw that on the Bellerophon, on the quay at Portsmouth or Plymouth or wherever it was.” Egypt 18 brumaire coup 5 cons 1st cons 1st cons for life exec of duc denghien. “And even if I am not called upon, no prison is completely impregnable. As Elba showed. We may spend productive days planning, Bertrand.” Emperor emperor EMPEROOOOOOOOOR. “It is by no means all over.”

  But this is going to be no Elba. A thousand leagues from nowhere. No prison walls like the sea. The British-held sea.

  “Named after a great woman, Bertrand.” Coron empr emprss coron king italy milan 3 coalition engl austr russ swed fren occup vien austerl peace pressburg. “A lady of Britain, not at that time perfidious, mother moreover of a great emperor.” Confed of rhine 4 coalit pruss russ jena auerstadt eylau friedland tilsit tilsit TILSIT tlst tls tl t. “According to the legend, it was she who found the true cross.”

  “It is not, all things considered,” the Grand Marshal Bertrand said, “the most hopeful of associations.”

  True cross all right. No doubt of that.

  “Come, Bertrand, consider instead that what was an engine of shameful execution to the pagan Romans became a symbol of glory. Again I do not wish to seem blasph—” Fr occup rome penins war Spain portug congr erfurt.

  “Of course not.”

  “But you may say that the four extremities represent those victorious allies that are hammering in the nails.” Alexander alxndr Ixndr xnd x war austr fren occup vien 2nd time annex papal states pius vii excommun pius vii arrested. “It is rather intriguing, poetic. But they dare not affix a mocking inscription. INTERFECIMUS NAPOLEONEM REGEM IMPERATOREM. The thought of my martyrdom frightens them.” Wagram schönbrunn div div divorce. “I lost one crown.” He chuckled. “Now I have gained another.” Marie louise KING OF ROME invade russ borodino retr moscoiv malet conspir cross berezina arriv paris 6 coalit leipzig leipzig lpzg. He chuckled. “I am, as I say, not being bl—”

  “Of course not of course not.”

  “The point I would make is that this too can be a conqueror’s crown, Bertrand.” Capitu paris provis govt talleyrand snake abdic bourbon back count de provence louis xviii treaty fntnbleau exile to.

  “I quite see that.”

  Death death death of of. Escape Elba over water 100 days water 100 leau loo. And now.

  And now he looked gloomily at that island bouncing on the southern ocean. Volcanic granite, a real rock for Prometheus. And this was, so that Irish doctor had said, a bad climate for livers.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Bertrand. Nothing seems to be growing here. Very rocky. Not even a thorn-bush, eh?” In good enough spirits, it seemed, robust despite everything, three months of sea air perhaps helped, he nudged Bertrand, so that Bertrand nearly fell on the deck. “We will make things grow here. We will get the island on our side, make it a tool, a weapon. Look what I did with Elba.”

  “You did much. Much.”

  Made the soil green with intensive cultivation, cleaned up the shit, bottled the mineral water, built the theater there, made the idle bastards work.

  “This may yet be the center of the free world.”

  Bertrand looked doubtful. The island, now very close, its unpromising features clear in the sun pompous and bold as British brass, seemed an almost dementedly well-chosen negation of freedom. That British flag flapping there over gloomy cannon was three crosses, not one, one for each nail. T. N looked momentarily doubtful too. But then he began to sing. Tilsit tin-rit. It was as if, after long years of exile, he were at last coming home. Titsil. He sa
ng a song popular during the time of the Directory, all about the charms of someone’s tétons. Poor bugger, not one woman willing to stay with him. Well, Rousseau had sanctified masturbation along with the social contract. Residuary reward of the imperial office. But she might have, she, had she not died untimely. Not more than six weeks after his first going into exile. She would have made it an outpost of French civilization, despite Sir this and Milord the other. They would have flocked from everywhere to see the roses.

  I. N. R. I.

  IMPERA

  NAP

  REGEM

  INTERFEC

  I. N. R. I.

  TOREM

  OLE

  ONEM

  IAMUS

  SINCE SIXT WEEK I LEAVE THE ENGLISH AND Y DO NOT ANY PROGRESS. SO

  I. N. R. R. I.

  SIXT WEEK DO FOURTY AND TWO DAY. IF MIGHT HAVE LERN FIVTY WORD, FOR DAY, I COULD KNOW IT TWO THOUSANDS AND HUNDRED. SO

  I. N. R. R. I.

  If he would know what R.R. signifies,

  (Not that the rustic to raw rock applies),

  Regem Rusticatum might well do

  It rustles, rustic, rings with birdsong too.

  Irrelevant that connotative rust:

  Nonferrous growls the grim volcanic dust,

  Rich, though, the learned gardener assumes,

  In potence, in potentia, of blooms.

  A four-edged bed of agony? Inept!

  A four-edged bed for Flora? Ah, accept!

  In gardens the four warring elements

  Nature and man to peaceable intents

  Rein in, reign over, and to work inspire

  Inaqueate air embracing terrene fire.

  Ah we

  Irishmen better than

  Napoleoniform

  Rusticant Corsican

  Imperatores are

  Inly equipped to be

  Narrative poets of

  Raw wounding exile:

  Impressive, ah yes.

  So let

  Irish MacDonald and

  Noble Kilmaine and the

  Rest of the Celtic

  Imperial Marshalate

  Indicate now with a

  Nod how we sympathize.

  Rex Imperator,

  In peace requiesce.

  It was a cool and pleasant garden that he sat in, listening to the song of the birds, strange birds mostly, birds not known in Europe, and now and again looking sadly down at the sea far below. It was the garden of Mr. Bascombe, the East India Company agent of the island, and here, he sometimes fancied, he must find his only small paradise after the dirty inferno of Jamestown and before the eternal emptiness and loneliness of Longwood, still to come. The garden had, when he had first been introduced to it, been made especially pretty by the presence of two little English flowers, Betsy and Jane Bascombe, who had started with terror and then with a kind of joy at the unexpected sight of one whom they had only known previously as an ogre of the cartoons in the English journals. Here he was, strolling and even smiling, in a green uniform and a cocked hat, with one hand placed, just as in the drawings in the journals, inside his coat. The two pretty little romps were delighted to turn him into an uncle, our Uncle Napoleon yet still, and how delightfully, an ogre. For it is in the nature of children to be unafraid of evil and even, in their innocence, to wish well to those who practice or have practiced it. Little Jane had once, in church in Jamestown, prayed that Satan be made good and happy. So there he was, and his favorite was Betsy, who knew some French. As for his learning English, he swore that it was an impossible language. “A barren land,” he had once put it, “full of thorn-bushes, and with birds with strange cries flying over it.” And so it was that, this fine afternoon, he sat with Betsy, the two of them talking French together, she naturally not so well as he but, naturally too, improving all the time.

  “I was,” he told her, “a military cadet at Brienne. Do you know what that is? Do you know where Brienne is to be found?”

  “It is no matter,” said she with impatience. “Tell me the story, uncle.”

  “Each of us cadets,” he continued, “was allotted a little square piece of land. In Corsica I had known much about farming and about the skill of growing things. The other boys at the military school cared little and knew little, so they willingly allowed me to annex their little plots of land to my own. I placed a wooden fence all about, and then I planted bushes. Bushes—do you know that word?” It was, of course, the French word he was referring to.

  “Like little trees,” said Betsy.

  “Very good,” he smiled. “I planted bushes and also vegetables and flowers. It was my own garden and none other’s, and I would sit there peacefully dreaming of home or reading Tasso.”

  “What,” asked Betsy, “is Tasso?”

  “You ask such a question?” he exclaimed. “Ah, but of course you are English, and you English know nothing of the great Tasso. Know then that Torquato Tasso was a great Italian poet who wrote a very fine tale in verse, and the name of it is Gerusalemme Liberata. Many people said that Tasso was mad, but of course he was sane as you or I, if not saner. After all,” he smiled sadly, “he did not have to spend his time on St. Helena.”

  “You read this poem in Italian?” exclaimed Betsy. “You must have been very clever.”

  “Ah, child, you forget,” said he, “that my first language was Italian. I had to learn French just as you are learning it. Very well, then. In Corsica the soldiers and even the bandits sing verses from Gerusalemme Liberata. It is about the Christians fighting the pagans, and there is a magician who is the king of Damascus. He has a niece named Armida who lures—you know the word?—Christian knights into her magic garden.”

  “Tell me the story,” says Betsy, as a child will.

  “I will tell it some other time,” he said with a kind of mock ferocity. “Now it is my own story I am trying to tell. My garden was, I suppose, a magic one, though magic in a way different from the wicked Armida’s. For, you see, I could turn it into home whenever I so wished. And I always so wished. Whenever any other boy tried to intrude into my little garden, I would at once chase him out. Like that,” he added, making with his hands the gesture that a henwife makes at her feathery charges.

  “You were quite right to do so,” said little Betsy, but, forgetting for the moment, she spoke it in English. But she nodded with vigor at the same time and he understood well enough.

  “Now on the feast of St. Louis,” he continued, “which we had as a holiday because it was the official birthday of the King—not real, but official, you understand—”

  “Is it true,” said Betsy, in her impertinent child’s way, “that you saw the King’s head cut off?”

  “No. And it is not to the present point,” said he. “Let me finish my story. Every cadet was allowed to make fireworks. He could buy some gunpowder and then pack it into cardboard tubes. Then he would attach a fuse and light it and make a great noise. To celebrate, you understand, the feast of St. Louis.”

  “I should think that must have been very dangerous.”

  “We were young soldiers, you must remember,” he said, “so we had to know a great deal about gunpowder. Well, you see, what happened was that some of the cadets had built a great pyramid—”

  “Peer a mead,” she said. “What is that, uncle?”

  “Pyramid, pyramid,” he repeated, and he began to build one in the air with his very fine hands. “You will see them if you ever go to Egypt.”

  “Is it true,” she asked, ever ready to divert him from his story with the hope of a better one, “that you dug the Sphinx out of the sand?”

  “I will tell you another time. There is plenty of time. All I have, my dear child, is time.” And his sad smile returned, one of the saddest and sweetest smiles, she thought in her young miss’s way, that she had ever seen. “There was, as I say,” he continued, “a great pyramid of fireworks. The cadets set fire to it, and there was so much light and smoke and noise, the sparks flying everywhere, that
they grew frightened. So they came rushing away from it into my garden, trampling it all down.”

  “What a shame,” she said, again relapsing into English, though her tone again spoke all her shock and sympathy.

  “Fences, bushes, flowers, everything. So I picked up a bêche and with it I drove them out. I cared not at all whether I hurt or even killed them. When your garden is attacked, the thing that you have made with your own hands, remember, then you must be ready to do anything to protect it. I repeat: anything.”

  But Betsy was looking for the word bêche in her little dictionary of the French and English languages. “I do not know the word,” she said. “What is a besh?”

  “Why,” said he, “the implement with which you dig.” And with his white hands, that looked so softly gentle, he seemed to grasp an airy haft and to initiate the movement of digging. “Bêche.”

  “Ah, it is a spade.” And she showed him the two words together. “See the word spade”

  “Spade” he said in some surprise, giving the word two syllables. “Why, that is the Italian word for swords. Is not that interesting? So even the English see that a garden has something to do with fighting. Is not that a most interesting thing to find?”

  “And in a game at cards,” she said, “we have spades. But I was told that that was once swords.”

  “In cards we have swords still,” he said, and he looked at her.

  Looking at her from the rocky promontory of what she, a mere innocent English miss, must surely regard as the decrepitude of advanced age, he was powerfully aware of what might be, did he not guard feelings all too vulnerable and inflammatory in his enforced celibate loneliness, an affection not without possible danger to them both. How old was she then? Some fifteen summers, no more. And if Europe did not recall him to a destiny not yet, for all his aborted achievements, to be considered snipped by the Parcan shears, if, say, England did not, in its next change of government, install an oligarchy of Whigs inclined to Bonapartist sympathies, if, moreover or alternately, the papal appeal for his release did not prevail (though he cherished a hope that it would, since the Concordat had, despite many vicissitudes, been universally regarded as a shrewd stroke of policy), he might be forced, the agony flowering in his all too virile blood all too efficaciously fenced about, to observe her growth to an achieved beauty that now merely promised. Did his jailors then take him for a eunuch? Would he, who had enjoyed the frankest and most tender embraces from queens and princesses, be reduced to stammer protestations of shocking affection to an English miss? It was all an irony that might be regarded as the ultimate, however little purposed, in Britannic humiliation of a foe still hated though rendered almost zoologically harmless. Smiling now he said: