The Dark Secret of Josephine rb-5

by Dennis Wheatley

  Roger smiled. "Even so, your prospects of continuing to derive a certain enjoyment from life appear to be considerably better than they were on the night when I last arrived in Paris. Do you remember—the 12th Vendemiaire?"

  "Do I not!" laughed Barras. "But, with the help of the little Corsican, we soon put things to rights."

  "How fares your one-time ragamuffin?"

  "You'll do well not to remind him of his old nickname when you see him. Nowadays he struts about like any turkey-cock, jingling his spurs land ogling the women. But don't let me lead you to suppose that he is idle. He is positively bursting with ideas. And since we gave him the task to prepare plans for the invasion of England, I am really coming to believe that we shall have conquered that damned island before the year is out."

  chapter XXIV

  THE BRIGAND IN UNIFORM

  Not a muscle in Roger's face moved but his ears felt as though they were standing out from the sides of his head. With Hoche's army in Brittany now freed, and that dynamic young Corsican charged with the invasion of England, a turn might be given to the war which had hitherto been unthinkable. In a matter of seconds his mission had been changed from a matter of investigation which might produce valuable results, to one demanding that he should stop at nothing to save his country.

  That night, after leaving Barras's reception, he put in some very deep thought. The last invasion of England had been that by William of Orange, just over a hundred years before, but others had been threatened many times since; and, having spent his boyhood on the south coast, he well remembered the drills of the local fencibles, the beacons kept always ready and the occasional false alarms, which had formed a part of everyday life there until the Peace of Paris, in '83.

  Since then the deterioration of the French Fleet, owing to revolution and a long series of defeats, had in the present war so far made any chance of invasion seem most unlikely. But the British Fleet was now dispersed between the Gulf of Genoa and the West Indies in many squadrons; a break-out from the French ports was always a possibility.; the enemy might succeed in landing a considerable army before their communications could be interrupted; and. as Britain had been almost denuded of troops for foreign service, that might prove positively calamitous—especially if the invading force were led by a man like Buonaparte.

  Unlike Jourdan, Moreau, Hoche and several others, the young General had little military prestige to support his sudden elevation. He had rendered good service as an Artillery Commander at Toulon and afterwards for a few months on the Italian Riviera, but in the field he had not yet commanded even a Division. His present appoint­meat was a political one, and solely due to his having saved the Convention on 13th Vendemiaire. If he was to maintain his status in .the High Command, he must direct a victorious campaign, or before very long he would find himself supplanted by officers of greater experience.

  For the laurels he needed what could offer better prospects than a descent on England? But it would be all or nothing. There could be no question of joining up with other French armies, going into winter quarters with hopes of better fortune the following spring, or strategic withdrawals. Cut off by the British Navy, he would have to conquer or fail utterly; and, if defeated, even if he got away himself, having lost an army he would never be given another. Therefore, he would fight with utter ruthlessness, burning, slaying and laying waste the fair English countryside in a desperate attempt to reach London before he could be stopped.

  Roger recalled hearing a revealing episode concerning his mentality. In '93, when the structure of the old French army was falling to pieces owing to the Revolution, he had virtually deserted, retiring to his native Corsica because he believed he could get himself made a Colonel in the National Guard of Ajaccio. There he had become one of the most violent members of the local Jacobin Club. Several of his friends among the lesser nobility, from which his own family came, endeavoured to dissuade him from inciting the roughs of the port to make trouble. Instead of agreeing he at once made another inflammatory speech, in which he declared that in such times there could be only friends and enemies, that all moderates must be classed by true patriots as enemies, and that, like Solon in ancient Greece, he advocated punishing with death every man who remained neutral during civil discord.

  If he had really meant that, it suggested that he would show no mercy to man, woman or child should he command an army that succeeded in landing in England. In any case he promised to prove a most formidable opponent, and Roger decided that any approach to him must be made with the utmost wariness; so that before even hinting at his purpose to the Corsican, he would do well to get to know much more about him than he had learned during their short acquaintance.

  The following day, as a first step, he called on the Permons because their apartment in the Chaussee d'Antin was the only place in which he had seen Buonaparte relaxed and natural Madame Pennon, with her son and little daughter, was at home, and received him kindly; but he soon learned that his hope of meeting Buonaparte there again, through cultivating the family, was doomed to disappointment, for not long since he and Madame Pennon had had a serious quarrel.

  Apparently she had asked him to secure for her cousin a commission in the Guards, and he had promised to do so; but, although reminded several times, had failed to bring it to her. In consequence, when next he had called she had upbraided him as though he were still a school­boy, and snatched her hand from him as he was about to kiss it As this had occurred in front of several of the young General's staff officers, he had been deeply mortified, and had ceased to visit her.

  However, as the ex-protege of the unpretentious family had now become such a luminary, they were willing enough, when encouraged by Roger, to talk about him.

  Monsieur Pennon had been a French official of some standing, and while the family were living in Toulouse it had transpired that one of three Corsicans lying ill and in money difficulties at a local inn was the husband of Letitia Buonaparte, Madame Pennon's girlhood friend. They had at once taken him into their house where, after a long illness through which Madame Pennon had nursed him, he had died. This had naturally strengthened the ties between the two families, and when the Pennons had moved to Paris they had taken a special interest in the orphaned Napoleon.

  His father, being without fortune but able to prove that his family had been noble for four generations, had secured his admission as a King's charity pupil to the Military School at Brienne, at the age of nine. It was his poverty in contrast with the wealth of his noble school­fellows there which had formed a bitter streak in his character and, later, led to his becoming such a fervid revolutionary.

  Of this bitterness the Pennons had had plenty of evidence after he had graduated to the Military School in Paris in '84. He was too proud to accept money, until M. Pennon forced upon him a small sum on the pretext that it had been left by his father to be given to him in an emergency; and at times his outbursts against his rich brother cadets had been quite terrifying. He had, too, in his early years been fanatically devoted to the cause of Corsican independence, and had never forgiven his father for deserting Paoli, the Corsican patriot leader. On this score too he had been given to launching the most violent diatribes, and while at Brienne had been severely punished for shaking his fist and screaming imprecations at a portrait of the Due de Choiseul, Louis XV's minister, who had urged on the conquest of Corsica by France.

  His nickname there had been 'the Spartan' but, on the rare occasions when he could afford it, he loved personal display. Little Laura related how, when he had at last obtained his commission, he had come in his new uniform to see them. Having been made by an inexpensive tailor it was of poor material and ill-cut, and his legs were so lean that, in his big high boots, they looked like broomsticks; but he had strutted up and down as though he were already a Field Marshal. Laurette had been so amused that she had christened him Puss-in-Boots; but he had taken her childish raillery well, and, although he could ill afford to buy expensive toys, had, next day, brought
her a walking Puss-in-Boots carved from wood.

  The violence of his temper was equalled only by his colossal assurance about his own abilities, and by the vividness of his imagination, as he was always producing grandiose schemes for his own advancement. During the period of his disgrace he had conceived the idea of going off to reorganize the army of the Grand Turk and, without even writing to ask n the Sultan would like to employ him, had applied to the War Office for permission to do so. It had been granted, and he had only been prevented from leaving for Turkey because somebody else at the

  War Office had suddenly discovered that he had ignored an order to report for duty with the Army of La Vendee, so cancelled his permit to go abroad and had his name erased from the list of Generals.

  The possibility of improving his fortune by a good marriage had also occupied his imagination. First he had proposed to Desiree Clery, the sister of his elder brother, Joseph's wife, but she had refused him. Then he had produced an extraordinary project for a triple union between the Permon and Buonaparte families. Albert was to marry his pretty young sister Paulette, Laura was to be given to his boy brother Lucien, and he, although the recently widowed Madame Permon was more than twice his age, was to espouse her. They laughed a lot over this crazy notion, but Madame Permon assured them that he had made the proposal to her in all seriousness.

  From the evening's talk with the Pennons Roger formed the impres­sion that Buonaparte had inherited from his half-peasant mother the temper, pride and toughness of a Corsican brigand and that his mind was subject to erratic twists sufficiently marked for him to be regarded as a little mad.

  Next day, however, to get another intimate opinion he invited Andoche Junot to dine with him, and afterwards he felt that he ought to modify his opinion, at least to the extent that the Corsican's madness generally had method. Making liberal allowances for the young A.D.C.'s passionate devotion, it could not be contested that his idol had frequently displayed a cool head, sound judgment and shrewd foresight.

  There had been, for example, the occasion of Buonaparte's arrest and imprisonment after 9th Thermidor. Had he been sent to Paris, as the protege of the elder Robespierre and the bosom friend of the younger, his risk of following them to the guillotine would have been a high one. Knowing that, Junot had offered to collect a few friends, break into the prison and rescue him. But Buonaparte had refused the offer, and the reason he afterwards gave for his refusal was that if— as he did succeed in doing—he could get his case dealt with locally, he would stand a good chance of being acquitted, whereas if he allowed himself to be forcibly rescued he would become an outlaw and have lost his Commission for good.

  Again, his having ignored the order to proceed to La Vendee had not been a temperamental act, but a calculated risk. For one thing he had not wanted to have it on his record that he had been engaged in fighting French peasants; for another he felt that, although he was then employed only in the Topographical Section of the War Office, if he remained in Paris, where all appointments of importance were made, luck or intrigue might lead to his securing a far better one.

  The handsome Junot, now resplendent in the uniform of a Colonel of Hussars, spoke with glowing admiration of Buonaparte's qualities as a soldier: his eagle eye for a battery position, his instantaneous decisions, and his complete fearlessness in battle; then with a shade of awe in his voice he touched on his General's other qualities: his intenseness, his extraordinary personal magnetism, and his ability, by no more than the direct glance of his eyes, to reduce men who were much older than himself, and in authority over him, to stammering inanity.

  After dining well at the Cafe Rampollion they parted, and Roger went on to Madame Tallien's. Tall, graceful, her dark hair cut au Titus, in an aureole of short curls round her shapely head, Theresa Tallien looked as lovely as ever. As Roger edged his way through the court she was holding, to kiss her hand, he thought it by no means surprising that her uncle, whose ward for a time she had been, had gone so mad about her when she was still only fourteen that he had done his utmost to persuade her to marry him. On the other hand, Roger was quite shocked by Tallien's appearance, as he now looked much more than his age, grey-faced and ill. Later in the evening he heard from a fellow guest that his old colleague of the Commune had recently been subjected to a most unpleasant shock, which, no doubt, partially accounted for his lack-lustre eyes and woebegone appearance.

  In order to marry Theresa he had divorced his first wife, but as she was still a young and attractive woman, and remained in love with him, he had continued to feel a tenderness for her, and kept her in their old home. However, his treatment of her had been capricious and so much so in recent months that, on his ignoring an invitation to breakfast with her one morning not long since, she had decided that he had at last made up his mind to abandon her for good. Actually that was far from being the case and he had all the time intended to go as a little surprise for her. On arriving at the house he found her being carried downstairs covered with blood. She had just committed suicide from despair.

  The affair had shaken him terribly, but Roger could not help feeling that it was only a very small instalment of what was due to him for his many crimes during the Revolution.

  After a while Roger got Madame Tallien to himself for a few moments, and, when they had conversed for a little, he remarked: "I have not so far seen General Buonaparte. I had expected to find him here, as he was always a regular attendant at your evenings."

  "He comes no more," she replied, then added with a laugh: "He is angry with me. A few weeks ago he suggested that I should divorce poor Tallien, in order to be able to marry him; and when I refused he took great offence. But he consoled himself quickly enough. For the past month he has been dancing attendance on my sweet friend Josephine de Beauharnais." "She has, then, received him more kindly?" Roger hazarded. "Poor dear, she hardly knows what to do. He is pressing her to marry him with the same fierceness as if she were an enemy fortress upon the taking of which the fate of France depended. And his letters, to her! You should but see them. The passion he displays for her is quite frightening, and in parts they would make a grandmother blush. Fortunately, she has a pretty sense of humour, so is able to alleviate her fear of him by keeping her mind on the comic spectacle he presents when he declares his passion for her."

  After two more days given mainly to apparently idle chatter with numerous other people many of whom had known Buonaparte for a considerable time, Roger decided that he was now as well briefed as he could hope to be for a meeting with the Corsican. Wishing it to appear a chance one, on the 26th he spent some hours hanging about the Jardin des Plantes as Junot had happened to mention that, either in the morning or afternoon, the General usually took his exercise there; and soon after two o'clock Roger's patience was rewarded. At a brisk walk, coming down one of the paths towards him, was a short, spare figure wearing a grey overcoat and an enormous hat, the brim of which was turned up in the front and at one side, and had a three-inch wide border of gold galon round it

  On their greeting one another it transpired that Buonaparte had heard of Roger's return from Barras; so when they had spoken of the South of France and touched on their mutual memories of 13th Vendemiaire, it was quite natural that they should fall into step and continue then walk side by side. Roger had then only to mention the war to set Buonaparte off on a non-stop monologue.

  He had an ugly Italian accent and his speech was frequently ungrammatical, but everything he said was lucid, and the trenchant expressions he used were always to the point As he reviewed each battle area in turn he criticized without mercy the Army and Corps commanders, although he had never handled a Brigade himself, and they were the men who in the past three years had gained France a score of victories. He declared that the failure of the campaigns of '95 on both the Italian and Rhine fronts had been due to scandalous incompetence, and proceeded to lay down the law about what each of the generals should have done and when he should have done it.

  When he had t
alked himself hoarse Roger managed to get a word in, and remarked: "No doubt you are right about the Italian campaign; but are you quite convinced that it was not something other than incompetence which led to our armies having to fall back across the Rhine?"

  After giving him a sharp glance, Buonaparte rapped out: "You have, then, heard these rumours about Pichegru? Do you believe them?"

  "I hardly know what to think," replied Roger cautiously. "His failure to take Heidelberg was in such striking contrast to the abilities he previously displayed that either the rumours are true, or he has become the victim of a sudden softening of the brain."

  "The latter must have been the case, or something like it Even conceding that he may not at heart have been quite such a pure patriot as he pretended, and making allowance for the weakness to which all men are subject I cannot believe that he sold his country. What could he possibly have stood to gain?"

  Roger had now brought the conversation to the point he wanted,

  and he said casually: "I'm told that he was offered the baton of a Marshal of France, a Dukedom, the Governorship of Alsace, the Chateau of Chambord, an income of..."

  With an impatient gesture Buonaparte cut him short "What do such baubles and fripperies amount to in these days? Since we now have no Marshals, as the most successful General in the Army of the

  Republic he was already the equivalent of one. And who but a madman would wish to be called Duke or Excellency at the price of having to dance attendance on that fat fool of a Bourbon Prince? As for chateaux and incomes, they will fall like ripe plums into the hand of any man who has the ability to carve with his sword a writ for them on the broken armies of our enemies. No, I cannot believe that any sane General who had victory in his hands, as Pichegru had, or even a remote prospect of it, would barter glory for such a mess of pottage."

  So it was that Roger received the answer to his mission. As Buonaparte clearly believed that it was now only a matter of time before he got an opportunity to cut an enemy army into pieces, there could be no doubt whatever that he was unbribable. To wage war and win glory was his lodestar, and had he been offered the Crown Jewels, a Viceroyalty and the Bank of England, he still would not have given such a proposition a second thought.