Napoleon had, too, been unlucky in the matter of an alliance for his eldest sister, Eliza. In 1797, while he was in Italy, behind his back his mother had married her off to a Corsican landowner named Bacciocchi, a moron of a fellow who had taken sixteen years to rise from Second Lieutenant to Captain in the Army. Realising that no possible use could be made of him, Napoleon had given Bacciocchi a profitable administrative sinecure in Corsica, and sent them back there. Dumpy and plain, although physically less highly sexed than others of her family, Eliza’s mind seized avidly upon everything to do with eroticism. A born blue-stocking, her great ambition was to become a famous patroness of the arts and letters. Having badgered Napoleon to allow her to return to Paris, she had started a salon. It failed to attract any but second-rate men of talent, and she made herself a laughing stock by designing an absurd uniform to be worn by all the members of a literary society she had formed. In due course, as Emperor and King of Italy Napoleon, much as he disliked her, had given her the Principalities of Piombino and Lucca; but she ruled them with such ability that he later said of her that she was his best Minister.
About Pauline, by far the loveliest of the sisters, and considered to be the most beautiful woman in Paris, Roger was somewhat reticent, refraining from disclosing that her beauty was equalled only by her lechery. In her teens, Napoleon had approved her marriage to General Leclerc, because he was an aristocrat. But Leclerc had died of yellow fever in Dominica. She had then become Roger’s mistress but, during his enforced absence from Paris, married again, this time Prince Borghese—not because she loved him, but so that she might wear his fabulous family emeralds, and on account of his vast wealth. Borghese had proved a poor bed companion but, even had he not been, that could not have prevented pretty Pauline from enjoying her favourite pastime with a score of handsome young men, both before and after her second marriage. Napoleon had given her the Principality of Guestalla in her own right, but she was fated to derive little pleasure from it, as she loathed having to give up the magnificent palace in Paris on which she had spent a fortune in decorating with admirable taste; and she had since become the victim of chronic ill health.
The youngest sister, Caroline, had, apart from Napoleon, a better brain than any other Bonaparte. She also shared his ruthlessness and inordinate ambition, but not his generosity and loyalty to friends. When very young she had fallen in love with the flamboyant Murat, doggedly resisted all Napoleon’s efforts to persuade her to accept other suitors that would have better served his own plans and, on leaving school, married the great cavalry leader.
On becoming Emperor, Napoleon had created Joseph’s wife, Julie, and Louis’ wife, Hortense, Imperial Highness; but he had not bestowed that rank on his three sisters. At a family celebration dinner at which he had announced these honours, Pauline was absent in Italy. The other two had been hardly able to contain their rage at his neglect of them, so had gone to the Tuileries next day. All the Bonapartes had extremely violent tempers and habitually threw the most appalling scenes whenever they suffered a disappointment. The two women had screamed abuse at their brother until he had agreed to make them, and Pauline, also Imperial Highnesses.
During 1806, the Emperor had entirely remade the map of Germany; first welding numerous small Principalities into the Confederation of the Rhine. He had then deprived various states of portions of their territories, to create the Grand Duchy of Berg-Cleves, and made the Murats its sovereigns. Caroline had since been busily dissipating its revenues but, her ambitions still unsatisfied, had packed her stupid, gallant husband off to Poland, in the hope that the Emperor would make him king of that country.
There remained the Emperor’s stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais. Napoleon had always had a great fondness for him and, while still a boy, had taken him on his campaigns as an A.D.C. Eugene, although not brilliant, was honest, capable and devoted to his stepfather. In 1805, Napoleon had made him Viceroy of Italy and, in the following year, formed another valuable alliance by marrying him off to the Princess Augusta of Bavaria.
Most of this was already known to Roger’s audience, but they delighted in his personal descriptions of the Bonaparte family, their idiosyncrasies and the way in which they had battened upon their illustrious brother; costing the nation hundred of millions of francs, spent mostly in vulgar ostentation with the vain idea that they could impress the ancient sovereign families of Europe and be regarded by them as real royalties.
An elderly Major remarked, ‘The “Little Corporal” has done so much to restore the greatness of France, that one can’t grudge him the pleasure of showering benefits on his relations; but what does stick in my gills is the licence he allows his Marshals.’
‘They, too, have some claim on France,’ Roger replied, ‘for many of them have made notable contributions to the Emperor’s victories.’
‘True enough. Ney at Ulm, Davoust at Auerstädt, and in the early days Augereau at Castiglione and Lannes at Arcola. But so, for that matter, have we all. Yet the Marshals are given vast provinces to loot at will. Out of our wars they are making great fortunes, but not a fraction of it ever reaches us. We have to soldier on for nothing but our pay; and that is often in arrears.’
‘I wouldn’t object to that so much,’ said a youngish Captain of Dragoons, ‘if only the fighting would come to an end, and we could get home.’
At that there was a chorus of assent, and Roger knew that it now voiced a feeling general in the Army. Some of the older men had been campaigning in, or garrisoning, distant lands for ten years or more. Only by luck had their regiments now and then been brought back to France, thus enabling them to get leave to spend a short spell with their families.
Roger sympathised, but felt that in his position he was called on at least to make a show of upholding morale; so he said, ‘It’s hard on you gentlemen, I know. But the Emperor dare not make peace until he has smashed the Prussians and Russians for good and all. If he did, within a year or two we’d find ourselves back with the colours, having to prevent our enemies from invading France, instead of fighting them in their own country.’
‘And what if we did?’ retorted a Lieutenant of Engineers. ‘France’s natural frontier is the Rhine, and we could hold it without difficulty. If fight one must, at least let it be there where, between battles, we’d have the benefit of comfortable billets, ample food, good wine and women for the asking. Whereas, in this God-forsaken country, we are frozen, starved and hardly better off then the lice-ridden peasants who inhabit it.’
‘Things will be better in the spring, and that’s not far off now,’ Roger said, in an endeavour to cheer them up. ‘When the campaign reopens, it needs only one more victory by the Emperor and the enemy will be forced to make terms which will include all prisoners of war regaining their freedom.’
‘And what then?’ put in the Captain of Dragoons. ‘That would be all very well for you, Colonel. You and the rest of the gilded staff would go riding gaily back to Paris with the Emperor. But most of us would be left here to garrison the cities and fortresses we’ve taken.’
The elderly Major took him up. ‘That’s it, and “gilded staff” is right. In the old days they had all risen from the ranks, and were tough, courageous men who cheerfully shared hardships with the rest of us. But since Bonaparte put a crown on his head in Notre-Dame, he’s changed all that. He’s welcomed back the émigrés and surrounded himself with young popinjays: ci-devant nobles, who are better at making a play for pretty women in ballrooms than risking their skins on a battlefield.’
Roger frowned, sat forward and asked sharply, ‘Are you implying …?’
‘No, no!’ the Major interrupted him quickly. ‘I meant no offence to you, Colonel. All the Army knows the exploits of le brave Breuc. And gentle birth is no crime. But old soldiers of the Republic, like myself, take it ill to receive their orders from ex-aristos who were living in idleness in England or Coblenz while we were fighting on the Rhine, in Italy and Egypt.’
With a shrug, Roger let the ma
tter pass, for he knew that there was much in what the Major had said. From those earlier campaigns many thousands of France’s best fighting men had never returned and, although the Army still had a leaven of them as junior officers and N.C.O.s, its ranks were now composed mainly of young and often unwilling conscripts; while Napoleon’s policy of marrying the new France with the old had led to his giving staff appointments to considerable numbers of inexperienced youths of noble families, many of whom lacked the daring and élan of the men with whom he had earlier surrounded himself. In numbers the Army was greater then it had ever been; but its quality had sadly deteriorated.
Next morning, the Russian soldier-servant produced for Roger a pair of field boots a little too large for him, but comfortable enough, and the tunic and busby of a Hussar officer who had recently died in the local hospital. Somewhat more presentable in this false plumage, he spent the next six days with his gloomy companions, alternately taking exercise in the walled garden, drowsing in an armchair with broken springs and talking with them about past campaigns. Meanwhile, with the best patience he could muster, he waited for some indication that the Hetman Dutoff had carried out his promise to request General Bagration to arrange for his exchange.
On the seventh day his hopes were realised. The officer in charge of the prisoners informed him that an order had come for his transfer to Tilsit, where the Commander-in-Chief had his headquarters. That midday he said good-bye to his fellow prisoners, without disclosing the reason for his transfer then, with an infantry subaltern as escort, he set off in a well-equipped sleigh for the headquarters of the Russian Army.
Tilsit was on the Niemen and some thirty-odd miles from Insterburg, so it proved a long, cold drive across the still frozen plains, ameliorated only by the fact that Roger had been provided with furs and that the young officer responsible for him had taken the precaution to bring half a dozen large brodchen stuffed with caviare, a similar number of apfel-strudel with rich, flaky pastry, and a bottle of captured French cognac.
By evening they reached the larger city and, somewhat to Roger’s disquiet, instead of being taken to the Palace occupied by General Bagration, he was checked in at another, larger prisoner-of-war camp.
This camp consisted of several score of hutments. In it there were confined a thousand or more French soldiers and, fenced off in a separate enclosure, quarters that housed some seventy officers. Among the latter were three with whom Roger was acquainted. They welcomed him gladly as a comrade in misfortune, but were as depressed as those he had left behind at Insterburg. They were, in fact, even more gloomy about their prospects, as they had learned the results of the battle of Eylau.
For the first time the Emperor had there met his match in the Russians. That bloody battle had proved no victory for the French, although Napoleon had claimed it as one. But he had been enabled to do so only owing to the fact that he had retained the ground he held, whereas the more cautious Bagration, against the advice of his Generals, had withdrawn during the night. Actually, the appalling slaughter had resulted only in a draw.
Again, for fear of causing his companions unhappy envy, Roger did not disclose his hopes of shortly ending his captivity by being exchanged. But he now felt confident that on the next day he would be sent for to the General’s headquarters and, anyway, informed that negotiations with regard to him were in progress.
He was disappointed in that and several days followed, during which he had to listen to the complaints of his fellow prisoners at having had to participate in this ghastly campaign, in which blizzards and lack of decent food, near-mutinous conscripts and shortage of equipment had proved a far greater tax on their morale than having to engage the enemy. Nostalgically, they longed to be back in their native France, or in the sunshine of Italy, or even in Egypt—two thousand miles from their own country and cut off from it by the British Fleet—but there at least Bonaparte’s untiring activities had converted Cairo into a semblance of Paris on the Nile.
Roger had been in Tilsit for four days when the Camp Commandant assembled the officer prisoners and addressed them:
‘Messieurs,’ he said. ‘The spring will shortly be upon us. Already the ice shows signs of breaking up. Your Emperor is not given to letting the grass grow beneath his feet; so we must anticipate that soon he will reopen the campaign. Naturally, my Imperial master has good hopes of defeating him. But the fortunes of war can never be foretold. General Prince Bagration has therefore decided that it would be wise to send all the prisoners in this camp—officers and men—into central Russia. We shall do our best to ensure that you do not suffer undue hardship, but we have no transport to spare so you will be marched to your new destination in easy stages. Please prepare yourselves to start tomorrow.’
His announcement was received in unhappy silence. Everyone present knew that to protest was useless. After a moment, Roger stepped forward and said in Russian, ‘Sir, may I have a word with you in private?’
Nodding, the Commandant beckoned him outside and asked, ‘Now, what have you to say?’
Swiftly, Roger told him that at the request of Hetman Dutoff, General Bagration was arranging an exchange for him; then asked him to see the General and secure a permit for him to remain in Tilsit until the exchange had been arranged.
The Commandant shook his head. ‘I regret, Colonel, but I cannot oblige you. I have been told nothing about this proposed exchange; and today General Bagration is away, inspecting troops far to the south of Tilsit. My orders are explicit. I can make no exceptions and tomorrow, when your fellow prisoners begin their march to the north, you must march with them.’
5
Fickle Fortune
Roger stared at the Commandant aghast. That an officer in his position should know nothing about such matters as exchanges of prisoners being arranged at headquarters was not surprising. But this order for the removal of the prisoners when General Bagration happened to be absent from Tilsit, making it impossible to get in touch with him, was a most evil stroke of fortune.
It meant that Roger’s hopes of shortly regaining his freedom were completely shattered. Communications in Russia were so poor that, except between the larger cities, letters often took months to reach their destination, and the odds were that the prisoners were being sent to some place deep in the country. Having been brought from Insterburg to Tilsit seemed a certain indication that Dutoff had carried out his promise to request the General to communicate with French headquarters on Roger’s behalf, and his transfer ordered in anticipation that an exchange would be agreed. But such matters could not be arranged overnight and it might be some days yet before a reply came through.
One of Napoleon’s virtues was his loyalty to old friends. In fact, he was so generous in that way that he had frequently declined to punish officers who had served with him in his early campaigns, even when Fouché’s secret police had produced irrefutable evidence that they were conspiring against him. At worst, he had sent them off to some distant command, as a precaution against their creating trouble for him in Paris. In consequence, Roger had no doubt whatever that, when the Emperor learned that he was alive, he would at once take steps to ensure that ‘le brave Breuc’ did not languish for a day longer than could be helped as a prisoner of the Russians.
But General Bagration had many other things to think about besides the exchange of prisoners; and, when he was told that Roger was no longer in Tilsit, he might quite possibly forget to do anything about him. Napoleon, too, had other things to think about and, once the spring campaign opened, he would be so fully occupied that it might be months before the thought of Roger again entered his mind. Even if Bagration did send an order for Roger’s return, how long was it going to take to reach a prison camp in the depths of Russia?
These devastating imponderables having chased one another through his agitated mind, it suddenly occurred to him that, although General Bagration was absent from Tilsit, some member of his staff might know about the proposed exchange and intervene on his behalf. Promptl
y, he begged the Commandant to visit the headquarters and make enquiries. The Commandant, a pleasant, elderly man, at once agreed to do so.
That afternoon the officers’ quarters became a scene of gloomy activity. They were all issued with haversacks, flasks of vodka, and stout boots and warmer clothes for those who needed them. While they packed their few belongings, they commiserated with one another upon this harsh blow of fate. Had they been allowed to remain at Tilsit and the Emperor achieved the defeat of the Russians, as they had all been praying that he would, that would have assured their speedy release; but if they were then hundreds of miles away in the Ukraine or perhaps up in Esthonia, their situation would be very different.
The French had no means of knowing if any of them were still alive or had died on the field of Eylau; so, should the Emperor achieve a decisive victory, it would not be possible for him to require their individual release. Therefore, should the Czar have thoughts of renewing the war when he had had time to gather a new army together, he might decide, in order to weaken his enemy, to release only a limited number of the prisoners he had taken and, unless those now at Tilsit were among the lucky ones, that could mean indefinite captivity for them.
Roger spent agonising hours waiting to hear from the Commandant. If headquarters were already negotiating for his exchange, he could count himself as good as free; but if they were not, he feared that within the week he might be dead. The Commandant had said that the march would be made in easy stages and measures taken to see that the prisoners suffered no undue hardship. That was all very well, but since winter set in, Roger had frequently seen French troops on the march, and the grim evidence of their passing—a trail like a paper chase but, instead of paper, the bodies of men not fully recovered from recent wounds, or youngsters of poor physique weakened by semi-starvation who, exhausted, had dropped out. As there was no transport available to pick them up, they had been left to die in the gently-falling snow.
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