The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  Berthier was in sole command of operations at the start of this Austrian campaign, he had relied on dispatches sent by the Emperor from Paris. These directives frequently arrived late, but in the field the position changed from moment to moment, and consequently a number of dangerous manoeuvres had been attempted which nearly brought disaster on the army. The Emperor allowed all the blame to fall on Berthier, who never sought to exonerate himself, just as he hadn't on that day at Rueil when the Emperor fired at random into a flock of partridges and only succeeded in blinding Massena. Turning to the loyal Berthier, he had said, 'You have wounded Massena!'

  'Not at all, sire, it was you.'

  'Me? Everyone saw you shoot across!'

  'But, sire . . .'

  'Don't deny it!'

  The Emperor was always right, and never more so than when he was lying: to contradict him was out of the question. Massena's hatred for Berthier, however, harked back to an earlier incident. When Massena was commanding the Army of Italy he had set about looting the Quirinal, the Vatican and the convents and palaces for his personal benefit. The unpaid army had mutinied against the profiteer, and in the chaos the Romans of Trastevere, who had been maltreated and kept on rations of black bread, had also risen up in arms. On the square in front of Agrippa's Pantheon, the rebel officers had offered the command of the French army to Berthier, and, to calm the mood, he had had no choice but to accept and ask the Directory to recall Massena. Compelled to flee the fury of his own army, Massena had never forgiven him.

  Lejeune shrugged his shoulders. These rivalries struck

  him as pitiful. How he would have loved to be in Vienna, to take off this gaudy uniform and go strolling in the hills with his sketchbook and pencil, to take Anna with him, to travel with her, live with her, gaze endlessly at her. Yet, as a reasonable man, Colonel Lejeune knew that good had come from bad: if it hadn't been for this war he would never have met the young girl. A great uproar startled him from his reverie. On the main pontoon bridge, riding behind the Grand Equerry Caulaincouri who was steadying his horse by the bridle rein, the Emperor was crossing over to the island of Lobau. All the troops were cheering.

  In Vienna, on the second floor of a house painted pink, Henri Beyle was admiring by candlelight his friend Lejeune's drawings of Anna Krauss. The young girl had been happy to pose, uninhibited by any sense of shame. Henri was struck by the likeness. He stared intently at the sketches until they gained another dimension, her figure seeming to take on flesh, to come alive and move. In one, Anna wore a high tunic which lifted a lock of her black hair from the nape of her neck; another showed Anna pensive, in profile, her eyes fixed on some mysterious sight out of the window; Anna asleep on a pile of cushions; Anna standing naked, like a goddess sculpted by Phidias, unreal in her perfection and yet, at the same time, provocative in her wild abandon; Anna in a different pose, drawn from the back; or again, perched on the edge of a sofii, her knees drawn up to her chin, gazing frankly into the artist's eyes. Henri was dazzled and discomfited, as if he had surprised the Viennese girl in her bath, and yet he couldn't teai

  himself away from the sketches. What if he stole one? Would Louis-Francois notice? There were so many of them. Was he going to use them for paintings? Then terrible thoughts began to run through Henri's mind, which he abjured with all his reason, but did he still possess sufficient reason to withstand them? In short, he wished in a confused way, without spelling out his desires, that Louis-Francois would die in battle, that he would be left to console Anna and take Louis-Francois' place - because one thing was clear: the model could feel nothing less than love for the painter.

  The window was half-open, the night still. Henri heard a piano being played with a limpid grace and he leaned out of the window to see where the music was coming from.

  'Do you like that music, Monsieur?'

  Henri turned round as if he had been caught doing something improper. A young man whom he didn't know had entered his room. In the candlelight, Henri couldn't see him clearly.

  He asked, 'How did you get in D '

  'Your door was open and I saw the light.'

  Henri moved closer to the intruder and observed him. His eyes were pale grey and he could almost have been mistaken for a girl. He spoke French with a thicker accent than was usual in Vienna.

  'Who are you?'

  'A lodger, like you, but my room is under the eaves.'

  'Are you passing through?'

  'Yes, passing through.'

  'Where do you come from?'

  'Erfurt. I work for a trading company.'

  'Ah, I see,' said Henri, 'you're German. I work for the commissariat: army supplies.'

  'I have nothing to sell,' said the young man. 'I am not in Vienna on business.'

  'No doubt you're a friend of the Krauss family?'

  'If you like.'

  As he was asking these questions, Henri had turned over Lejeune's drawings to hide them, but the young German hadn't glanced in their direction. He stared fixedlv at Henri. 'My name is Friedrich Staps. My father is a Lutheran pastor. I have come to Vienna to meet your Emperor. Will that be possible?'

  'If he returns to Schonbrunn, request an audience. What do you want of him?'

  'To meet him.'

  'Ah, so you're an admirer?'

  'Not in the way you think.'

  The conversation was taking an unpleasant turn; Henri wanted to bring it to an end. 'Well, Monsieur Staps, Tin sure we'll see each other tomorrow. As I am ill, I hardl) leave the house.'

  'The man playing the piano opposite is also ill.'

  'Do you know him?'

  'It's M. Haydn.'

  'Haydn?' said Henri, returning to the window to hcai the celebrated musician better.

  'He took to his bed when he saw French uniforms on the streets of his city,' Friedrich Staps continued. 'Now he only gets up to play the Austrian anthem he composed.

  With these words, the young man snuffed out the candle with his ringers. Henri was left in darkness. He heard the

  door shut and swore, 'My God! He's mad, that German! Where did I put the tinderbox?'

  At three o'clock in the morning, repairs finally allowed the troops to cross the small bridge and establish themselves on the left bank of the Danube in the villages of Aspern and Essling. Watches were posted. The men slept little or badly. Marshal Lannes didn't take his eyes off his dress uniform hanging over the back of a chair, its gold lace and braid glinting in the light of a candle. He would put it on at dawn and, most likely, lead his cavalry out to be butchered, but at least their slaughter would have an air about it. Riding at the head of his troopers, he would wear all his decorations, even the great ribbon of St Andrew which the Tsar had awarded him. His dress would single him out to the enemy, he knew that, he wished as much: more even, that he would cut an elegant figure as they sabred him -that was its purpose. Oh yes, he had had enough. What he'd seen in Spain still filled him with disgust: he had not slept easily since. There had been no conventional battles with troops in ordered ranks there, only a faceless war which had broken out on the same day at Oviedo and Valencia, without a word of command, armies of twenty ploughmen led by their alcalde suddenly rising up before them. In no time these armies had grown to several million strong. The Andalucian oxherds had prevailed at Bailen, wielding the lances they used for branding bulls, and then guerrilla warfare had broken out in the mountains, a warfare fuelled by hatred. At Saragossa, little boys slid under the horses of Polish lancers to disembowel them and monks made cartridges in their monastries, scraping dirt

  off the streets to extract the saltpetre. Lannes's soldiers were attacked with broken bottles and paving stones, and if they were unlucky enough to be captured their noses were sliced off and they were buried up to their necks for a game of skittles. On the pontoons at Cadiz, how many of them had been eaten by the vermin? How many had had their throats slit or been sawn between two planks? How many had been thrown into fires, mutilated, their tongues torn out, their eyesockets left hol
low, their noses and ears hacked off?

  'What are you thinking, Your Grace?'

  Lannes, the Duke of Montebello, refused to unburden himself to Rosalie, an adventuress who, like so many others, marched in the army's rearguard in search of happiness: a few sous, some trinkets, some stories to tell. Lannes was not unfaithful, he adored his wife, but she was so tar away and he felt too alone, so he had yielded to this tall, blonde girl with tousled hair who had just tossed her clothes into the straw. He didn't answer. He was haunted by other nightmares. He saw again the children impaled on bayonets in their cribs and the grenadier who had confided in him, 'It s not easy at the start, Marshal, but you get used to it/ Lannes couldn't get used to it any more.

  'I'm not your mistress, am I? It's him, up there . . .'

  Rosalie was not mistaken. The Emperor was pacing about on the flo6r above and the sound of his footsteps wore on the marshal's nerves. If a cannonball cuts me m two tomorrow, he thought, at least I'll stand a chance of sleeping without dreaming!

  'Come here, he's going,' Rosalie said.

  The Emperor was walking down the staircase with his escort of Mamelukes, who surrounded him like guard dogs

  Si

  wherever he went. Lannes heard the sentries present arms. He got up to consult his gold engraved watch. It was three thirty. What hour would the sun rise and what scenes would it reveal?

  Rosalie insisted. "Come!*

  This time he obeyed.

  Xapoleon had gone to meet Massena. who was keeping watch in the belfry of As pern.

  "They're getting ready, sire." said the Marshal.

  The Emperor made no reply. He took the spyglass from Massena's hands and looked out. steadying himself against a dragoon s shoulder. The horizon was coloured with the flickering red dots of the enemy bivouacs. He imagined in the green crops, he heard the cannon fire, the shouts, the tumult which struck terror into Europe. A great reputation, he thought, is a great noise. The more one makes, the further it carries. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, men: all these disappear, but the noise continues to echo down the length ot the centuries. On the Marchreld plain before him. Xapoleon knew that Marcus Aurelius had crushed the Marcomans ot King Vadovar, just as he would crush the Austnans of the Archduke Charles. The echo of that other battle gave him pleasure. In Roman times, there was no wheat here, only marshes, reeds, herons and banks of heather. The legions had charged out of the Bohemian forests, hacking their way through with axes and slaughtering bears and bison for their daily rations. Theirs was no longer the famed peasant army ot Latium. heavily armed and rigorously disciplined, but centuries drawn from all over the Empire, who marched behind horn players.

  half-naked under the pelts of wild animals. Moroccan cavalry. Gallic crossbowmen, Bretons, Iberians ready to choose from their prisoners those who'd dig the Asturian silver mines, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians as vicious as hyenas, Getans with straw-coloured hair, crawling with lice, Thracians in skirts of hemp. And Marcus Aurelius on horseback in this flood tide, unarmed and without a cuirass, but unmistakable, even to the most distant observer, in his purple mantle . . .

  Three

  THE FIRST DAY

  At dawn, a heat haze veiled the plain. Not a breath of wind disturbed the wheat. In front of the villages w here his army was preparing, Napoleon observed the unnaturally still countryside, hunched over the mane of his white Arab and surrounded by his marshals, their staff officers, orderlies and equerries. They presented a fine target, this cluster of commanders — Berthier, Massena, Lannes and Bessieres, who had arrived from Vienna — and generals of division glitteringly arrayed as if on parade - Espagne with his tight jaw, Lasalle chewing his cold pipe, the points ot his moustache twisted up into his eyes, Boudet, Claparede, Mouton, Saint-Hilaire, his head sunk deep in his collar, Oudinot, with his short hair, bushy eyebrows and dogged expression, Molitor, unkempt hair curling onto his cheeks, his nose as thin as a knife blade, and lastly the commanding figure of Marulaz, his stomach straining against .1 scarlet sash. The fierce tension precluded any movement oi con versation. As their stiff-legged horses gently shook theii manes, they sat motionless, a mass of plumes and colours festooned with braid and gold thread down to the tops oi their boots, which had been polished until they shone. Together, these heroes composed an anachronistic tableau which Lejeune regretted not being able to capture - even

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  in a pencil sketch, dashed off in a second — so keenly did he feel, and so excited was he by, the discrepancy between the soldiers and their surroundings, the impatience of the one and the serenity of the other. Nothing was happening. Lejeune thought of the power that settings have, their capacity to alter the meaning and actions of the people they frame. He remembered one of his passing lovers, a rosy-cheeked German girl, bathing in a mountain stream in Bavaria: innocently high spirited in the natural surroundings, she had simply been pretty. But at night, when she'd undressed again in a drawing room heavy with wall hangings, draperies, ornaments and dark furniture, when she was equally naked but more solemn, she had become disquieting; her abandon, her agility, her clothes strewn on the carpet all contrasting with the severe decor. It's funny, mused Lejeune, here I am thinking ot love while we wait for war . . . He smiled. The Emperor's voice brought him back to the present.

  'They must still be asleep! Damned Austrians! Mascal-zoniF

  No one commented, no one agreed: the time for servility had passed. Before the day was out, a number of these princes, barons, counts and generals would, in all probability, be dead. The haze was clearing, only strips of it now floating above the fields. The sky was a purer blue, the wheat a more vivid green. On the horizon, on the slopes of Gerasdorf, they could see where the Austrians had stacked their arms.

  'What are they waiting for : ' the Emperor shouted. 'Soup,' said Berthier, his eye to his telescope. 'It's only a rearguard, sire,' Lannes grumbled, let's go and bowl them over!'

  'My troopers encountered nothing on their patrols/ Bessieres agreed.

  'No,' Massena insisted, 'the Austrian army is out there: they're very close/

  'Sixty thousand of them, at least/ said Berthier, 'if mv intelligence is correct/

  'Your intelligence!' Lannes growled. 'Those prisoners of yours have been talking twaddle! They were sacrificed on that damned island, what on earth are they going to know of the Archduke Charles's intentions. : '

  'Skirmishers slit one of my men's throat last night/ Espagne stated in an expressionless voice.

  'That's all it amounts to,' Lannes continued, 'skirmishers and marauders — meanwhile the main body of their regiments has stayed behind, snug in Bohemia!'

  'They're probably waiting,' added Bessieres, 'to be reinforced by the army of Italy . . /

  'BastaV

  The Emperor had shouted with exasperation. He was tired of hearing their chatter. He had no need of their advice. He signalled to Berthier with a quick wave of his hand then moved away from the group, accompanied by the Grand Equerry Caulaincourt, the young Count Anatole de Montesquiou, his aide-de-camp with the fleshy face, and, as always, the Mamelukes he had brought back from Egypt, who swaggered beside him self-importantly in their plumed turbans and scarlet Turkish trousers, their richly ornamented daggers tucked in their belts. Berthier began speaking in a loud voice, without even looking at the marshals.

  'His Majesty has devised a deployment which you will implement immediately. There must be no mistakes. We find ourselves with our backs to the river, whence fresh

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  troops, supplies and munitions will be arriving. Our objective is to present the enemy with an unbroken front stretching from one village to the other. Massena will hold Aspern, with Molitor, Legrand and Carra-Saint-Cyr. Lannes will occupy Essling with Boudet and Saint-Hilaire's divisions. The bare ground between the villages must be barred: Espagne's cuirassiers and Lasalle's light cavalry will deploy there. That is all!'

  There was nothing to discuss. The group broke up and each went to take up his appoi
nted post. Deep in thought, Berthier took the road to his encampment, flanked by Lejeune and Perigord. 'What are your thoughts, Lejeune : ' the major-general asked.

  'I have none, your Highness, none.'

  Truthfully.'

  "This light makes me want to paint.' 'And you, Perigord'' 'Me? I obey.'

  'We're all reduced to obedience, my children,' sighed Berthier.

  In single file, they crossed the small bridge, which bobbed up and down in the current. On the island, Perigord brought his horse level with Lejeune's and whispered confidentially, 'Our major-general is very sombre.'

  'It must be the uncertainty. The Emperor seems to have chosen to go on the defensive: we entrench, we wait. Are the Austrians going to attack? The Emperor believes so: he must have his reasons.'

  'Good Lord,' said Perigord, raising his eyes to heaven, 'just as long as he knows where he's leading us! Even so, my dear friend, we would all be far better off in Paris or Vienna and our major-general on his estate with his two

  wives! Look at him, I could swear he's thinking of the Visconti . . .'

  Lejeune didn't reply. It was common knowledge that Berthier maintained a menage a trots and that the arrangement tormented him. For thirteen years he had been madly in love with a grey-eyed woman from Milan, alas, married to the Marquis Visconti, a good-natured diplomat of advanced years and complete discretion who was onlv mildly disconcerted by the constant infidelity of his immoderate lv beautiful and passionate wife. When Berthier had resolved to follow Bonaparte to Egypt and part from his mistress, it had caused him terrible heartbreak. In the middle of the desert, in his tent, he erected a sort of altar to Giuseppa and endlessly wrote her despairing and salacious letters. And so it continued. Eventually Napoleon found this interminable passion ridiculous. Created Prince of Neuchatel, Berthier had been compelled to choose a genuine princess with w hom he could found the semblance of a dynasty. SubmisMc. wretched and choking back tears, Berthier decided on Elizabeth of Bavaria, a princess with a pointed little face and no chin, of whom Giuseppa Visconti couldn't conceivably be jealous. And what happened, two weeks after the enforced ceremony? The marquis died in his bed and Berthier could no longer marry his widow. He had been wracked by fevers, and on the verge of a nervous collapse: he had had to be consoled, supported, rewarded, even though the two women tolerated one another, spent time in each other's company and played whist together. On that particular Sunday, 21 May 1809, while the French waited for the Austrian cannon to open fire, that is why Berthier was sighing.