'Why? 5
'To invigorate you, to give you something new to think
about and to restore - even if only partially - your natural good spirits.'
'Edmond, I couldn't care a rap about any of that! What on earth is that scent you've doused yourself with?'
'Don't you like it" This scent, if you're capable of grasping the notion, is popular with women. It attracts them like a magic spell. You should try it.'
'Leave me in peace, both of you!'
'Oh, no, you don't!' said Henri, losing his temper. Tor three whole days now you've been wasting away here and making us sick with worry!'
Tm not making anybody sick with worry. I have ceased to exist.'
'Louis-Francois, that's enough!' Perigord said. 'Tomorrow we're going to Baden.'
'Bon voyage!' muttered Lejeune. 'With you.'
'No, you're not. Besides, we have to take part in the Saturday parade at Schonbrunn tomorrow, with the Major General.'
'I have spoken to Marshal Berthier about you,' Perigord said, 'and he has given me permission to take you to Baden for the good of your health.'
'What did you tell him : '
'The truth!'
'You madman!'
'You're the one who's gone mad, Louis-Francois. Now, obey orders.'
Taking the waters at Baden was Henri's idea, which had come to him from talking to Baron Peyrusse, Paymaster of the General Treasury of the Crown. The latter had described
his brief stay in the small valley four miles from Vienna. You rented a house for a bundle of florins. The waters? You splashed about in pinewood tanks of mineral water with twenty other people, and, above all, men bathed side by side with young girls in wet blouses which would arouse the fancies of even the least fanciful. If Lejeune could fall in love with a young Austrian girl who would replace Anna in his affections, then his recovery would be swift.
Dr Corvisart, who had a high forehead and white curls fringing the back of his head, had installed himself in the Emperor's office.
'It's a recurrence of your old eczema, sire.'
'On my neck?'
'Hardly reason enough to have brought me here from Paris.'
'German doctors are all nonentities!'
'I'll jot down the ingredients of your usual ointment to give to His Majesty's chemists.'
'Jot them down, Corvisart, jot them down!'
The Emperor had himself dressed by his valets while Dr Corvisart wrote out the formula for the preparation which had previously succeeded in clearing up Napoleon's recurrent eczema: fifteen grammes of sabadilla in powder form, ninety grammes of olive oil, ninety grammes of pure alcohol. It had worked perfectly since the Consulate.
'Monsieur Constant?'
The head valet appeared at the door of the Lacquer Salon, bowed, and announced, 'His Excellency the Prince of Neuchatel.'
'Let him come in if he has good news. If it's bad, tell
him to go about his business! Bad news is what brings on my eczema, isn't that so, Corvisart?' 'Perhaps, sire.'
'The news is good,' said Berthier, entering the salon. 'Your Majesty will be gratified.'
'Well, then, speak: gratify My Majesty!'
The Emperor sat down and stretched out his white stockinged feet. His shoemaker, who was kneeling by his chair, slid on his boots.
Berthier summarized their situation in light of the information he had received that morning.
'Marmont and MacDonald's divisions have effected their junction near the Semmering Pass. The Army of Italy is, at this moment, marching on the road to Vienna.'
'Archduke John?'
'He was unable to check their advance and is withdrawing towards Hungary with a reduced force.' 'Archduke Charles?' 'He isn't moving.' 'What a fool he is!'
'Indeed, sire. However, our comparative setback seems to have given fresh heart to our enemies in Europe . . .'
'You see, Corvisart,' the Emperor said to his doctor, 'this good-for-nothing wants to make me ill!'
'No, sire, he seeks merely to concentrate your thoughts.'
'Well?' the Emperor asked his major-general.
'Russians are demonstrating against us in Moravia, but Tsar Alexander assures you of his friendship.'
'Of course he does! He has no desire to see the Austrians marching back into Poland! He deluges me with fine words and yet doesn't send me a single Cossack! What about Paris? What is Paris saying?'
'Rumours of defeat have been circulating, even at Court, and your sister Caroline has had palpitations. The Bourse is down.'
'Bankers! All dullards! And Fouche?'
'The Duke of Otranto has taken the situation in hand and put a stop to any wavering.'
'That fox! What an excellent barometer! Have his powers extended. If he doesn't betray me, it is because he knows where his interests lie!'
'Contrary to our fears,' continued Berthier, 'the English are no longer threatening to invade Holland . . .'
'And the Pope?'
'He has excommunicated you, sire.'
'Oh yes! I'd forgotten. Who is in command of our gendarmerie in Rome?' 'General Radet.' 'Is he trustworthy?'
'It was he who reorganized our gendarmerie, sire. He has been effective in Naples and Tuscany.' 'Where is that swine of a Pope?' 'In the Quirinal, sire.'
'Have Radet abduct him and put him under arrest!' 'Have him arrested?'
'And do it far away from Rome - in Florence, for example. His insolence irritates me and any moment now my eczema will start making me itch, eh, Corvisart? Don't look like that, Berthier! This isn't religion, this is politics.' Looking at his boots, Napoleon said to his shoemaker, 'Have you seen the leather? Even polished, it's still cracking.'
'You need new boots, sire.'
'How much would that cost?'
'Eighteen francs, or thereabouts, Your Majesty.' 'Too expensive! Berthier, is everything ready for the review?'
'The troops await you.' 'Do we have an audience?'
'A large one. The Viennese love parades and they are curious to see you.' 'SubitoP
So for more than an hour, in the full heat of the day, Napoleon sat on his white horse, dressed in the uniform of a Colonel of Grenadiers — waistcoat, blue jacket and red facings — with every eye fixed on him at the centre of his entire Headquarters Staff. The Imperial Guard marched past in perfect order and to music. The men were rested, washed and clean shaven, the brass of their uniforms polished until it shone, not a single button or trim was missing, and the crowd applauded the standards. The Emperor wanted to show that, far from having brought his army to its knees, the murderous fighting on the banks of the Danube had been merely a setback. Such a display was sure to impress the inhabitants of Vienna and restore the soldiers' morale. When it came to an end, Napoleon dismounted and walked across the main courtyard back to the palace. As he did so, a young man burst out of the crowd which the gendarmes were scarcely restraining. Berthier blocked his path.
'What do you want?'
'To see the Emperor.'
'If you have a petition for him, give it to me, I will see that it is read.'
'I want to talk to him, and to him alone.' 'That's impossible. Goodbye, young man.'
The major-general signalled to the gendarmes to push the lad back into the cheering crowd and then he rejoined the Emperor inside Schonbrunn. The young man's agitation, however, did not subside. He broke away from the crowd once more and, striding across the paved courtyard, managed to get closer to the palace. This time, the colonel of the gendarmerie intervened in person to ask him to move along, but, alarmed by the overwrought look on his face, he had him seized by his men. The lad put up a struggle and, as his green frock coat fell open, the officer glimpsed the handle of a knife; he took it from him and ordered that he be taken to one of the Emperor's orderly officers. It was the Alsatian, Rapp, and they began speaking to one another in German.
'Are you Austrian?'
'German.'
'What did you want to do with this knife?' 'Kill Napoleon
.'
'Do you realize the enormity of what you are confessing to?'
'I heed the voice of God.' 'What is your name?' 'Friedrich Staps.' 'You are very pale!'
'That is because I have failed in my mission.' 'Why did you want to kill His Majesty?' 'I can only tell him that.'
When he was informed of this incident, the Emperor agreed to receive Staps. He was astonished by how young he was and laughed very hard.
'Why, he's only a little boy!'
'He is seventeen, sire,' said General Rapp.
'He looks twelve! Does he speak French?' 'Barely,' he said.
'You will translate, Rapp.' Turning to Staps, he asked, 'Why stab me?'
'Because you are ruining my country.'
'No doubt your father was killed in battle?'
'No.'
'Have I harmed you personally?' 'As you have all Germans.' 'You are an Illuminato!' 'I am in perfect health.' 'Who indoctrinated you?' 'No one.'
'Berthier,' the Emperor said, turning to his major-general, 'have good Corvisart come in . . .'
The doctor entered and was informed of the situation. He examined the young man, felt his pulse and pronounced, 'No excessive perturbation, the heartbeat is normal: your assassin is in good health . . .'
'I told you so!' Staps said triumphantly.
'Monsieur,' said the Emperor, 'ask my forgiveness and you will be free to go. This is nothing but childishness.'
'I will not apologize.'
'Inferno! You were going to commit a crime.'
'To kill you wou|d not be a crime but a public service.'
'If I pardon you, will you go home?'
'I will try again.'
Napoleon tapped the parquet floor with his boot. The cross-examination was beginning to bore him. He lowered his eyes so as not to look at young Staps any more and, changing his tone, he said in a curt voice to the others present, 'Take this angelic-looking halfwit away!'
These words amounted to a death sentence. Friedrich Staps didn't struggle as his hands were bound. Gendarmes pushed him towards one door as the Emperor left by another.
Life in Vienna returned to how it had been before - or something close to that. Daru had requisitioned a number of palaces to set up more adequate hospitals. The wounded had been evacuated from the island and they lay between white sheets, with a branch in one hand as a fan to drive away the flies. A tariff for wounds had been fixed: forty francs for two amputated limbs, twenty francs for a single limb, ten francs for any other wounds resulting in a disability. Paymaster Peyrusse helped, by his own count, 10,700 wounded on these terms.
Since Dr Percy was still short of personnel, despite complaining continually, and since the wounded were so numerous that they required teams of nurses, assistants, canteen workers, washerwomen and laundrywomen, General Molitor had given him permission to keep Voltigeur Paradis on in his service: 'This man is unfit for combat,' Percy had said, 'and what he has been through has left him slightly unhinged, but he's got two arms and two legs, he's a sturdy lad and I need his sort. He'll be of more use to me than to you.' Molitor, therefore, had made no bones about signing the transfer; besides, he was hoping for the arrival of a fresh draft of conscripts to restore his division to its full strength. So, while he was carrying a pail of slops, Paradis saw his Emperor for the first time from close up -close enough to touch him. He was visiting the Albertina Palace, which had been turned into a hospital, in order to
decorate some brave double amputees, who wept with emotion at the occasion.
It had not been possible to bring the most seriously wounded back to Vienna and so the villagers of Ebersdorf had given them lodgings on the other side of the river to Lobau. Marshal Lannes had had both legs amputated. He was staying in a brewer's house, on the first floor, in a room above a stable. For four days it was thought that he would recover; he talked about prosthetic limbs and dreamt of the future, imagining ways to command an army when one had lost both one's legs - in a barrel, he'd say, like Admiral Nelson. The heat was extreme and the temperature rose to thirty degrees. His wounds became infected. His room stank. One valet abandoned the marshal, unable to bear the stench, another fell ill and only Marbot, the faithful Marbot, remained by his marshal's bedside. He forgot to take proper care of his own wounds and his thigh became swollen and inflamed. He watched over him day and night. He became privy to all his secrets and hopes. He helped, as best he could, Dr Yvan and Dr Franck, a surgeon at the Austrian court who had volunteered his services to his French colleagues. Nothing had any effect. Marshal Lannes suffered terrible delirium, he no longer slept, he was convinced that he was still on the Marchfeld plain and he shouted imaginary orders, seeing battalions advancing through the fog and hearing the guns. Soon he stopped recognizing those close to him and he confused Marbot with his triend Pouzet, who had already been buried. Napoleon and Ber-thier came to visit every day, a handkerchiei over theii mouths so as not to breathe in that terrible stench oi rotting flesh. The Emperor had given up speaking. Lannes looked at him as if he was a stranger. In one w eek, he only uttered
a single lucid sentence in Napoleon's presence. 'You will never be more powerful than you are now, but you might well be more loved . .
The Viennese cannot do without music for long. A week after , the theatre on the Wien was packed to the rafters. The four rows of boxes were occupied by French officers, more often than not in the company of beautiful Austrian women in very low-cut, flounced dresses, who fluttered fans made of feathers in front of their bare, ample bosoms. On this particular evening there was a performance of Moliere's Don Juan, in a version adapted for the opera. Sganarelle entered singing and the sets changed on the open stage. The trees in the garden, which looked real, pivoted to turn into pink marble columns, a bush swivelled to reveal caryatids, the grass rolled up to become a Turkish carpet, the sky changed colour, enormous chandeliers fell from the flies, the walls of the stage slid back on rails and an entire staircase unfolded. A great chorus in dominos invaded the vast stage for a masked ball and Dona Elvira sang the invitation she had received from Don Juan. The spectators joined in, beating time with the music, leaping to their feet, bursting into wild cheers, giving ovations and demanding encores of any aria they liked. Henri Beyle and Louis-Francois Lejeune, in full-dress uniform, enjoyed this quintessentially Viennese spectacle. The Colonel hadn't forgotten Anna while taking the waters at Baden, but his resentment became less acute and some of the young blondes there had managed to distract him. In their box, the two friends exchanged rapid comments on the singing and the sets. They found Mme Campi, who was playing
the Commendatore's daughter, far too thin and lamentably ugly, but they thought her voice charming.
'Pass me your spyglass, won't you?' asked Henri.
Lejeune handed him the telescope he had used in Essling to study the movements of the Austrian army. Henri raised it to his eye, then passed it back to the Colonel.
'Look, she's the third chorus girl from the left.'
'Sweet,' Lejeune commented as he looked at her. 'You've got good taste.'
'Sweet, when it comes to Valentina, is perhaps not exactly the right word. Pretty, yes, effervescent, yes, playful, often witty.'
'Will you introduce me?'
'Nothing could be simpler, Louis-Francois. We'll go backstage.'
Henri didn't dare explain that Valentina could talk the hind leg off a donkey, and that she was an intrusive and, in every sense, extreme personality - but, with all her faults, wasn't she exactly what Louis-Francois needed 2 The opposite of Anna Krauss, that is. She made one's head swim. Don Juan continued, its connection with Moliere growing steadily more tenuous. In the last act, as the Commendatore's statue sank beneath the ground, Don Juan was seized by a swarm of horned demons. Vesuvius appeared on stage in mid-eruption, expertly rendered waves of lava pouring out of it and lapping against the proscenium arch. With mocking laughter, the demons threw the protagonist into the crater and the curtain fell. Henri led Lejeune towards the dressing-r
ooms. As they walked along the corridors backstage, they passed half-dressed actresses swooning with pleasure at their admirers' compliments.
^
'We could be in the foyer of the Theatre des Varietes,' said the Colonel, at last breaking into a smile, and it was true that they would have been squeezing past exactly the same crowd of playwrights, nymphs and carping or gossiping journalists if they had been in Paris. Henri knew the way. Valentina shared her dressing-room with some other chorus girls who were taking off their make-up. She was only wearing a tunic and was enchanted when Louis-Francois kissed her hand.
'We are taking you to supper in the Prater,' said Henri.
'What a wonderful idea!' she said, her eyes riveted on the officer, whom she asked in a bantering tone, 'So, were you in that awful battle?'
'Yes, Mademoiselle.'
'Will you tell me all about it? You couldn't see a thing from the ramparts!'
'Certainly, as long as you'll agree to pose for me.'
'Louis-Francois is an excellent painter,' Henri explained, as Valentina looked surprised.
She batted her eyelashes.
'Painter and soldier,' added Lejeune.
'How marvellous! I will pose for you, General.'
'Colonel.'
'But your uniform is surely a general's, at the very least!' 'He designed it himself,' Henri pointed out. 'Will you design costumes for me?'
They waited outside while Valentina chose a walking-out dress. A group of people were talking next to them and they caught snatches of their conversation.
'An Illuminato, I swear!' a fat gentleman in a black frock coat was saying.
'But he was so young!' a singer said in a quavering voice.
'Nevertheless, he tried to assassinate the Emperor.' 'Tried to, that's very true, but he didn't succeed!' 'The intention sufficed.'
The Battle Page 23