Betsy and the Emperor (9781439115879) (5 page)

“Your Majesty, I hold that my defeat is your defeat. My humiliation is your humiliation. And, in the end, if I am not recalled from this foul prison, my fate also will be yours.”

The emperor fell silent. After a moment he said, “The usual closing, Las Cases.”

Las Cases scribbled a few more lines and sprinkled blotting sand on the paper. He placed the letter, a silver ink bottle, and a quill on a silver tray, which was carried to the emperor by the boy. Ceremoniously, the boy dipped the quill into the ink, then handed it to the emperor to sign the document. Apparently, the boy was kept on solely to perform that one, trifling task. I thought it a ridiculous extravagance.

After he'd signed the letter, Bonaparte looked around, and his eyes fell upon me. He frowned. “Well?” he demanded impatiently, as if I'd been keeping him waiting.

“I have a message from my mother for you, sir.”

“Well?”

“She wishes to know if you would join us for supper today.”

He burst out laughing. Rather rude of him, I thought, but I ignored it.

“Shall we expect you, then?”

Bonaparte laughed even louder. Confused, I looked questioningly at Marchand.

“The emperor does not dine with others, mademoiselle,” Marchand kindly explained. “They dine with
him.
And then, only at His Majesty's invitation.”

Marchand looked at the emperor expectantly. He seemed to be hoping that his master would invite my mother to supper.

“My robe, Marchand,” was all the emperor said. I can't say I was surprised that no invitation was forthcoming.

Bonaparte began to stand up in his bath, heedless of the fact that a female was present. Marchand rushed forward with an Oriental bamboo screen to conceal him as he stepped from the tub.

The afternoon sunlight flooded through a tall window behind the emperor. I could see his dark, rotund outline through the screen as Marchand helped him on with his robe. The effect reminded me of those black paper silhouettes cut by the sidewalk artists of London.

The emperor's silhouette shuddered. “Shut that window, Marchand! There's a draft.”

Marchand obliged him.

Resplendent in his crimson velvet robe, the emperor stepped out from behind the screen. He shivered. “This drafty tomb will make me nostalgic for the Russian winter,” he said acidly, directing his remarks at me.

“I hope you will be comfortable, sir.” I said. “Most visitors like the Pavilion. Of course, they are usually soldiers and sailors.”

“And what am I, pray?”

“An emperor,” I said. I did not intend to pay him any compliment by this, I was merely stating a fact. But he nonetheless seemed pleased by my remark.

“In the past,” I added, “our visitors have been on active service.”

His smile instantly evaporated. “I, too, have been on active service,” he said.

 

There was a knock on the front door, and a moment later Gourgaud entered the room.

“What is it, Gourgaud?” the emperor said.

“Forgive the interruption, Sire. Admiral Cockburn is here. He says he wishes to see General
Bonaparte about a matter of some importance.”

The emperor scowled and turned toward the wall. “Tell the admiral that as far as I know, ‘General' Bonaparte was last seen fighting the Mamelukes in Egypt! If he wishes to see the emperor, that is another matter entirely.”

Gourgaud smirked approvingly at the emperor's insistence upon protocol. He bowed and exited, returning a few moments later looking a bit dejected. “He says it is important, Sire.”

We all waited to see what the emperor would do next.

“Very well, Gourgaud,” he said at last. “Show him in.”

Admiral Cockburn entered with the brisk military gait I'd seen so often among my father's naval friends. My father no longer walked that way since he'd developed the gout.

Cockburn stood in front of the emperor, who was now sitting in a chair at the end of the room. By his lofty manner, Bonaparte managed to turn that chair into a throne, and the admiral had to muster all his dignity so as not to seem like a peon. Cockburn took off his hat and nodded respectfully at Bonaparte.

“General,” Cockburn acknowledged.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” replied Bonaparte.

The admiral looked puzzled. He stroked his silver whiskers. “You mistake my rank, sir,” he said.

“And you, mine,” the emperor said brusquely.

The admiral smiled slightly and said nothing. I guessed that this wasn't the first time they'd locked horns over the admiral's refusal to call him “Your Majesty.” This round appeared to be a victory for the emperor.

After a moment Bonaparte nodded at Marchand, who offered the admiral a chair. Cockburn sat down.

“You will be subject to certain rules and regulations while you are under my supervision,” the admiral began. “I see no reason to delay in informing you of them.” Cockburn then glanced at me uncomfortably. “Miss Balcombe, I believe your father said he was looking for you.”

“I just spoke to him, sir,” I said, refusing to take the hint.

One thing I could count on: Whenever adults tried to evict me from a room, the conversation was about to become interesting. I stood there with the innocent look on my face I'd perfected during my years as a desperado at Hawthorne.

“Miss Balcombe…,” the admiral admonished. Reluctantly, I turned to go.

“Mademoiselle may stay,” the emperor intervened, much to my surprise. “I may need a witness, one day.”

“A witness?” Cockburn asked. “To what?”

“My imprisonment is a crime,” he replied. “One is always better off having witnesses when a crime is committed.
N'est-ce pas?
”

The admiral did not respond, but he accepted my presence without further dispute. No one invited me to sit down, so I leaned against the fireplace and prepared to listen.

“You and your suite will stay at the Pavilion until construction is completed at Longwood,” the admiral said to Bonaparte. I knew Longwood House. It was a dilapidated structure a few miles from the Briars. It had once been owned by the East India Company, but no one had lived in it for years.

“Longwood should be ready for you sometime after the arrival of the new governor,” the admiral continued. “He will take over my responsibilities of overseeing your captivity.”

Bonaparte listened without comment.

I wished I could have asked the admiral about the new governor. I wanted to know whether he had any
daughters my age. It would be nice to have someone to talk to besides Toby and Huff, the eccentric old tutor of my little brothers.

“You may divide up responsibilities in your household as you see fit,” the admiral said to the emperor. “You will be permitted to go on outings—supervised, of course—and you may have visitors. But you are to remember that you are a prisoner here, and as such, you will be guarded continuously.” The admiral looked very much like the important British officer he was when he made these caveats. “Look out the window,” the admiral added.

Bonaparte frowned and did not comply. “I am well aware, Admiral,” he said testily. “I've already taken the trouble to count your charming sentries.
Cent vingt-cinq
—one hundred twenty-five, with bright, shiny bayonets.”

I looked outside the window and saw a long row of red-coated sentries. I hadn't seen them when I'd entered the Pavilion. They must have been positioned at the edge of the woods and moved in closer within the past several minutes.

“You need never inquire as to how far you may safely venture forth on St. Helena,” the admiral said to him. “Note the position of the sentries, and you will
know your limits. During the daylight hours you may go for a ride, but my orderlies will accompany you.”

“Naturellement,”
the emperor grumbled.

“At nine o'clock each evening the cordon of sentries will form a ring around the Pavilion. You may walk in the garden if you wish. But at the stroke of eleven you will not be permitted to so much as step off the veranda. I might add that all roads are patrolled, night and day. Over twenty-two hundred soldiers in all. And lest you think of escaping by sea, be assured that two well-armed brigs stand watch over the coast.”

The emperor yawned. “Escape? Really, Admiral, you flatter me. I am a fair swimmer, but surely you know that the nearest land is over nineteen hundred
kilomètres
away. I'm not sure they would welcome me in Africa, in any case, since I once put down a Negro revolution in Haiti!”

The admiral was not amused. “Elba was an island too, sir.”

I had a dim recollection that the emperor had once before been sentenced to exile—on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. Somehow, he'd escaped. He certainly would have been much better off staying there, since it was no doubt a nicer place than St.
Helena. I supposed that exiling him to St. Helena was a last-ditch attempt to stow him in a place so remote, he'd have little chance of ever escaping again.

“I made myself a little kingdom when I was captive there,” Bonaparte said. Then, with mock petulance: “It was too small. I outgrew it.”

“And your escape cost Europe sixty thousand of its young men,” the admiral said bitterly, his whiskers bristling. “What right had you to trouble the world again with your ambitions?”

Bonaparte stood up and stalked around the room like a lion in a cage. “It was the will of the French people that I return! What right had Britain to choose for them their leaders? Louis XVIII was inflicted upon France by her enemies. Let the Bourbon kings rule England if they like! The French drink wine. They have no taste for Bourbon!”

The emperor paced rapidly up and down, as if he might wear a ravine into the floorboards. He tugged nervously at his sleeves as he walked. He turned to the admiral. “A few hundred men returned with me from Elba—a few hundred, no more. Had the people not welcomed my return, they would have crushed us like insects when we marched into the cities. Like insects! But, instead, from Paris to Provence, they
laid down their arms—laid down the arms that their petty leaders had bade them use against me!”

The emperor crossed his arms and sat down. Then he seemed to reach way back into the depths of his memory and dust off some distant recollection. His eyes glazed over, and he was lost in a reverie.

“We marched into Paris,” Bonaparte said softly. “Some of my men feared a hostile reception. I know the French. I did not fear. The people thronged about me, cheering, throwing garlands at my feet. Women, young and old, wept for joy. At long last their emperor had returned to salvage France's glory! I reveled in my victory. Until…until I saw the battalion of soldiers marching toward me. They were once my men, but now these grizzled veterans belonged to France's puppet-king and they had been sent by him to destroy me!

“We were greatly outnumbered, but my men wished to engage them, taking the offense before we were attacked. But I said, ‘No. Wait. These men are Frenchmen still.' Alone and unarmed, I approached them. One old veteran aimed his musket straight at my heart. I ordered my men to hold their fire. I walked toward the veteran till the tip of his bayonet grazed my uniform. ‘What! You old rascal,' I said to him. ‘Would you fire on your emperor?'

“The man lowered his musket and handed it to me with great solemnity. He said,
‘Regarde, Majesté. C'est vide!'

“I looked down the muzzle. It was empty, just as he'd said. The old man wept and fell to his knees before me and pleaded for my forgiveness. I helped the poor fellow to his feet. ‘Rise, sir,' I told him. ‘I see by your battle scars that you have fought many times for France. You need never kneel in shame on her soil.'”

The emperor was no longer remembering the past now. He was in it.

“Then I turned to the rest of the battalion and proclaimed, ‘Soldiers! In my exile I heard your voice. I have come back in spite of all the obstacles and all the dangers. Your general, called to the throne by the choice of the people and raised on your shields, is restored to you. Come and join him! Come and range yourselves under the flag of your leader. He has no existence except in your existence; he has no rights except your rights and those of the people. His interests, his honor, his glory are none other than your interests, your honor, your glory. Victory will march at a quickstep. The eagle and tricolor shall fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame! Then you can show your scars without dishonor; then you
can pride yourselves on what you have accomplished. You will be the liberators of the fatherland! In your old age, surrounded and admired by your fellow citizens, you will be able to say with pride, “I too was part of the grand army that entered twice within the walls of Vienna, within those of Rome, of Berlin, of Madrid, of Moscow and which cleansed Paris of the pollution that treason and the presence of the enemy had left in it!”'

“I stepped back and waited to see what the soldiers would do. I did not have to wait long. ‘Long live the emperor!' they cried by the thousand. Then a great cheer went up among them, and they waved their muskets in the air. They would have raised me up upon their shoulders in joy and triumph had their respect for my position not prohibited it. Mounting my horse, I took my place at the head of my new army and led them on to the center of Paris. They sang ‘La Marseillaise' as they marched. ‘La Marseillaise'! That song had once been the greatest general of the Revolution. Now it was the anthem of my triumphant return to France!”

The emperor half sung, half spoke in a rough but passionate voice the stirring words that had inspired millions of Frenchmen to take up arms and fight for
their freedom:
“Allons, enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!…Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons! Marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!”