Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements (39 page)

“I don’t like it.”

A flunky brought sorbets in, as well as champagne on ice and, for the Empress, a platter of canapés. She said: “The verse is very bad meseems, ah bad, yes.”

“I don’t mean the verse. I mean the story. I don’t like it, Duroc,” he said to Duroc. “I mean, I’m Prometheus, aren’t I? Have you seen the text? What happens now?”

“He follows the myth,” Duroc said. “Hercules comes to rescue Prometheus and then together they announce that the reign of the old gods is at an end.”

“Who are they meant to be then?”

“It doesn’t have to be allegorical really. But Prometheus is probably the spirit of man and Hercules is, with respect, yourself.”

“Me Hercules? But Hercules is a god. I’m not a god. I’m a Titan,” he said simply. “It would have been enough to have Prometheus sending them all off packing on his own. With perhaps the help of some of his clay creatures. I don’t like it. It’s a bad omen. That Caucasus bit too. It won’t do, I tell you.”

“Shall I arrange for the performance to be announced as over because of the indisposition of somebody or other in it? Ouvrard or Pécriaux or somebody?”

“No no no no, with Prometheus having his liver pecked like that? Go backstage and tell them to get Prometheus to break his own chains—titanic strength, you see—and take the spell off the eagles. I don’t like this playing around with eagles. They’re mine, after all. And then he finds that the gods have inadvertently left that fire behind somewhere, so he fights them with it and burns them all up. And then the Imperial Hymn at the end.” “Improvise, you mean? They won’t like that.”

“God damn it, man, I’ve improvised victories, haven’t I? You could go so far as to say that I’ve improvised a whole civilization. Surely they can improvise a last act. Liver.” He rubbed his own, watching sourly his Empress bite at a kind of Torte. “Tell them it’s the Emperor’s command.”

W
hen the curtain rose again Prometheus was disclosed still chained to the crags, but this time there was a vista of sea behind him. The audience jeered. Prometheus was baldish and had grown a morbid paunch. He kept going ow ow ow. “Liver,” he explained to the audience. “Foie gras. Rotten. Decayed. Not even the eagles will touch it. Too much gross feeding. The Viennese cuisine, you know. Goulash. Bauernschmaus. Guglhupf mit Schlag. Topfenpalatschinken. Butterteigpastetchen mit Geflügelragout. Tafelspitz.” His Austrian accent was not good. “Eagles, eagles,” he called. “Do not desert me. You are the only company I have. They may as well desert me,” he told the audience. “Everybody else has.” The audience jeered. “The Dukes of Castiglione, Istria, Parma, Vicenza, Feltre, Frioul, Otranto, Gaeta, Abrantès—” Jeers and howls drowned the catalogue. “And me voici on a rocky island.” He moved his arms and the chains fell off. “No need for these really. Can’t get away. Too long a swim. Though I’d be buoyed up well enough, all this blubber. Bony become Fleshy, eh?” One of the lengths of chain was a string of sausages. “Wienerwurst. Sehr gut, ja ja. And now a little song, petit chanson.” The orchestra struck up a melody that, meant to be Corsican, was really Neapolitan. The Great Littlehampton beamed, swinging his sausages. He sang:

When my military career began

I gained a reputation as a good hard man.

At Lodi and Rivoli I trounced the Austry Ann

And I showed myself a very good Republy can.

I made a peace at Campo Formio

And taught the whole of Italy the way to go.

But the British lion took a great big bite

And said I could be Emperor

(Vive L’Empéreur)

Of an empire rather smaller than the Isle of Wight.

That was in London. In Vienna the gods in general synod stood about, statuesque sometimes but often ready to relax. Goulash. Bauernschmaus. Guglhupf mit Schlag. Topfenpalatschinken. Butterteigpastetchen mit Geflügelragout. Tafelspitz. Delicious, Cardinal Consalvi said, the Vatican delegate. He ate but, of course, did not dance. Well, Castlereagh said, our Titan had made a pretty pickle of Europe but now he was safely away on a remote island where he could do no harm. Wellington muttered to him about this damned fellow Talleyrand, not to be trusted, a Frenchman anyway, always on the winning side, knows which side his bread’s buttered. Keep him out of the main sessions anyway. Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia. Their task to make decisions. This Austrian wine’s deceptive, Castlereagh. Silk-smooth but woke with a damned bad liver after it. Can never remember the name of that confounded Russian over there. Capodistrias, eh? Keep wanting to call him, ha, Aspidistras.

My reputation and my power increased

So I thought as how I’d tackle that ferocious beast.

But the Navy said no so I thought at least

Yd venture into Egypt for to prick him in the East.

But my wife proved faithless, the Directory too,

So I swam back to Paris to see what I could do.

I was made First Consul by my fellow frogs

And was on my way to Emperor

(Vive L’Empéreur)

Of an empire not much bigger than the Isle of Dogs.

The Prussian Friedrich von Gentz, Secretary-General, was quietly glad to see that Prussia was to get back Posen and Danzig, a good portion of Saxony, bits of Pomerania that had been ruled by the Swedes, and a very fair part of Westphalia. Let me speak, Talleyrand said, for the spirit of German unity. The proposal that there be thirty-nine German states in a confederation without a center must inevitably mean an eventual domination by Prussia. Not his affair, let him keep out of it. Leave all that till later, Hardenberg (Prussia) suggested. Settle the small apportionments first. United Kingdom of the Netherlands—Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg. That can do no harm. How about Cracow, somebody (Nesselrode?) said. Make Cracow a free city, Talleyrand proposed. Where is this damned Cracow, Wellington wanted to know. Wish that Frenchie would keep his impertinent nose out of it. Need him for the votes, Castlereagh said. Useful man when it comes to the votes. Put it to the meeting, said Stein, that we do now adjourn. Grand ball this evening. Cream of Viennese society. Need time to rest, dress, get ready. We are here to work, gentlemen, Metternich said, not to dance. The claims of Austria have so far received scant committee time.

I quickly forgave my adulterous wife

And soon I was created First Consul for Life.

I tried to quieten European strife

But, being a Corsican, I had to use the knife.

I beat two big coalitions down,

And made friends with His Holiness, who gave me

a crown.

But still I said I was Republy can,

Though on my way to Emperor

(Vive L’Empéreur)

Of an empire not much bigger than the Isle of Man.

Back where they were before—Spain, Naples, Piedmont, Tuscany, Modena. Restoration of legitimate dynasties. All a bit dull, thought Wellington. Permanent neutrality guaranteed for the Swiss. Nothing wrong with that, always a neutral sort of people, even Swiss cheese has a neutral sort of taste. Legitimate dynasties restored to Spain. Well, fought for that. Dull people, ugly, harmless. Norwegians united to Swedes. Nothing wrong with that either. Same sort of people, big-boned, light-haired, live off fish and aquavit. Languages sound the same, equally unintelligible. For ourselves, Castlereagh said, for the British Crown I would say, we ask little. To be confirmed in our possession of Malta, the cape of Good Hope, Heligoland, Ceylon, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Mauritius. We sit here, Talleyrand suddenly said, redistributing the civilized world. (Nobody asked him, damned French meddler. Turncoat too, very slippery.) We sit here assuming our safety, meaning the security of Elba as a prison. My intelligence agents (spies, he means, plain spies) inform me that he is ready to take advantage of the disaffection breeding among the disbanded army. Lot of damned nonsense. Bad dreams he’s having. Knows he’s a traitor and an ingrate. Guilt, that’s what it is. Heard the last of old Bony.

The Continental System didn’t work too well,

And the Spanish experience was concentrated hell.

Alexander promised friendship but decided to rebel

So I thought I’d quell the Russians with my shot and shell.

But we limped back from Moscow feeling sad and sore

And we had to meet Coalition Number Four.

We were trounced at Leipzig very very hard,

And now I am the Emperor

(Vive L’Empéreur)

Of an empire not much bigger than a knacker’s yard.

A stronger prison is required, insisted Talleyrand, loud over the music of the waltz. I know the man (we know you know the man) and do not think for one moment he will resign himself forever to this ignominy (ah, ignominy, hear that? Giving himself away?) Metternich tapped his foot to the music, beaming (Austria would get the whole of Lombardy-Venetia, as well as Dalmatia, Carniola, Galicia, Salzburg).

Then the news came through and the orchestra stopped (heard the last of old) dead.

F
rom Cannes (has kissed the soil of France) to Grasse to Séranon to Digne and there was no imperial eagle for the battalion from Elba to set winging from belfry to belfry to belfry all the way to the pinnacles of Notre Dame until they managed to knock a rough bird together from bits of an old four-poster bed. He did not touch Fréjus on this return journey since there had been no cries of Long Live The Emperor there or God Bless You Sire, no woman’s weeping, man’s too for that matter, when he was on his way to embark for Elba; instead there had been vulgar execration and even burning in effigy. Over the Alps then, with Thank You Thank You and God Bless You My Children to those who brought him, Father Violent, Violet one would say, Hope Of A Second French Spring, bunches of votive violets. To the peasant who said he would sell him his horse for one thousand francs (and there were only eighty thousand for the entire expedition) he said:

“Fuck you my friend and may your wretched nag be stricken with the bog spavin.”

The news, relayed from Lyons by telegraph, reached the Tuileries where His Gallic Majesty King Louis XVIII dithered in bloat and gout. Talleyrand, he thought, should have warned him of this eventuality but perhaps he did, there was so much to think about, restoring France to its prerevolutionary stability and glory. Leave it to Soult, Minister of War, Soult would know what to do, probably a matter of scaring him off with a few cannon, perhaps even merely the truncheons of the rural constabulary. All about His Majesty were those who had come back from exile to enjoy their own again: the Duc de Grandejeuner, the Duc de Grandiner, the Duc d’lvresse, the Duc de Droit-de-Seigneur, the Duc de Faireletour du Cadran, the Duc de Lever-une-Dîme, the Comte de Pressurer-les-Pauvres, the Comte de Veaudor, the Comte d’Ecraser-d’Impôts. Also there was the Comte d’Artois, heir-presumptive, who was confidently expected to bring back the really good old reactionary days, downing the peasants’ uppishness and restoring the land to its rightful aristocratic owners, shamefully dispossessed. In the cafés twelve thousand ex-officers on half-pay drank their absinthe and said oh yes there was mud and spilled-out guts and bones crawling with maggots but it was a bit of life really a man’s life you might say and if I see any bastard spitting at the mention of honor and glory I’ll bite his balls off with what teeth I have left more teeth anyway than this fat-bellied Bourbon bastard (and I don’t give a fuck if that is a spy sitting there behind that copy of the
Moniteur
, filthy lying rag as it is) all dropping out what with the syphilis in him and his guts hanging down to the floor with his filthy gourmandizing. Say what you like some spuds and onions fried in train-oil on a bivouac fire tasted better than all that muck they serve up at Nicalas’s. Good Christ that bint over there might well be the daughter of that old bag in the knocking-shop at Vicenza. And it was a bit of life, say what you like, when the trumpets sounded and the drums did the old daddy-mammy and there he was, N himself, growing bald, growing paunched, with a word here and a word there, never forgot a face.