The Retreat (28 page)

*

That same day the Emperor was in Warsaw. He had chosen to occupy a ground-floor room at the end of the courtyard of the Hôtel d'Angleterre in Willow Street. Under the name of Reyneval, he was posing as the grand equerry's secretary. The shutters were open slightly. A Polish maid was trying to light a fire of green wood, which wasn't catching; the main room was so badly heated that Napoleon hadn't taken off his box coat and was now walking back and forth to stretch his legs.

‘Caulaincourt!'

‘Sire,' said Sebastian, coming in from next door.

‘I didn't call you! Where is Caulaincourt?'

‘The Duke of Vicenza has gone to our embassy to fetch M. de Pradt.'

‘That humbug Pradt! I'm going to tear his ears off, that incompetent! An ambassador? What a joke!'

Sebastian wondered about this monarch he was seeing at such close quarters. He couldn't determine what lay behind his terrible temper. Was it callousness or firmness? If he was too kind, would people take advantage of him? At the last relay before Warsaw, Sebastian had witnessed a scene where His Majesty's sincerity could not be doubted. At the postmaster's house, just as at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, a young maid had been lighting a fire to prepare soup and coffee while they changed the sleigh's horses. Sunk in a couch, the Emperor had taken pity on the scantily clad little girl; he'd ordered Caulaincourt to give her an armful of coins so she could buy herself warm clothes, and later, as
they had continued their journey in the sleigh, he had revealed himself a little. Sebastian had just carefully written down his words from memory, in the next room. ‘Ah yes, Caulaincourt, whatever anyone thinks, I have compassion and a heart, though it is the heart of a sovereign. If the tears of a duchess leave me cold as marble, I am touched by the sufferings of the people. When peace is established, when England submits, I will attend to France. We will spend four months in every year travelling within her borders, where I will visit thatched cottages and factories, where I will see with my own eyes the state of roads, canals, industries, farms; where I will invite myself into my subjects' homes and listen to them. Everything remains to be created but prosperity will be universal if I reign another ten years, in which case I will be blessed as wholeheartedly as I am hated today …'

The Abbé de Pradt entered the room; he had a small pursed mouth, a broad, high forehead and not much of a chin. ‘Oh! Sire! You have caused me no small amount of worry but I am pleased to see you in perfect health.'

‘Save your compliments, Pradt. The people who lauded you to me are asses.'

Caulaincourt pushed Sebastian into the next-door room, leaving the Emperor to his rage and the ambassador to his embarrassment. The grand equerry began dictating a dispatch for Bassano, who he thought was still in Vilna, but even while scribbling, Sebastian missed none of the volley of insults emanating from the salon. The more the Abbé de Pradt sought to justify himself, the more the Emperor yelped.

‘Caulaincourt!'

The grand equerry left Sebastian and his correspondence,
only to return immediately, throwing down a visiting card, on which Sebastian could read: ‘Get rid of this scoundrel!' Behind the door the argument continued.

‘Without money,' the Abbé was saying, ‘it was impossible for me to raise the smallest troop in the Grand Duchy.'

‘We are fighting for the Poles and what are they doing?'

‘They haven't: a crown piece left, sire.'

‘They'd rather become Russian?'

‘Or Prussian, sire …'

To rescue the Emperor, Caulaincourt announced that his food was getting cold. A moment later the door of the apartment shut. The Abbé had left. Railing against the incompetence of his ambassador to Warsaw, the Emperor dined, and having ascertained that Roustam's sleigh had caught up with them, asked Caulaincourt about the road they had to take. The grand equerry fetched the map he had brought from the embassy and pointed out the stopping places with a finger.

‘We are going towards Kutno.'

‘Tell me, isn't Countess Walewska's chateau there-abouts?'

‘Indeed, sire.'

‘Would that necessitate a detour?'

‘Don't think of it, sire, we have to get to the Tuileries as quickly as possible. Besides, who is to say that the countess is not in Paris?'

‘Let's forget it. I am eager to see the Empress and the King of Rome again. You're right.' The Emperor gave in easily; Caulaincourt's arguments were convincing. Still, he would have liked to have greeted his mistress and kiss the son she had given him.

Caulaincourt resumed his explanations. ‘Then, after Dresden, we cross Silesia.'

‘In Prussia? Are we obliged to?'

‘Yes, for a short distance.'

‘What if the Prussians stop us?'

‘It would be a terrible stroke of luck, sire.'

‘What would they do to us? Demand a ransom?'

‘Or worse.'

‘Would they kill us?'

‘Worse still.'

‘They'd hand us over to the English?'

‘Why not, sire?'

The Emperor shuddered at the idea – but it was a fit of violent hysterics rather than fear or revulsion that shook his shoulders, ‘Ah hah hah, Caulaincourt! I can picture your face in London, in an iron cage! They'd smear you with honey and give you to the flies, hah hah hah!'

They set off again in the red sleigh with its badly jointed windowpanes that let in freezing draughts. Sebastian felt all the same that he'd returned to civilization. His stomach was full; he'd been able to wash and put on new clothes; above all, the mind was reasserting its superiority over the body as he forwent sleep in order to remember what the Emperor said.

‘In less than three months, I'll have five hundred thousand men under arms.'

‘The ill disposed, sire, will say that equates to five hundred thousand widows …'

‘Let them talk, Your Grace. If the Europeans understood that I'm acting for their own good, I wouldn't need an army. Do you think I enjoy war? That I don't deserve a
rest? As for the sovereigns, they're narrow-minded. Honestly, I've made it clear enough that I want to put a stop to revolutions! They owe me thanks for having stemmed the torrent of revolutionary spirit that was threatening their thrones. I loathed the Revolution.'

‘Because it killed a king?'

‘On the famous 13 Vendémiaire, Caulaincourt, I hesitated. Oh, I remember it well. I was coming out of the Feydeau Theatre, having been to a melodrama,
The Good Son;
the alarm was sounding throughout Paris. I was ready to sweep the Convention from the Tuileries, but whom would I have had to command? An army of Royalist dandies, students and innkeepers trained by Chouans. In the Royalist sections, they held their muskets like umbrellas! And then, when it started to rain, the downpour dispersed the rioters, who left to find shelter in a convent and talk … So that evening I reluctantly chose the Directory – the Directory, that nest of swindlers driven entirely by self-interest. I seconded Barras to use his power and establish mine.'

‘You would have served the monarchy?'

‘Do you want me to tell you who really killed the king? It was the émigrés, the courtiers, the nobility. One does not go into exile. If they had created a real resistance on the nation's soil, I would have ranged myself on their side.'

‘You received them later at your court …'

‘My duty was to win them over. One must unite every shade of opinion and make use of people whose interests are most opposed. That is the way to prove a government is strong.'

‘How many would remain faithful to you in adversity?'

‘I hold men in slight esteem, as you know, but am I
wrong, Your Grace? I have no illusions about their behaviour. None. As long as I stoke their ambitions and coffers, they will bow their heads.'

*

The Emperor and his travelling companions were wary of ambushes but over the five following days they suffered only mechanical problems and vexations due to the dilatoriness of postmasters. At Dresden they exchanged the red sleigh, by then almost in pieces, for a berline fitted with runners which the King of Saxony gave them; having been woken at four in the morning, he had come rushing to greet them in a sedan chair without telling his entourage. For want of snow, this new sleigh was in turn replaced by a mail barouche, then by a landau – and this was now in a coaching inn between Erfurt and Frankfurt awaiting fresh horses. Napoleon remained sitting in the landau; no one was showing any signs of urgency.

‘Caulaincourt, it's infuriating! Are they putting those horses to?'

‘I have ordered them to, sire,' said the grand equerry.

‘And what answer does this fool of a postmaster give?'

‘He tells me
presently, presently.'

‘He hasn't got horses in his stable?'

‘He claims not. We're waiting for some to be requisitioned.'

‘We need to leave before nightfall!'

‘That would be desirable, sire. The road is difficult in the forests.'

‘Help me get out, you graceless idiot, I'm freezing.'

Furious at the delay, the Emperor strode towards the postmaster's house. Once inside, however, he calmed down.
In the salon, a woman was playing a sonata on a harpsichord. She didn't speak a word of French, Napoleon not a word of German. He thought her entrancing and she played with a lightness of touch unexpected for such a place.

‘Caulaincourt!'

‘Sire?' said the grand equerry, entering at a run.

‘You speak their language. Ask for coffee and hurry these flabby lumps along!'

Caulaincourt met Sebastian and the interpreter in the courtyard, which was surrounded with dwelling houses, outhouses and stables.

‘Your Grace,' Sebastian said to him feverishly, ‘they've locked the main gate as though they are trying to keep us here.'

‘Could they have recognized His Majesty?'

‘Why delay us?'

‘What if they've told German partisans who are now setting an ambush for us in the defiles before Frankfurt?'

‘Unless they are in the habit of robbing travellers …'

‘I talked to one of their postilions,' said the interpreter. ‘No one has changed horses here for more than thirty-six hours.'

‘Logically, then, they should have horses.'

Caulaincourt gave his instructions. The Polish count was to go to the village to fetch a squad of the French gendarmes stationed in that part of the country. He was to give one of His Majesty's pistols to M. Roque and make haste on an unharnessed horse; the village wasn't far, he should reach it without mishap, even with a tired mount. Where was the outrider? Exhausted, he was snoring on the landau's seat.
Sebastian woke him so that he could hold the gate open with Roustam.

‘The stables are this way, Your Grace,' said Sebastian, holding the pistol pointing at the ground.

Inside they heard whispering, the stamping of hooves. Caulaincourt banged on the door with his fist and demanded in German,
‘Mach auf!
Open up!'

Tricked by the accent and the firm tone into thinking it was one of his fellows from the post-house, a postilion opened the door. Sebastian and the grand equerry pushed him out of the way and entered the stable. Ten well-rested horses were there at their mangers. ‘Filthy liars!' Caulaincourt shouted, very annoyed, and ordered the postilion to harness four of the animals.

At the sound of the altercation the other postilions ran out of the surrounding buildings and began to threaten the equerry. A frenzied figure pushed through them, red-faced, thick brows joining in a line across his forehead. Sebastian didn't understand a word of the curses he spat in Caulaincourt's face like blasphemies, but he knew enough to realize it was the postmaster. The man raised his whip and lashed the air; Sebastian, who had moved closer, caught the blow in his face. A red weal appeared on his cheek. Caulaincourt grabbed the postmaster by the collar and pinned him against the wall. The horses side-stepped nervously. Sebastian, blood running down his cheek, hesitantly threatened the surly postilions with his pistol, while Caulaincourt released his captive, drew his sword and jabbed it against his throat. The postmaster barked orders and the horses were immediately put to the landau.

At that moment the Emperor came out with the panic-stricken harpsichord player on his arm.

‘Caulaincourt, tell Madame, in her language, that she is good enough to come and play at the Tuileries.'

‘Can I add without her husband?'

‘Is she the spouse of that malevolent lout?'

‘I fear so, sire.'

‘What a pity. Let's go.'

The outrider started the team off at full gallop; Roustam leaped up onto his seat and they were pulling out onto the road when the Polish count returned with a party of gendarmes.

‘Count, follow us with your gendarmes!' the grand equerry shouted through the door. In a quieter tone, he added to the Emperor, ‘I smell a trap.'

‘Don't look on the dark side of everything, Caulaincourt.'

‘Isn't there some intrigue behind this? Why should they lie to us?'

‘Perhaps they didn't want to spoil their horses on this wretched road,' volunteered Sebastian.

‘What if the lad's right?'

The Emperor wanted to tweak Sebastian's ear but, reaching for it under the furs, his fingers touched a sticky liquid and he pulled his hand away quickly. ‘What is it?'

‘A wound acquired in Your Majesty's service.'

‘M. Roque received a blow at the coaching inn,' Caulaincourt explained.

‘I see, I see …' The Emperor wiped his fingers on the landau's cushions with a grimace of disgust and then retreated sullenly into his corner. Sebastian observed his profile in the twilight, the fine features in a fat face. Napoleon was muttering, ‘Intrigues, intrigues …' and these words
took him back to his dynastic obsession: Malet's conspiracy and what it revealed about the attitude of his minister.