The Retreat (29 page)

‘Malet! So many people in Paris are going to sing their own praises to make me forget their cowardice, but how many were thinking of another revolution rather than a regency? All these marshals around the Empress – are they there to help her? Oh no, certainly not, they are there to stifle her. I can imagine the pressure they put her under, their greed. If I died everything would turn to ashes. They're not up to it, they're jealous of each other.'

‘You have often exacerbated their jealousies, sire.'

‘You tell me that, do you, Your Grace? My poor friend! If you knew the people who have called for your downfall! You know why? Because your nobility, as a marquess of the Ancien Régime, is several centuries old and they're dying of envy. Duke of Vicenza, fine, not that you could give a hang, but Marquess of Caulaincourt, no. That envious rabble! They will never have the bearing or elegance of true nobility; in ten years they'll be just as uncouth as they are now! I reign for their children.'

*

Behind, far behind, the remnants of what was once an imposing army and now numbered a few thousand beggars at most were drawing near to the Niemen. In a hut which only had part of its roof remaining – the rest having, as usual, been burnt – a dozen of these savages were sitting around the ashes of last night's fire, growing numb.

‘Sir,' Paulin stammered through chapped lips. ‘Sir, it's light'

‘Don't be stupid! I know it's still the dead of night and the embers are protecting us.'

The Great Vialatoux waved a hand in front of the captain's open eyes and turned to Paulin in silence. D'Herbigny's corneas had been burnt by the cold and the glare of snow. They picked him up.

‘Come on.'

‘No, no, I can't see anything!'

‘It's the frost, sir, your eyelids will come unstuck.'

‘My eyes are open!'

‘The ice in them will melt. Put this bandage on,' said Vialatoux, tearing a strip from one of the jackets they had taken, with the boots and gloves, from the countess at Vilna.

‘How am I meant to walk with this bandage over my eyes – with another over my mouth and a third over my ears?'

‘Put your hand on my shoulder, sir, I'll guide you.'

‘Where is your shoulder?'

Paulin picked up his pine stick, Vialatoux the bags.

As every morning they passed the previous night's dead, sitting in a circle round their wet bivouacs, their skin black with soot. One had frozen on his feet, carrying branches; he had no fingers left and looked strangely as if he was smiling – but then, as the captain often repeated, dying of cold is not so bad, you just fall asleep, that's all.

The plain was dotted with ghosts moving in the same direction, staggering like drunkards, losing their balance, collapsing and never getting up. Some had nosebleeds that wouldn't stop, the blood freezing on their beards. Splinters of ice blew in the wind. A crow fell to the ground like a stone. A tree cracked apart, its trunk split by the cold. A group of soldiers' bare feet struck the ground with a sound like horses' hooves; the skin was peeling off their legs, the
bones showing through, yet they felt nothing. Otherwise not a sound, the air was mute, nature inert.

The captain's hand lost its hold on his servant's shoulder; he tripped over a body, sprawled full length in the snow, half got up and groped around until he found the body he'd bumped into. It was Paulin who was mumbling feebly, ‘Leave me alone …'

‘Who'll guide me then, eh?'

‘M. Vialatoux …'

‘No! I pay you to serve me!'

‘Not for a long time …'

‘What about the Treasury coins you stuffed in your breeches, you swine!'

‘Leave me here, I'm falling asleep …'

‘Don't you want to see Rouen again, you ass?'

‘Long way. . .'

‘I loathe all this carry-on!'

The vapour of their breath was freezing on the bear skins over their mouths, making it impossible to talk further, but the captain gripped Paulin's arm and forcibly set him back on his feet. Vialatoux whispered encouragingly, ‘A village or a town … anyway, some houses.'

They joined the bands converging on Kovno. Vialatoux took the lead, while Paulin rested a hand on his shoulder and, behind him, the captain did the same in turn, like those blind men who walk in line, each holding on to the one in front. In this fashion they progressed; with no goal in mind other than simply to keep moving, they eventually stumbled across the threshold of the tavern where His Majesty had stopped before crossing the Niemen. Sleighs stood outside, tied to wall rings. Vialatoux steered his
unsteady companions to the door, which he opened to find himself face to face with the Italian innkeeper, who refused to let them in. The heat of the room gave them fresh energy and unwrapping the fur over his mouth, the actor declared haughtily, ‘This is an invalided officer and his servant and I am guiding them through this frozen desert.'

‘What proof can you give me?'

‘We have gold.'

‘That is something else.'

Vialatoux threw a handful of coins on the floor. The cook's boys rushed forward as the innkeeper counted them, apologizing, ‘I cannot extend my hospitality to everybody.'

‘What about him?'

The Great Vialatoux indicated a sick man buried under a mound of blankets at the end of the room, an emaciated, ashen-faced figure whom a maid was feeding a bowl of bouillon. Other men, healthier but with drawn features, were sitting at his bedside.

‘It's General Saint-Sulpice, he has been wounded and we are his escort,' answered one of the men.

‘Saint-Sulpice?' roared the captain. ‘Take me to him!'

He flung his arm out into space, searching for something to lean on, and Vialatoux guided him across the room. Under his coats and blankets the general still wore the embroidered uniform which was his passport: the Cossacks didn't dare kill or rob senior officers; their capture earned more than their effects.

‘General,' said d'Herbigny, standing to attention.

‘What?' asked the wounded man.

‘Captain d'Herbigny, 4th Squadron, at your service.'

‘Herbigny …'

‘You put me in charge of the brigade.'

‘Where is it?'

‘Here, General!'

‘I don't understand …'

‘I am the brigade!' said the captain, thumping his chest.

In the meantime Vialatoux was making enquiries. Could one easily cross the Niemen? Yes, it had frozen afresh. Could one stay a few days in Kovno first? That would not be prudent; so close to the Duchy of Warsaw, this would be the last town the Russians attacked and they were apparently only two or three leagues away. A sleigh? There were none left. Those outside, the general and his suite's? Didn't they have three places spare? Alas, no.

‘Captain,' one of the men of Saint-Sulpice's escort was saying. ‘Captain, you've dropped something …'

‘I have?'

‘Wait, I'll tell you what it is …'

The man bent down and let out a scream, as if he'd touched something diabolical. The others fell silent.

‘What have you found?' roared the captain. ‘I can't see anything anymore, nothing but unending night.'

‘It's that …'

‘Tell me! That's an order!'

‘Your nose, sir,' said Paulin in a broken voice.

‘My nose scares these ruffians, does it?'

‘Oh no …'

‘Well, what is it?'

‘It has frozen.'

‘And?'

‘It has fallen on the ground, sir.'

*

The Emperor's impatience grew as the distance between him and Paris lessened, particularly after he crossed the Rhine by boat and met Montesquiou. Berthier's messenger, who was on his way to rejoin the major general, confirmed that the Empress and his son were in wonderful health and that the fatal 29th Bulletin was to be published in the
Monitor
immediately. Thereafter Sebastian had less to record. Napoleon became more playful and little inclined to confidences. Indefatigable, once again he blamed all the faults of his campaign on the English. That tactic of withdrawing without fighting, burning the crops and towns, wasn't that Wellington's policy in Portugal? Didn't the Tsar have an adviser from London, Sir Robert Wilson? And the fact that the Russians had missed countless opportunities to exterminate them, was that incompetence or because they wanted to keep France strong enough to counterbalance the English? Apart from reflections of this sort, which he barely elaborated upon, the Emperor immersed himself in newspapers and frivolous novels. At Verdun he asked Sebastian to buy him some sugared almonds from a well-known confectioner. At Chateau-Thierry he took a bath and put on the green tailcoat of his Guard's foot grenadiers, keeping his cap and fur-lined coat, not so much because of the cold, which was now bearable, but so as not to be identified too soon. He wanted his sudden return to be a surprise.

After several broken axletrees and changes of carriage, the travellers entered Paris before midnight on 17 December in a sad-looking post-chaise with big wheels.

They came in on the Meaux road. Even though their carriage was closed, they blocked their noses as they passed
the huge open-air dump where the capital's rubbish ended up. Near the cursed spot where the Montfaucon gallows stood, they drove past fallow land and fields, market gardens and farms which proclaimed their size by the brightness of their lanterns. They turned to the left, down rue du faubourg Saint-Laurent, then Saint-Martin, reached the quadruple row of limes of the grand boulevards that had replaced the old city wall and dashed through narrow, chaotic, weakly lit thoroughfares, deserted at that hour, the shopkeepers' stalls cleared away. Then – finally – ahead of them was the Tuileries, the Imperial palace. The postilion turned in under the porch of the Pavillon de l'Horloge and pulled up in front of the sentries guarding the peristyle. Caulaincourt emerged first, unbuttoning his coat and showing the gold braid of his uniform. As the sentries stood aside to make way for these visitors in fur-lined coats and fur caps, the twelve strokes of midnight rang out.

Caulaincourt, the Emperor and Sebastian climbed the double staircase leading to the vestibule of the palace. They strode along the arcades of a covered gallery and knocked on a door at the end, which led to the Empress's apartments – apartments that were once the Queen's and were then commandeered by the Committee of Public Safety, who filled them with furniture from Versailles and the Trianon, and an armada of secretaries. There was no answer. Caulaincourt hammered on the door with his fists. They heard footsteps. A Swiss guard with dishevelled grey hair and bleary eyes opened the double door a crack. He was in his nightshirt, like his wife who was looking over his shoulder, intrigued; she was holding a lantern. In the pool of light it cast, she gazed fearfully at the grand equerry's clothes and
dirty beard. Once again he showed the braid of his uniform, which was hidden by his fur-lined coat. The Swiss still looked suspicious.

‘I am the Duke of Vicenza, Grand Equerry to His Majesty.'

In the adjacent rooms, skirts rustled on the parquet and two of the Empress's lady's maids joined the strange group. The Emperor took off his fur cap and undid his Polish cloak. At last they recognized him, with bewilderment first, then joy. There were tears in the Swiss guard's eyes. The Emperor dismissed his attendants, saying, ‘Good night, Caulaincourt. You must need some rest.'

The door closed again. The grand equerry and the secretary, both dressed like Cossacks, found themselves in the shadowy gallery, standing with their big boots on its polished floor.

‘Do you know where to go?'

‘No, Your Grace.'

‘Follow me.'

They retraced their steps and met a valet in the green livery of the court who asked, ‘Is it true what they're saying?'

‘What are they saying?'

‘That His Majesty has returned.'

‘Rumours travel, I see.'

‘So, is it true?'

‘Come,' Caulaincourt said to the valet. ‘I need you.'

The grand equerry pushed Sebastian into the post-chaise and the valet climbed up next to the postilion; they were going to Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès's house in rue Saint-Dominique, on the other side of the Seine, to tell him the Emperor had returned. The carriage sped over the new
stone bridge in front of the Tuileries and under the porch of the former Roquelaure house, which had been bought and restored, by Cambacérès, who liked to throw lavish and cheerless dinners there. Above the gate, flanked by gothic columns, his title had been inscribed in enormous letters:
Residence of His Serene Highness the Duke of Parma
. The gate opened onto a paved courtyard, there was a staircase at each wing of the mansion; yellow lamps lit the windows of the salons. As Caulaincourt and Sebastian jumped down from the carriage, one of Cambacérès's valets tried to stop them but the servant from the Tuileries explained their business to his colleagues and they were permitted entry. In the large drawing room, bewigged gentlemen from another age, dressed in velvet and satin, rose from their whist tables, their eyes bulging. ‘Who let these vagabonds in?' demanded one of them, fixing a pincenez on his nose.

‘On the Emperor's service,' Caulaincourt stated in a loud voice.

‘Really, who are you?' asked a marquess in a striped waistcoat.

‘Announce me to the Arch-Chancellor,' Caulaincourt told the valet from the Tuileries, who set off down the marble hall towards Cambacérès's office, with his colleague showing him the way.

‘This is madness!' protested one of the guests. ‘You have got the wrong era, gentlemen. This building was a home to scurvy dogs once, but that was during the Revolution!'

‘I am the Duke of Vicenza.'

‘You?'

‘In that garb?'

‘With that lousy beard?'

‘And that savage's cap?'