The Sultan's Daughter (16 page)

‘From what I am told, I gather the Jacobins again have complete control of the situation.'

‘Yes; and they've brought back all the old repressive measures. They have removed every magistrate and official in the Departments where the expelled Deputies were elected, and reinstated their own cronies. Between 10th
Thermidor
and 18th
Fructidor
over fifteen thousand names were struck from the lists of
émigrés
, but there have since been very few. Hearing of the turn things had taken, thousands of other exiles return without waiting to be struck off the lists. They were publicly welcomed by their friends and no action was taken against them. Now they are in hiding and again in fear of their lives. Should they be denounced to one of these Jacobin courts I was speaking of they are certain to be shot, as the penalty for returning without a permit is death.'

‘And the poor Fathers,' lamented Madame Blanchard. ‘All over France they had come out of hiding and, although the churches remained closed to them, no objection was raised to their celebrating Mass. Everywhere people were crowding into rooms to hear them, and had begun publicly to observe Sundays again. But now, wherever they can be found, they are seized and killed. On Sundays, too, these abominable atheists compel everyone to work and the children to attend school, while on every tenth day shops must close and anyone who lifts a finger is liable to a heavy fine.'

Her husband nodded. ‘Yes, the persecution of the religious is as fierce as ever it was. And, of course, that has set La Vendée aflame once more. General Hoche had done a fine thing there. They sent him to exterminate the Breton priests and their followers. But he was a clever man as well as a brave one. After defeating the Chouans he met their leaders
and agreed to grant them a degree of religious tolerance. The country was pacified in no time so, instead of a great Army being tied up there burning villages and massacring indiscriminately men, women and children, he was able to send the greater part of his troops to reinforce our Armies abroad under General Bonaparte and General Moreau.'

‘I heard tell of Hoche's wise conduct while I was in Italy,' Roger said. ‘It was a tragedy that he should have been carried off by a consumption last September. And doubly so for a man like him, for one may be certain he would have been far happier had he died in action with his troops, even had it been when their transports were caught and sunk by Admiral Duncan at the battle of Camperdown.'

‘His death is a great loss; but I know one man who has no cause to regret it,' remarked the landlord shrewdly, ‘and that's General Bonaparte.'

Roger smiled. ‘You are right. Hoche was the only General with the ability, charm and strength of character to have become his rival. Now the “Little Corporal's” place as first soldier in the Armies of France cannot be disputed.'

For an hour or so longer they continued to talk, then Roger thanked his good friends for the excellent meal and went out to pay his respects to his master.

The house occupied by Bonaparte in the Rue de la Victoire had been given by Barras to Josephine—whom most people believed to have been his mistress—before her marriage. A soldier now stood on guard between two stone lions flanking a long passage that led from the street. He accompanied Roger along to the small, two-storeyed villa at its end where, having sent in his name, Roger was allowed to enter. A servant took him through to the back of the house and into a drawing room with french windows looking on to a little garden.

Bonaparte was standing in a corner, talking animatedly in his harsh voice with its strong Italian accent to Pléville Le Pelay, the Minister of Marine. He acknowledged Roger's entrance with only a nod. But Josephine was seated by the fireplace, with the son and daughter she had had by her ‘first' husband, the Vicomte de Beauharnais, and all three of them greeted Roger with obvious pleasure.

Josephine was then in her thirty-fifth year and was a dark, well-preserved beauty. Her well-rounded form was supple, her manner languorous and she gave the impression that if a man took her in his arms she would give a sigh and melt in his embrace. Her reputation was far from spotless, but no worse than the majority of the women who made up the high society of the post-revolutionary era, and she was the soul of kindness. Her only physical shortcomings was that she had bad teeth.

Roger was one of the very few people who knew that her marriage to Beauharnais had been bigamous, as when a very young girl in Martinique passion had led her into a secret marriage with a youth named William de Kay. Just before she married Bonaparte, Roger had succeeded in saving her from the public exposure of her youthful folly and she had more than repaid the debt sixteen months later by saving his life; so they were firm friends.

The boy, Eugène, was now close on seventeen: a high-spirited and charming lad. In response to his desperate pleading, Bonaparte had taken him to Italy as his junior aide-de-camp; so, in his fine uniform, he now considered himself very much a war-hardened soldier. But he had not forgotten that it was Roger who had given him his first brace of pistols, or the friendship they had developed when they had met again in Italy. The girl, Hortense was younger by a year or so. She was no great beauty, but had a pair of fine-blue eyes and a mass of fuzzy, fair hair.

Someone must have told Josephine that Roger had narrowly escaped being shot as a spy, as she at once made him sit down and tell them about his terrible adventure. When he had finished he asked her about herself, upon which she began loudly to lament her husband's conduct.

‘His behaviour is absurd,' she declared. ‘When he first returned to Paris he was given a tremendous reception and quite graciously accepted the homage of the crowds; but since then he has gone like a snail into its shell. He refuses all invitations and declines to entertain here. I can get him to the Opera, because he enjoys that, but when the audience learn that he is in the house and call for him for minutes on end he flatly refuses to give them the pleasure of even seeing him.
He sits through the whole performances in the back of the box, while Bourrienne, Junot or some other friend he takes with him is made to sit in front with me, so that he can pretend not to be there.'

Knowing Josephine's love of excitement and parties, Roger could well understand how disappointed she must feel at being deprived of a wife's right to share the glory of the national hero, particularly as before her husband's return she had had a wonderful time, being hailed everywhere she went as ‘Our Lady of Victories'. But Bonaparte had caught what she said and, striding over, reproved her:

‘Madame, you are talking foolishly. There is nothing so fickle as the applause of the mob. Did I go here, there and everywhere I would be fawned on for a fortnight and then become just one more General. If I stood up at the front of the box each time we go to the Opera I should be wildly cheered once or twice, but on the fourth or fifth occasion the audience would not even turn their heads to look at me. No. I mean to keep the place that I have won in the imagination of the people by my victories. That is why I am anxious to get away from Paris as soon as possible.'

Turning to Roger he added, ‘For the moment, Breuc, I have no matters on which I can employ you. Leave your address in the hall so that you can be sent for if required. Should you not hear from me, report here again a week from today. By then I expect to have settled plans for the future. You may go now when you wish.'

As Roger's call had already lasted about half an hour he stayed only for a few minutes longer, talking to Josephine and her children, then he took his leave.

That evening he went to the Palais du Luxembourg, in which each of the Directors occupied a handsome suite of apartments. Mounting the marble staircase to the long, lofty gallery that had been allotted to Barras as his ante-room, he found it packed with people. They were assembled there to ask favours or simply, by showing themselves as his courtiers, to retain the great man's goodwill. Among them he found a score of acquaintances and soon learned that the story of his misadventures was already the talk of Paris.

Nothing could have pleased him better, for the more
widely it was believed that he had an English cousin who resembled him, and for whom a British seaman had mistaken him, the stronger his position became.

In due course the great double doors at the end of the gallery were thrown open and handsome, flamboyant ‘King Paul' emerged through them. The crowd divided, making a lane down which he slowly progressed, receiving petitions which he passed to a secretary who followed him and bestowing smiles of greeting on his friends.

On coming opposite Roger he paused and said with a smile, ‘I hear that you have been in even greater danger than when you charged that battery of cannon at Toulon. You must join us for supper and tell us about it.'

When he had made his way back up the lane two score or more of people, with Roger among them, whom he had invited followed him into the spacious supper room. Long tables were set along three of the walls, weighed down with every expensive food and extravagant confection that a great chef could devise. There was a row of silver wine-coolers, each holding half a dozen quarts of Champagne, and, for those who preferred them, there were Burgundy, Claret, Anjou, Tourraine, Sauternes, Florence wine, Alicanti, Rhenish and Moselle.

For the better part of three hours the company ate, drank and made merry, until the tables were a shambles, their clothes were slopped with spilt wine and the women, whose fashion in dress had progressed from
décolletée
to little more than a gold-trimmed tunic slit up one side to the hip, were openly allowing the men to take the freest liberties with them.

Roger enjoyed it up to the point when many of the women became maudlin. Nearly all were attractive and some were really beautiful. During the course of the evening two out of three who had aroused his interest made it clear that they were quite prepared to leave the party for anywhere he chose to take them. But the memory of the nights he had spent with the incomparable Georgina were still too fresh in his mind for him to spoil them wilfully by a casual night of lechery with one of these young women, who were highly desirable
but anybody's property; so in the early hours of the morning he took a coach back to La Belle Etoile on his own.

Next day he went to the best tailor in Paris and ordered new uniforms, as he had had to leave his others at his little chateau in the south of France. The tailor was used to obliging officers who had received orders to leave at short notice for one of the battle-fronts, and promised to have Roger's uniforms finished in three days.

During the week before he was to report to Bonaparte again he visited all his old haunts, and in the evenings attended the salons of Mesdames Tallien, de Chateau-Renault, de Staël and de Récamier. They were crowded with
émígrés
who had received permission to return from exile, ex-terrorists who had survived the Thermidorian purge, foreign diplomats, Army contractors who had made fortunes and lovely women who had made a name for themselves by their looks and immorality.

By this time they had recovered from the shock of
Fructidor
and spoke with cynical amusement of those who had been destroyed by it through not having been clever enough to ensure themselves of the protection of Barras and his cronies. No secret was made of the fact that such protection could be bought for a round sum down, and the bribes that had been paid to Ministers and officials for various services were talked of openly. In this connection the name of Talleyrand was mentioned as frequently as that of Barras. It was said that the Foreign Minister had blackmailed the ambassadors of several countries to the tune of over a million francs and demanded huge sums from them before he would consent to clauses which would benefit their countries being embodied in trade agreements.

On February 23rd Roger, now resplendent in one of his new uniforms, again repaired to the house in the Rue de la Victoire. After sending in his name he was kept waiting for some time, then ushered into a small room which his master used as an office. Bonaparte was seated at a table strewn with papers, with Bourrienne beside him. Looking up he said:

‘I am glad you have come, Breuc, because we shall all be active again shortly. I have today sent in my report to the
Directors. In it I have said that a descent on England is not practical for the present. Before that can be accomplished safely our Navy must be built up to a strength which would ensure its protecting my flotillas from the British Fleet, and hundreds of barges will have to be assembled in the estuaries along our north coast to carry our men across.

‘Such preparations would require many months. With the ending of spring there will be little fog in the Channel and a foggy night would best favour our chances of landing without interference on the English coast. All this I knew when I set out on my recent tour of inspection, and I undertook it only as a blind. It is of the first importance that the English should continue to believe that within a few months an invasion will be launched against them. They will then retain such troops as they have on their south coast and, perhaps, even augment them. In any case, they will not send them elsewhere to some place where they might be used against us.

‘It is important, too, that our own people continue to believe this. Your own arrival at Calais was most opportune, since it enabled me to launch my deception plan among General Réveillon's officers in a most natural manner. And it is certain that they will talk. All that I am teling you now is, therefore, of the highest secrecy.

‘With regard to the future. I am determined to leave Paris shortly in order to win fresh glory for France. I have told the Directors that they must either give me the Army of the Rhine and consent to my invading the Germanic States with it, or allow me to take an Army to Egypt and so put an end to England's invaluable trade with the Levant. The choice, theoretically, is theirs. But you are aware of my inclinations and you may count on my making these fellows let me have my way.