Conspiracy

by Iain Gale

  Instantly the crowd began to grow.

  Keane turned to Archer. ‘That’s done it then. The news will spread like wildfire. All Paris will have it within the hour.’

  He calculated that in the space of just a few hours the little force had incarcerated all the senior police officers of Paris. More worryingly, the news of the death of the emperor was steadily, moment by moment, gaining credibility throughout Paris. Now surely, he thought, must be the time for Archer and him to act. But still the opportunity had not presented itself. At that moment Malet walked across the Place Vendôme towards Keane and Archer, who were standing with Rateau and Boutreux.

  As he approached them the newly promoted aide de camp spoke to Keane, a huge grin on his face. ‘He is brilliant, isn’t he? The general. He has worked everything out to perfection. You know an hour ago he even sent orders to Colonel Rabbe, the commander of the regiment of the Paris Guard. He’s on his way here right now. Now we’ll really have an army, won’t we, captain?’

  ‘Come with me, all of you. I have one more act before we take power.’

  Keane and Archer followed close behind the general and his aide. Keane moved forward, catching up with Malet. ‘May I ask where we are heading, general? We are only five men.’

  ‘This task will not take more than five men, captain. I intend to arrest General Hulin, the commander of the Paris garrison, to relieve him of his command and to acquire the official seal of the First Division.’

  This then, thought Keane, was the final obstacle. With the commander of the city garrison in his power, Malet would effectively have control of the entire city and all its troops. Armed by Hulin with the necessary documents and seals to assume command of the First Division, once Colonel Rabbe’s men appeared, Malet would assume control of all the military forces of Paris, and with them ensure the success of his coup. It would be a small army, but certainly big enough to defend the city against any immediate counter-attack. Of course Napoleon was not dead, but he was most certainly in Russia with his army. And who could say when he would return, even after word eventually reached him of Malet’s coup? The fact that he was not actually dead would take weeks to reach Paris, and by that time Malet and his republican friends might be in control of France. Keane became worryingly aware that in this one moment the destiny of France, and with her the fate of Europe, hung on the actions of just two men. He looked at Malet and, noticing the pistol tucked into his belt, realized that somewhere along the way, sooner or later, the man was going to resort to violence. Clearly Malet was prepared for this, and now Keane was also aware of what would unfold. Timing would be everything.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning by the time they arrived at Hulin’s house in the rue Condorcet. Malet banged on the door and was admitted by the housekeeper. He turned to Rateau. ‘Wait here. Admit no one.’

  Pushing past the concierge, Malet ran up the wooden staircase, followed by the others, and went straight into General Hulin’s office.

  The general looked around and surveyed the curious group that had entered his room and disturbed his breakfast, his gaze darting from the two Irish soldiers to the bizarre, wild-eyed civilian with the sash around his waist. Finally his eyes settled on Malet. ‘Good heavens, it’s General Malet, isn’t it? I thought you were inside. When did they let you out? And are you a general again? Since when? No one tells me anything.’

  Malet didn’t answer any of his questions. ‘General Hulin, I have here a document announcing the death of the emperor. He has been killed, on campaign in Russia.’

  ‘Good God, man. You can’t be serious. Napoleon killed?’

  Malet unfolded the declaration and Hulin took it, reading it with care.

  ‘Yes, I see. This is very grave, if it is true.’

  ‘It is quite true and very grave indeed, general, and as a consequence I am afraid that I now have to place you under arrest and ask for the seal of the First Division.’

  Hulin put down the paper and at last removed the napkin from his collar where it had been tucked in. ‘Under arrest? But why? I can still execute my orders, can’t I? What’s happening here, Malet? I don’t understand. May I see the senatorial orders relieving me of command, and the arrest warrant?’

  ‘There is no need for either of those. This is my authority.’

  As Keane had expected, Malet at last showed a violent side, extracting a pistol from his belt and pointing it at Hulin.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Malet. You don’t intend to use that. And you clearly don’t have the papers. I don’t know what is going on here or what any of you are up to, but I smell a rat.’

  Without another word, Malet raised the pistol and shot Hulin in the head. Luckily his aim was not good. The bullet passed through the general’s cheek and Hulin fell to the floor, unconscious, blood seeping from the wound. Malet tucked the pistol back into his belt, moved across to the body and standing by it, reached over to the general’s writing desk.

  At the same time Keane signalled to Archer and the two men moved silently across the room towards Malet.

  The deluded general was standing at the desk now, opening the drawers one by one till he eventually found what he wanted, the official seal of the First Division of the Paris garrison. He turned to the other four. ‘Gentlemen, shall we go? I have all that I need.’

  Keane shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. This has gone too far, Malet. You’ve achieved your aim so far, but now this is serious and it has to end. Here and now.’

  ‘Captain? What do you suppose you’re doing? You can’t stop me. I’m the new government.’

  Clutching the seal in his right hand, Malet reached again for the pistol, but realizing that it was now unloaded, reached for his sword. But before he could draw it from its scabbard, Keane flashed his blade across and cut Malet hard across the hand. The general gasped and grabbed at the bloody wound and at the same time Boutreux, who till now had been watching events unfold, moved towards Keane, his own sword held out before him. He lunged. But Archer was on him in an instant. His sword moved quickly and hit Boutreux in the upper arm. The young man shrieked and dropped his own sword, looking aghast at the cut.

  Archer put up his weapon and looked across to Keane, but as he did so, Boutreux’s left hand went to his belt and drew out a pistol. As he cocked the weapon and began to aim it at Archer, Keane moved towards him and with a single, powerful lunge, drove the big blade of his cavalry sabre hard into Boutreux’s chest. The hapless poet dropped the gun and looked down at the blade protruding from his body. He stared at Malet, then at Keane and then, as Keane withdrew the sword, slumped to the floor, lifeless.

  Malet was staring wildly now, apparently in a state of shock, disarmed but still clutching on to the seal in his good hand, when there was a commotion on the staircase and seven men burst through the door, six of them with bayonet-tipped muskets which they pointed at the four men left alive in the room.

  Their leader, Adjutant-Commander Colonel Jean Doucet, colonel of the Paris Guard, walked across slowly to Malet and looked at him carefully,

  ‘I know you. You’re Malet, aren’t you? You’ve been locked up in an insane asylum for years. How the hell did you get out, and what the devil have you done?’ He looked down at Hulin’s body and called to his men, ‘One of you, get a medic. The general’s been shot.’

  He looked back to Malet. ‘You sent me a letter this morning telling me the emperor was dead and promoting me to général de brigade in the new government. I didn’t believe any of it. Napoleon’s not dead. Minister Clarke had a letter from him dated five days after the date you claim he was shot. And on the date you stamped the note from the Senate authorizing you to take control, I happen to know that the Senate did not meet at all. You’re a mad old fool, Malet, and you’re going before the firing squad. Along with all your co-conspirators.’

  He pointed at Keane and Archer. ‘Take them all.’

  K
eane spoke up. ‘No, general. You don’t understand, sir. It was we who stopped him. We were bringing him out to you.’

  ‘Don’t try to trick me, Irishman. Seize them. Seize them all.’

  The five remaining guardsmen moved forward, two of them grabbing Malet, who, his spirit broken, made no attempt to struggle. As two more came for Keane, he made his move, punching one of the men firmly on the jaw and knocking him to the ground. Before the others could respond, Archer had smashed the hilt of his sword into the face of one of them, ripping open his mouth, and Keane had cut with his own blade across the arm of another.

  Keane pushed hard into Doucet, using his body weight to knock him to the floor, while Archer did the same to another of the guards, sending him flying backwards out of the room and into the wooden post of the banister. Then the two men were out of the room and racing down the stairs. Behind them they could hear the noise of Doucet and his men struggling to get out of the room. But by the time the colonel and his guards reached the street door of Hulin’s house, Keane and Archer had vanished from sight. An officer of Doucet’s company approached him and watched as two of the guards emerged with Malet. Doucet spoke to him.

  ‘Captain Lamballe, issue a proclamation. Any reports of the emperor’s death are to be ignored. The emperor is alive and well and leading his army in Russia to certain victory. There has been an attempted coup in Paris today, but it was led by a madman who is now in custody and the danger is over. All that remains is to arrest the remaining conspirators, who will be brought swiftly to justice. Vive l’empereur.’

  13

  Keane and Archer had not stopped for the fifteen minutes since they had left the Place Vendôme. They had run only until they were clear of the square, in the rue des Capucines which was reached by a tiny alleyway. From there they walked at almost double pace, desperate but not wanting to appear to be running away. Neither man spoke, with Keane leading the way eastwards along the rue Casanova and the rue des Petits-Champs, until they were to the rear of the Palais-Royal.

  There, without warning, Keane turned sharp right and instantly they found themselves in the grounds of the palace, among the arcades and the stalls, which, as the morning grew late and entertainment beckoned, were filling fast with the shoppers and promenaders, the dandies and groups of fashionable women. As their pace slowed, Archer spoke, catching his breath.

  ‘We did it, sir. We stopped them, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Archer, we certainly stopped them.’ There was a note of irony in his voice. ‘We should congratulate ourselves. We’ve kept Boney on his throne. And we almost got ourselves killed into the bargain. And now the whole of Paris is looking for us.’

  He pushed his way deeper into the crowd, racking his brains for what to do next. Trying to think what might be the best way to lose themselves in the city. To become anonymous.

  ‘The whole of Paris, sir?’

  ‘Think about it. Colonel Doucet thinks that we were involved in shooting Hulin and believes that we’re Malet’s accomplices. And I shouldn’t think that Malet will deny that, do you? Fouché will be after us too, to keep us quiet. The last thing he wants is for us to be captured by Savary’s secret police and tortured into implicating him and Talleyrand, so he’ll have his own men on to us. Even Macpherson will probably be after us, the moment he begins to suspect that we might have scuppered the plot. To be blunt, we’re in a bit of a fix. We’ve got to keep on the alert for Fouché’s thugs, the army, the Gendarmerie and the royalists. Add to that the fact that we failed to accomplish our original mission, and you have a fairly sound grasp of our position.’ He laughed. ‘Aside from that we’re fine, Archer, and all we have to do is get out of this damned city and back to Spain. It’s not really very much to ask, wouldn’t you say?’

  They had become nicely lost in the crowd now but Keane was still plotting their next move. His instinct was to head east, away from the centre of the action, but not as far as the barracks. For an hour they walked through the arcades and had begun to feel confident that the chase had gone cold. They took a seat at the Café Corazza, which lay under the arcades between numbers 7 and 12 of Galérie Montpensier, and Keane ordered them a pot of coffee.

  ‘You know,’ he said with a smile, ‘this is the place where Boney used to come as a young man, when he was trying to get a name for himself. Macpherson told me. Apparently he still owes them for an unpaid bill.’

  Archer laughed, and then as Keane watched his face darkened. ‘Look, sir, over there.’

  Turning slowly, Keane spotted a patrol of gendarmes across the gardens. He nodded to Archer. ‘Well done. Time to go, I think. Come on.’

  As the astonished waiter delivered their coffee, Keane pressed a hefty tip into his hand and both men stood up and walked calmly away through the arcades.

  ‘That was close, too damn close. Keep walking.’

  They crossed the gardens, losing themselves again in the crowds, and left by the rue de Valois, heading east once again, along a system of smaller streets that brought them quickly to the market place of Les Halles.

  Here once again all was bustle as the market porters and traders went about their business and they were back in one of the poorest areas of the city, and right in its centre, on the rue Transnonain, one of the roughest areas of Paris. Keane felt more than a little uncomfortable as soldiers were not frequent visitors here and their dress was attracting attention.

  He stopped a street vendor in the market and bought a broadsheet, so freshly printed that he could still smell the ink. It was now close to midday and no one in Paris was in any doubt that a planned plot had failed. The headline said it all:

  ‘The Emperor Lives!’

  He scanned the piece below. A royalist plot had been foiled. Several generals arrested. Rumours of the emperor’s death were false. He was in Russia leading the Grande Armée to victory after victory. Most of the conspirators were in police hands, but two desperate men were still on the run. ‘Two desperate men.’

  Thankfully there was no description in the paper of either him or Archer. But Keane knew that it would only be a matter of time before their details were posted on every wall in the city. There was no doubt in his mind that they had to lose themselves, quickly, and suddenly an idea came into his mind.

  Something Macpherson had mentioned in the course of their conversation as they had walked through the city on that first day. Close to where they now were, in Les Halles, in the heart of the old district of central Paris, lay the Cemetery of the Saints-Innocents. He recalled Macpherson’s words when probed further on the cemetery some days before: ‘It stinks and thank God they’re moving it. By night. Piece by piece. Putting the bones in the old quarries and tunnels around the city walls. Heaps of bones being moved through the city. During the day it is a meeting place for all sorts. Low types. And at night it’s full of the same people. People you would not want to meet even in daylight. Whores, drunks, thieves and grave robbers are its inhabitants.’

  Keane looked at Archer. ‘You should feel at home where we’re headed now, Archer. Naturally drawn to cemeteries, as I recollect, aren’t you?’

  Archer grimaced. ‘Quite, sir. My natural habitat.’

  ‘I thought as much. Come on.’

  It was a short walk to the cemetery, and as they approached the stench of putrefaction became more intense. On sight it was clear that work was going on. Massive basket loads of soil stood about the field, which in the centre still contained a remnant of the original church along with a huge covered fountain, several monuments and massive tombs and what Keane took to be an ossuary. It was about the same size as the Place Vendôme, but instead of paving, the ground was a network of wooden causeways laid across bare earth and rock. Astonishingly the place was full of people, walking across the wooden boards, chatting to one another. The difference between these Parisians and those at the Palais-Royal was that here the silks and satins were replaced by filthy
cotton, and the scrubbed and made-up faces of the palais by toothless pockmarked wrecks.

  Archer stopped in his tracks. ‘Good Lord. What is this place, sir?’

  ‘The Cemetery of the Holy Innocents. It’s Paris’s oldest graveyard and they’re moving it, piece by ghastly piece, outside the city. Have been trying to at least for the last twenty years, so Macpherson told me. The thing is, people still keep dumping bodies here. Smells a bit, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s vile. Why have we come here?’

  ‘To lose ourselves. To throw off our pursuers. It’s my guess that this is the last place they’ll think to look for us. Any of them.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do, sir?’

  Keane pointed to the line of roofed arches which lined one side of the site. ‘I think we take refuge in there, Archer. Follow me.’

  They stepped out across the mud and slime, both wondering on quite what it was they might be walking and trying to avoid contact with their fellow living inhabitants of this place of death.

  ‘What are all the people doing here, sir?’

  ‘Who knows. Macpherson told me that traditionally magicians would come here at night and take body parts to use in their experiments. There was mass-scale grave robbing too. That should amuse you.’

  ‘But these just seem like a lot of poor people, sir.’

  ‘Which is probably what they are. We should feel at home. Look, there are a few tarts out to turn a trick. There’s a pickpocket, if I ever saw one. As for the others, who knows? The occasional lunatic or perhaps a general. Macpherson reckoned that there might even be people who come here searching for their loved ones. You know that during the Revolution every night baskets of severed heads or headless bodies were just left here, and some say some of them are still here. Perhaps those are relatives trying to find some of the disappeared.’