“Yes, it is magnificent,” I agreed supportively, “I am greatly looking forward to seeing the finished version.”
“And when did you see this creature?” enquired the duchess.
“Oh, it was last week,” replied Pauline to her aunt, without a moment’s hesitation. “When you were away with your friend Caroline. Now I must show the colonel your drawings by Blondel, he is one of the colonel’s favourite painters.” Pauline turned and winked at me, evidently very pleased at her deception. In doing so she did not see Ney cock an eyebrow to me over her shoulder. A week ago we had been inspecting the fortress at Verdun, a place not known for its art collection.
We went and pretended to be interested in some faded drawings of some characters wearing medieval armour, while Pauline apologised for being dragged away at the Tuileries.
“My aunt watches me like an old hen guards her chicks,” she complained. The old bird in question was still glaring suspiciously at us from across the room.
“Well she surely cannot complain about your new interest in the arts,” I grinned conspiratorially. When do you next think you might be allowed to visit another gallery? I thought we might spend some time studying the human form.” She giggled at that and we made arrangements to meet the following week.
Davout must have known that Pauline was lying as he had received the reports I had written at Verdun, but he did not say anything to his wife. Instead, he joined Ney and the two marshals talked together. If they glanced across at me as they did so, I did not notice for I was too distracted by matters closer at hand. That was even more the case when we went in for dinner; Pauline moved the place cards so that we were sitting together and then her fingers began to tease me delightfully under the table. It was a struggle to concentrate on the conversation at all. At one point someone asked me what I had thought of the latest exhibit from the artist Blondel. Thinking back to the earlier drawings, I replied that the armour was very realistic.
“Armour?” repeated the duchess in an acerbic tone. “I am not sure what picture you were examining, Colonel, his latest painting is of a Circassian girl entering her bath.”
Apologising for being out of date with my art appreciation, I promised that I would make time to see this new work at my earliest convenience.
Pauline, rubbing the inside of my thigh under the table, added that she would be delighted to come with me, but at this Davout intervened with a wry smile.
“I regret, Colonel that you will have no time to wander around art galleries in the coming months. My friend here,” he gestured at a grinning Ney, “has kindly agreed to attach you to my command. As you know we have an army to rebuild and the marshal assures me that you are a very capable staff officer. While it will disappoint my niece, I will need your total commitment to the cause.”
“Surely you will give the colonel some time off on leave?” protested Pauline as I sat stunned at this unexpected development.
“I am sure that the colonel will appreciate,” interjected the duchess, “that he is very fortunate to be appointed to the ministry staff.” She gave me a glance that clearly implied that she did not think I deserved such good fortune. “It will be good for his career and if the colonel is given leave, I very much doubt you will be available to join him.” The duchess exchanged a meaningful look with her husband and I was certain that this would be the case. Both Davout and Ney were staring at me expectantly. Whether Ney genuinely thought he was doing me a favour or was just trying to keep my lecherous hands of his friend’s niece it was hard to say. It was clear that I had been out-manoeuvred by the pair of them. But try as I might, I could see no alternative to accepting. To do anything else would immediately have aroused suspicion.
“I would be honoured to join your staff, sir,” I offered as a hand under the table was snatched away by its owner. So it was that a reluctant spy was given one of the most coveted jobs, right at the heart of the preparations for war.
Chapter 19
A lot of people have criticised Bonaparte for using Davout as war minister, when his skills on the battlefield would have been so welcome later in the campaign. Ney had previously told me that at Auerstaedt, where he had won his dukedom, Davout had beaten the main Prussian army with his single corps despite being outnumbered by more than three to one. But as I was to discover, he was methodical, driven and disciplined in matters of administration too. Without Davout at the War Ministry, I suspect that there would have been no Waterloo campaign, for half of the French army would still have been waiting for uniforms, weapons or ammunition.
I spent two months toiling under his command and I don’t think I have worked so hard for the service of any country. The army had more than halved in size under the Bourbons, but now Napoleon was demanding a huge increase in numbers. As well as garrisons for all the defensive positions, he wanted an army to campaign with, all equipped and ready to fight by the beginning of June. I could not see how it could possibly be done but Davout was determined to succeed. He slept most nights in his office and by day was everywhere with lists and plans. He even had charts on a wall that he would mark off each day. And of course he drove his staff just as hard as he drove himself. We could not delegate to others, we had to check things were done ourselves and only then would a task be marked as complete. It seemed a hopeless endeavour as no sooner had we confirmed that a regiment had been supplied with uniforms than we would be told that two more regiments had been raised and also needed equipment.
I remember that we had workshops across Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux that were making one thousand two hundred and fifty uniforms a day. They had to be supplied with the right patterns, cloth and dyes, not to mention buttons and badges. Then there were cross belts and musket slings from the tanners and twenty thousand muskets a month from various armouries and foundries.
Horses were being requisitioned from all over the country, musket cartridges made by the million and new guns cast, while more were gathered from a virtually decommissioned navy. There was always particular attention paid to artillery, not least because the emperor was trained as a gunner and always used his cannon to full effect in battles. I well remember when he decided that a particular regiment should have two more batteries of guns. I spent much of the following week moving naval guns, ball and powder, onto carts and getting them transported to their new barracks. At the same time scores of carpenters and wheelwrights were busy building the gun carriages and caissons while dozens of horses and ammunition wagons were gathered, not to mention men with all their uniforms, supplies and equipment.
In two weeks all was ready for the emperor’s inspection, even if some of the paint and varnish was still wet when he arrived. I confess to a feeling of pride as I looked on those neat files of men and equipment that I had toiled so hard to put together. I made sure that I was out of sight, though, as his carriage pulled into the courtyard. It was no cursory review; he went through everything as though he were the commanding colonel. He appeared pleased with the result. But when I eventually returned to the War Ministry, Davout handed to me a note he had received from Napoleon. It pointed out that the gun carriages did not have the little pots of grease they should have to keeps the wheels lubricated. I remember thinking that he was an ungrateful bastard at the time, although without grease the wheels would have seized within a few miles and the unit would have been stuck impotently miles away from the enemy.
Looking back, it was that standard of detail and professionalism that made all the difference to the French army in the weeks to follow. Without it, the allies would easily have pushed aside a disorganised rabble of troops. But the emperor had ambitious plans, and to achieve them he needed one of the best armies he was ever to command. With my help, he got it too.
I was so absorbed in my work that I sometimes forgot that I was a British spy. I suppose I could have looked to sabotage things, but I would not have lasted long if I did. Davout had everything checked before tasks were marked off as done on his lists. He was known as a ruthl
ess commander, having had a number of soldiers shot for disobedience during his defence of Hamburg. There was a constant fear of royalist sympathisers; General D’Erlon had one arsenal temporarily closed and thousands of cartridges checked after suspicions that they were deliberately producing dud ammunition. I had still not received any further contact from the British so had no means to feed back information even if I had wanted to. In any event I did not have time to think, constantly on the run from one task to the next. So it was that one evening in late April I was walking wearily through a square back to my lodgings when I heard someone calling my name. I had half turned before my tired brain registered the fact that I was being summoned in English and with my English name.
“Flashman...ah, Thomas, it is you. Bless my soul, I never expected to see you here.” The caller grinned at me happily and was getting up out of his chair in front of a nearby café and gesturing for me to join him.
If he never expected to see me in Paris I could return the feeling a hundredfold. For there, bold as brass in front of me, was Lord Byron’s friend Cam Hobhouse. For a moment I was speechless, for I had last seen him in Seville during the Peninsular War. I hesitated for a second as six years previously I had pointed the British authorities in Hobhouse’s direction to divert them from discovering my own involvement in the Mary Clarke scandal. As a result, he had been obliged to flee the country, which is why I had seen him in Spain. But his welcoming grin indicated that he had never discovered my involvement in his involuntary exile.
“What... What on earth are you doing here?” I stammered and then blurted out, “You surely are not still hiding from the Clarke investigation? That was years ago.”
“No, no, they have forgotten about that now. I am here to support the tree of liberty.”
“The what?” I asked puzzled.
“The cause of liberty, Flashman!” he cried enthusiastically while gesturing around him. We were speaking in English and several nearby were watching us curiously. “Enlightenment has been re-born in France and it must not be extinguished. This is now a land where men can rise on their talents and not through an accident of birth, where science is encouraged and respected and where men of the arts,” and here his chest puffed up a little to signify that he thought he was one, “are valued.”
“Indeed,” I agreed, still not sure what the buffoon was doing in what would soon be an enemy capital.
“France is the new Promised Land, Flashman,” he enthused, “and the emperor is just the man of destiny that we need to lead the way.”
“There are some in London who would disagree,” I pointed out.
“Of course, our corrupt and self-serving politicians and rulers will try to resist,” Hobhouse scoffed. “But they cannot resist the people and the masses are tired of war and they want peace. They also want a government of merit and many are now watching enviously across the channel.”
“Really?” I queried for this was news to me, but then England had largely been at peace when I was last there.
“Of course, many are greatly impressed with the emperor’s new approach to government. How many sovereigns have had a chance to reflect on their governance while out of office and then regain the crown? It is unique and the emperor’s choice of one of his critics to draw up his constitution shows clearly that he now intends a more enlightened rule than before. It is the obligation, no the duty of all humanity to support him, not just in France but across Europe, the world, even.”
“Indeed,” I agreed again, while reflecting back to Ney’s more informed assessment of Napoleon’s motives. I knew Hobhouse as a failed poet and a pompous idealist and clearly his judgement was at fault here too. “Support from across the world?” I queried. “Do you think he will try to conquer Europe again?”
“No, he won’t need to for the people want to follow the example he has set. In England the government is teetering on a knife edge. The Tory support for more fighting with France is ebbing away. The public is tired of war and the taxes needed to pay for it. As we are already being taxed on the light that comes into our homes, people wonder what else they will be asked to pay for. Samuel Whitbread has not only promised them peace but many of the same enlightened policies that the emperor has introduced.”
“Forgive me, I have been out of the country a while, but who the hell is Samuel Whitbread?”
“He is the leader of the Whigs and if the British army is to suffer just one major defeat he will be the next prime minister and saviour of liberty. We will have a lasting peace and join this modern age.”
I sat back feeling a little stunned. When I had last been in Britain we had been at peace and the Tories were in the ascendancy. No one was even mentioning this Whitbread fellow. But now his time had come and I could easily imagine he would get a lot of support. I had been resentful about the window tax myself. “But wait a minute,” I said remembering something. “Don’t you have a brother in this British army that you want to see beaten?”
Hobhouse had the grace to look embarrassed before he admitted, “Yes, he is with the forces gathering over the border, but obviously I hope he is spared.” It was a hope that was to turn out to be forlorn. Years later I read the diary that Hobhouse published of his time in Paris. He does not mention me, presumably to spare embarrassment given what followed, but he admitted that he was celebrating what he thought was the emperor’s victory at the very time this brother was dying from his hero’s attacks. But now he looked at me with a curious frown. “I say, Flashman, I have to admit that I am surprised to see you here and in the emperor’s uniform. When I last saw you it was in British red. You never struck me as a man of strong political principles, if you will pardon me for saying. And by your own admission, you had not heard of Samuel Whitbread, yet now here you are in French service.”
It was an inevitable question and despite desperately wracking my brains for a good answer as we had talked, I had still not come up with an explanation that would serve. “Oh I may not be a man of politics,” I admitted airily. “But when you have seen what I have seen on the field of battle and afterwards, well it changes a man, you know.”
“I see,” replied Hobhouse, his frown deepening to indicate that he patently didn’t. So I pressed on before he could ask any more awkward questions.
“Do you remember that dog you gave me in Seville?”
“Oh yes,” he cried brightening at the memory “Viriates, ghastly creature, wasn’t he. I am sorry about that, I hope you managed to get rid of him quickly.”
My feelings towards Hobhouse suddenly soured as I thought back on the great Irish wolfhound I had renamed Boney. He had been one of the best comrades a man could have. “I had him for two years and he saved my life more than once, in fact he died saving it.”
“Good grief!” exclaimed Hobhouse. “To have your life saved by a dog, how extraordinary.” Then he noticed the people at nearby tables who were still watching us curiously and added in a lower tone, “I say, Flash, do you find the people here welcoming? Some have been decidedly off with me.” This from a man wearing a British-made tweed suit, who could not have looked more English if he had worn a sash with the words ‘John Bull’ on it.
“Well you must have seen the papers. The British are being blamed for continuing the war and depriving the emperor of his peaceful reign. They probably struggle to believe that any Briton is quite as enlightened as you.” I did not like the hostile stares either. The last thing I needed was anyone asking questions as to the background of the French colonel seen speaking to this unlikely British visitor. “Well, duty calls,” I said getting up. I have to report back to the barracks, but perhaps I will see you here again?”
“Yes to see a friendly face would be most welcome. I take tea here most afternoons.”
“Then I may well see you again,” I said shaking his hand before I walked away. Inwardly I resolved never to go near that café again. Hobhouse was a clearly a naïve fool but he could easily give me away by accident, or design if he suspected I was betr
aying his precious cause of liberty. But there was no French Colonel Flashman and so people would struggle to tie me to the colonel seen speaking to the strange Englishman. You could not be too careful, though, and so I took several detours on my way to my new lodgings, just to make certain I was not being followed.
As I strolled the streets I reflected that if Hobhouse was right, the news from England gave Napoleon more than a little cause for hope. I had never paid much attention to the Whigs; they had been in opposition for years and being a bunch of largely eccentric liberals, had looked unlikely to ever form a government. We had been fighting France on and off for over twenty years at a huge cost in terms of blood and gold. I had been in Canada when peace was declared but had heard of the celebrations when I got home. The thought of another prolonged war with France might well have driven many into the welcome arms of the government’s opposition; especially if men like Hobhouse were spouting idealist nonsense about France being a new Utopia.
Chapter 20
April turned into May and if anything I was working even harder. Yet more muskets were demanded by the emperor and armouries could not keep pace with demand. New workshops were set up and broken weapons were collected from around the country for repair. I remember one shipment of forty thousand weapons appearing. Rumour had it that they had been delivered secretly from Britain after a manufacturer had been paid handsomely for the urgent order. I cannot say if that is true, but I do know that the French workshops could not have produced them on top of what they were already making.
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