Marianne and The Masked Prince

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'Fireside? Him? It is clear you do not know him. Do you know what he asked me as he left?'

  Marianne shook her head. It was best that Fortunée should continue in ignorance of her encounter with Fournier.

  'He asked for your address,' Fortunée said triumphantly.

  'Mine? But why?'

  'To call on you. He thinks that your "vast influence" with the Emperor will enable you to obtain his reinstatement in the army. In which he is greatly mistaken.'

  'Why so?'

  'Because Napoleon dislikes him enough already, without adding to his dislike with suspicions about the precise nature of his relations with you.'

  That much was obvious, and moreover Marianne had no desire for a further meeting with the ebullient general with his bold eyes and over-ready hands. Considering the manner of their first meeting, it was decidedly impudent of him to have dared to think of asking her help. Besides, she was tired of men who always wanted something, who never gave anything for nothing. Consequently it was with considerable dryness that she said: 'I am sorry to have to say this, Fortunée, but I should on no account do anything for your hussar. In any case, God alone knows when I shall see the Emperor again.'

  'Good for you,' Fortunée approved. 'Leave my admirers to their own devices. You have little enough to thank them for, it seems.'

  Marianne's eyebrows rose. 'What do you mean?'

  'That I am perfectly aware of the despicable way Ouvrard behaved towards you. Well, Jonas has remarkably sharp ears you know, and he is not above listening at keyholes.'

  The colour flamed in Marianne's face. 'Oh!' she said. 'You knew? You said something to Ouvrard?'

  'Not a word! But it will keep. You need not worry, I shall find a way to take revenge for both of us, and before very much longer. As for you, I would go through fire for you if need be. You have only to say the word. I am yours body and soul! Do you still need money?'

  'No, not now. It is all right.'

  'The Emperor?'

  'The Emperor,' Marianne agreed, suppressing a twinge at this fresh lie. She did not want to tell Fortunée about her meeting with her godfather and what had followed.

  She had given her word not to talk about her dreadful situation, about the child that was coming and the marriage to which she had been obliged to consent, and ultimately it was better so. Fortunée would not have understood. Her religious feelings were superficial, not far removed from paganism. She was a Creole, careless and shameless, and she would have flaunted an army of bastards in the world's eyes without a blink if nature had not decreed otherwise. Marianne knew that she would have opposed the cardinal's plans with all her strength and it was not difficult to guess what her advice would be. She would counsel her friend to tell Napoleon of the coming event and let him marry her off to the first man who was fool enough to take her – and then console herself with all the lovers she could get her claws in. But not even to save her honour and her child's would Marianne consent to give her hand to a man motivated by base self-interest. There was nothing base about Jason and she knew her godfather well enough to be sure that any man chosen by him would not marry her for the sake of any such calculations. From every point of view it was better to say nothing to her friend. There would be time enough afterwards – or at least when Jason had come, if he came…

  Lost in her own melancholy, Marianne had not noticed the silence that had fallen between them, or the scrutiny to which Fortunée was subjecting her, until her friend said abruptly: 'Something is troubling you, isn't it? Is it your husband?'

  'He?' Marianne uttered a short laugh. 'He was arrested but it appears that he escaped three days later.'

  'Escaped? Where from?'

  'From Vincennes.'

  'Vincennes!' Fortunée exclaimed. 'Nonsense! No one escapes from Vincennes. If he got away from there, then he was helped. And it takes the devil of a lot of influence to arrange that. Have you any ideas?'

  'N-no.'

  'Oh yes you have. And not only that, but you have the same idea as I have. This escape had been kept very quiet and I'll wager the Emperor knows nothing of it, as he probably knew nothing of the original arrest. Now, will you tell me who is powerful enough to arrange the escape of an English spy from Vincennes without anyone knowing and without the newspapers getting wind of it?'

  'Well – there are the warders, the governor —'

  'Would you be willing to bet that if we went to the prison we would meet nothing but faces shining with innocence and the most complete denials? No one would know what we were talking about. No, to my mind, the matter is clear, but what I do not understand is Fouché's reason for letting slip an enemy.'

  'Yes, but you do not know it all.' Swiftly Marianne recounted to her friend the events which had taken place in the waxworks and Black Fish's appalling revelations. Fortunée heard her attentively and when it was over she sighed.

  'This is ghastly. I hope for his own sake Fouché is not aware of all this.'

  'How could he fail to be aware of it? Do you think Black Fish would have concealed it?'

  'It is possible that he has not seen the minister since the arrest. Fouché might be at Compiègne or on his own estates at Ferrières. Certainly he was in no hurry to investigate the arrest – which might have proved embarrassing. Our minister is a cunning fox, but I shall find out if he knows about this Englishman's hunting exploits, I promise you.'

  'How will you do that?'

  'That is my business. Just as I shall find out why there has been this curious leniency towards an English spy.'

  'Arcadius says that Fouché has been negotiating with the English behind the Emperor's back, by means of the bankers Labouchère, Baring – and Ouvrard.'

  Madame Hamelin's dark eyes gleamed suddenly.

  'Well, well! That might explain a lot of things, my darling. I had noticed some very odd goings-on around the Hôtel de Juigné recently, and in the vicinity of our friend Ouvrard's bank as well. If Jolival is right, and I trust his judgement, there must be a great deal of money in it for those gentlemen – quite apart from the benefit to France, which is no doubt a minor consideration. Well, I am inquisitive by nature and I shall bring this little business out into the open.'

  'How will you do that?' Marianne asked, alarmed at the thought of her friend engaging in this dangerous form of warfare.

  Fortunée rose and dropped a motherly kiss on Marianne's brow.

  'Don't you bother your pretty head with all this complicated stuff. Let me deal with it in my own way. I promise you we will have a good laugh and that neither Ouvrard nor Fouché will get away with it. Now run and get dressed and come out with me.'

  'Where to?' Marianne seemed to shrink back in her chair, as though daring her friend to drag her out of it.

  'To do a little shopping. It is a beautiful day. And in spite of what I said, you look dreadful. It will do you a world of good to take a little fresh air.'

  Marianne pouted obstinately. She was sure that if she went out for so much as a minute, Gracchus was bound to arrive.

  'Come along,' Fortunée persisted. 'I am giving a little supper party tomorrow night and I must go to Cheret in the Palais-Royal and see if they have any oysters. Come with me, it will give you something else to think about. It is not good for you to stay cooped up like this, brooding, and frightening yourself. You are frightened, aren't you?'

  'Put yourself in my place. Wouldn't you be frightened?'

  'I? I should be terrified, but I think that would make me all the more inclined to go out. It is much better to be in a crowd than all alone within four walls. Besides, what is it you fear from your Englishman? Do you think he will kill you?'

  'He swore to be revenged on me —' Marianne stammered.

  'Very well. But there are different kinds of revenge. You say he is intelligent —'

  'More than that! He is a devil.'

  'Then he is not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. That would be too simple, too easy, too quick and, above all, unalterab
le. He would have every reason to suppose, moreover, that the Emperor would use every means to find out your murderer. No, I think he is much more likely to try and revenge himself by making your life a misery, perhaps even to the point of driving you to make an end of yourself, but he will not come and murder you in cold blood. The man is a monster, but he is not an idiot. Think of the money he could still get from you.'

  As she spoke, Marianne's doubts began to fade before the logic of what she was saying. Fortunée was right. It was the loss of a huge sum of money, so easily come by, which had driven Francis to madness at the moment of his arrest, not the loss of his freedom. The man was too sure of himself to be daunted by prisons or gaolers. But gold, the gold that he hungered for, that was more vital to him than breathing. Marianne got to her feet.

  'I will come,' she said finally, 'but don't ask me to come to your supper party, for I should not accept.'

  'Well, as to that, I have not invited you. It is a supper a deux, my love.'

  'Ah, I see. You are expecting your hussar to come back.'

  This suggestion struck Madame Hamelin as so irresistibly funny that she broke into a peal of laughter, or rather her own particular cooing chuckle.

  'You are wrong there! To the devil with Fournier. If you want to know, it is another hussar I am expecting.'

  'But – who then?' Marianne could not help feeling slightly taken aback to hear that Fortunée, having arrived spitting fire and fury, could now talk so calmly about having supper the next day with another man. The Creole only laughed more than ever.

  'Who? Why Dupont, Fournier's eternal adversary, the man who pinked him so prettily in the shoulder the other night! He is a charming fellow, you know? And you can't think how delightful he will make my revenge! Run and get dressed.'

  Marianne did not wait for a second telling. Fortunée's logic was beyond her comprehension. To say nothing of her morals. She really was a most extraordinary woman.

  An hour later, Marianne found herself tripping at her friend's side beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, where all the best food shops were to be found. The day was fine, the sun was shining brightly on the young green leaves, on the fountain and in the eyes of the pretty girls who always abounded in this place.

  Marianne was beginning to feel better. They went first to Hyrment's where Fortunée ordered a basket of fresh truffles and a variety of condiments with the observation that it was always as well to encourage men in their amorous propensities. From there, they went to Cheret, the celebrated purveyor of game. Here customers were obliged to squeeze into the long, narrow shop between barrels of herring and fresh sardines, creels of oysters and crayfish, dodging the carcasses of deer hanging like sentinels on either side of the doorway. Marianne could not resist a smile at the sight of the famous Carême, Talleyrand's chef, flanked by a pair of wooden-faced footmen and trailing three kitchen boys bearing enormous baskets. He was dressed in the sober but expensive style of a well-to-do bourgeois and was selecting his purchases with all the solemnity of a diamond merchant examining an array of precious stones.

  'This place is too crowded,' Fortunée declared,' and Carême will be here for ever. We will come back later. Let's go to Corcellat's.'

  This fashionable emporium, a veritable paradise for all lovers of good food, occupied extensive premises at the far end of the galerie de Beaujolais. Flocks of eager assistants hovered in readiness to serve discriminating clients with mortadella from Lyons, foie gras from Strasbourg and Périgord, sausage from Aries, pate from Nérac, tongue from Troyes, larks from Pithiviers, fowls from Le Mans, to say nothing of gingerbread from Rheims and Dijon, sugar plums from Agen, and crystallized fruits from Clermont.

  Fortunée pointed out discreetly for her friend's benefit two or three women of the first consequence who had come to place their orders. One of these, a dumpy, pleasant-faced lady seemed to be on excellent terms with all the staff.

  'The wife of Marshal Lefebvre,' whispered Madame Hamelin, 'an excellent creature but hardly Duchess of Dantzig! They say she was a washerwoman and the sticklers of the court will not receive her but she doesn't care, and for all her washerwoman's hands, she has far more the heart of a duchess than some that I could name.' She pointed surreptitiously to a tall, dark woman, a trifle bony but with a pair of splendid black eyes, wearing a rather over-elaborate morning dress and giving her commands with an air of great self-importance. 'I could not say the same of her, for instance.'

  'Who is she?' Marianne had seen the woman before but had already forgotten her name.

  'Eglé Ney. She is so conscious of her great fortune and her husband's fame that she has become insufferably conceited. You see the pains she is taking not to appear to notice Madame Lefebvre? The men are brothers in arms but the wives cannot stand one another. That is typical of the Tuileries…'

  Marianne was no longer listening. She was standing by the window staring at a woman who had just come out of a nearby café and had paused for a moment in the doorway, a woman she seemed to know well.

  'What is it?' Fortunée was saying curiously. 'What are you looking at? The Café des Aveugles is no place for you, I assure you. It is a place of very ill-repute, a haunt of rogues, pimps and prostitutes.'

  'It is not the café – it is that woman, the one in the red shawl and the mouse-coloured dress. I am sure I know her. I – oh!'

  The woman in the red shawl had turned her head and without another word of explanation, Marianne left her friend and darted out into the street, driven by uncontrollable impulse. She knew now who the woman was. It was the Breton girl, Gwen, the mistress of the wrecker, Morvan, who since that fateful night at Malmaison had once more become an inmate of one of the imperial prisons.

  Perhaps, after all, it was not so surprising to find the wild creature of the Pagan rocks here in Paris, dressed as a respectable middle-class young woman. If Morvan were in Paris, even in prison, there was no reason why his mistress should not be there also, but a mysterious voice whispered in Marianne's ear that Gwen had other business in Paris than merely being near her lover. But what?

  The Breton girl walked unhurriedly along the galerie Beauvais. Her manner was modest, almost timid, and she kept her head lowered so that her face was almost hidden by the poke of her plain grey bonnet with its bunch of red ribbons. She was clearly anxious not to be mistaken for one of the numerous prostitutes who frequented the galleries of the Palais-Royal with their outrageously painted faces and their daringly low-cut gowns. Gwen concealed her very real beauty to avoid attracting the attentions of the gentlemen who sauntered there.

  In the same pious hope, Marianne had quickly let down the full, almond green veil that draped her own hat, a manoeuvre which also enabled her to follow the Bretonne without running the risk of being recognized.

  The two women traversed the gallery in turn as far as the former Théâtre de la Montansier. There, Gwen turned left along the arcade leading to the rue de Beaujolais. Before she reached it, however, she looked round once or twice in a way that instantly put Marianne on her guard, and each time she drew back into the shelter of one of the massive stone pillars, apparently engrossed in contemplation of the entrance to the famous Restaurant Véfour. After a moment she peered cautiously out into the street.

  Gwen was standing not far away, next to a black chaise which reminded Marianne of one she had seen on another, disagreeable occasion. The driver's face was hidden by the turned-up collar of his coat but he and Gwen seemed to be engaged in animated conversation, as a result of which Gwen turned and made her way back to where Marianne was standing. Marianne saw her cast several glances at the tall, decorated windows of the famous restaurant, as if she were interested in something or someone inside the Grand Véfour.

  Gwen paused and began to stroll up and down the arcade outside. Marianne at once retreated as far as the galerie de Beaujolais, but without losing sight of her old enemy whose behaviour was beginning to appear increasingly odd. It was at this point that Fortunée Hamelin at last caught
up with her friend.

  'Do you mind telling me what happened?' she said. 'You shot out of Corcellat's as if the devil were after you.'

  'No one was after me but I wanted to go after someone else. Would you mind if we strolled on a little way, Fortunée? I don't want to be noticed.'

  'Well, you'll be out of luck, my dear,' the Creole informed her drily. 'You may have let your veil down but you're not exactly dressed to melt into the crowd, you know. Nor, I flatter myself, am I. But we'll walk on if you like. Are you still watching that girl in the red and grey? Who is she?'

  In a few words Marianne told Fortunée what she knew and the Creole readily agreed that this was something worth investigating. She put forward one objection, however.

  'You don't think that perhaps the girl is simply endeavouring to earn a living? She is pretty enough and there are girls here who put on airs of respectability.'

  'It is possible,' Marianne conceded, 'but I do not think so. If so, what is the meaning of that carriage waiting in the street, and why is she hanging about outside the restaurant? She is waiting for someone and I mean to find out who it is.'

  Fortunée sighed. 'Well of course, there are people who would be interested in the activities of such women – our friend Fouché among others. We'll see what happens. It might be interesting.'

  Arm in arm, the two of them strolled idly towards the quincunx of lime trees which formed the centrepiece of the garden and back again to the point which they had left, apparently deep in conversation. Their words were lost in the babel from the countless cafés and billiard halls, booksellers and small shops of every kind which made the Palais-Royal a scene of animation for most hours of the day and night. As they walked they kept a close watch on the Breton girl, who was also strolling slowly up and down the arcade between the gardens and the street. Suddenly, Gwen froze and her two watchers followed suit. The restaurant door was opening.

  'Something is going to happen, I can feel it,' Fortunée hissed, her clutch on her friend's arm tightening.

  A man had come out of the restaurant, a square-built man dressed in a blue coat with gilt buttons, a high-crowned beaver perched at a rakish angle on his head. He paused on the threshold, responded with a friendly wave of his hand to the bowing of the head waiter, and then lit a long cigar. Marianne's heart beat faster as she recognized him.