‘Lord of what? A lousy village that I held against the Austrians in spite of your orders? Castiglione, oh, yes, it has a ring to it, but it rings hollow, like all that you give and all that you have done.’
‘I have been deceived about people.’
‘No, it is you who have deceived them.’
‘You owe your fortune to me, your grace.’
‘You always bring everything down to yourself.’
‘Go and spit on me in Paris, your grace, the Bourbons will pay you handsomely for it.’
‘You’re as rapacious as your eagle! Look what you have brought us to.’
‘Be off with your grudges!’
I’m not your puppet!’
Augereau put two fingers to the visor of his cap. Napoleon pulled his cocked hat low over his forehead and, turning his back on the marshal, strode to his carriage. Later, when all the passengers had disembarked from the berlins that were about to cross the Isère, Sir Neil Campbell showed the Emperor an order signed by Augereau, which some soldiers wearing white cockades had handed to him in Valence. Napoleon asked Bertrand for his glasses and read it emotionlessly:
You have been freed from your oaths ... You are freed by the abdication of a man who, having immolated thousands of victims in the service of his own cruel ambition, could not die a soldier’s death. Let us swear loyalty to Louis XVIII and wear truly French colours . . .
The Emperor ripped this proclamation into shreds and, saying to the Englishman, ‘The Duke of Castiglione has confirmed all that to me,’ he threw the pieces of paper into the wind, which carried them to the swift waves of the Isère.
*
In Montélimar at sunset, the Emperor had a long discussion with the Sub-Prefect, M. Gaud de Rousillac: he was entering hostile territory, and was sorry to have dismissed his escort of chasseurs in Nevers. The Midi had always been royalist in its soul. Napoleon had forgotten that, but deep down he did not need to be reminded of it. The day after the Thermidor coup, the inhabitants of Tarascon had hurled sixty republicans over the castle walls. In Aix and Nîmes, the people of Provence had indiscriminately slit the throats of the occupants of the prisons. Wolves had returned to attack the hamlets; armed bands of deserters marched by night and laid waste the region from the Alpilles to Les Landes. The people of Marseille were learning Russian so they could talk to their liberators, because Suvorov was coming back up from Milan towards the Alps. Napoleon remembered those times. He thought he was back there when he reached Donzère, which was celebrating the Restoration. ‘Down with the tyrant! Long live the King!’ they shouted at the carriages with their eagle insignia as they quickly passed by. Wishing to be spared mockery, and to avoid musket fire, the Emperor transferred to the barouche of the Austrian commissioner, General Koller; he asked him, ‘Does your postilion smoke?’
‘Probably, but not if he’s carrying Your Majesty.’
‘Quite the contrary! Such familiarity will prove that I am not aboard your carriage. And why don’t you sing a little? Vienna is the opera capital of the world, is it not?’
‘Sire, my singing is appallingly out of tune . . .’
‘Then whistle! Anyone can whistle! Show a lack of respect, for God’s sake, to conceal my presence!’
General Koller tried to whistle a bit of Mozart that was so distorted as to be entirely unrecognizable. Napoleon sat sullenly in a corner of the seat and pretended to sleep as they passed through the streets of Orange - but they had to stop at the post-house on the way out of town to change horses. A fleur-de-lys flag hung from the roof of the stables. While the Emperor hid himself away, Count Bertrand took advantage of this forced stop to reach an agreement with Campbell.
‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘our convoy is attracting too much
attention. For the sake of prudence we should divide it in two.’
‘You’re right.’
‘You go on ahead and open up the road for us. Your English uniform will protect you - the southerners seem to like your compatriots.’
‘I believe that is so, your grace.’
‘You take the two carriages of cooks and valets, with their provisions, if necessary; they may have to set up a canteen in open country if the towns are too turbulent. Monsieur Sénécal will go with you on horseback, ensuring contact between you and His Majesty. In two days’ time we will all meet up, if possible, at the port of Saint Tropez.’
‘That seems like a sensible plan.’
So Octave set off with Campbell and the two administrative barouches. They entered Avignon at four o’clock in the morning. The city was not: asleep; on the contrary, it was celebrating. People were dancing to the sound of discordant bands, beneath garlands of multicoloured Chinese lanterns. They were dancing the farandole, singing at the top of their voices and drinking a heavy wine that made their heads spin. Some recently liberated Spanish prisoners played the mandolin and rattled their castanets. Draft dodgers who had been hunted by the Imperial gendarmerie had emerged from the mountains where they had been hiding, and passed through the streets to cheers, with pine cones in their hats. Outside the door of the mairie, a large portrait of Napoleon was ablaze. Some worthies threw his bust out of a window. It shattered on the cobbles to cries of joy. Bells rang out, white flags hung from the windows of all the buildings, and the whole population was wearing the Bourbon cockade - on their hats, on the lapels of their jackets and pinned to the dancers’ hair.
Not far from the Place de la Comédie, where armed men were keeping guard, the berlins lined up beside a coach decorated with a string of little white flags that was leaving for Lyons at daybreak. The town guard checked the travellers.
‘Hey, look!’ said a boy. ‘The bird of ill omen!’
He pointed at the Imperial coat of arms painted on the sides of the administrative coaches. A crowd gathered immediately. A shaggy shepherd wearing a rough woollen jacket opened one of the doors, and dragged out a terrified cook by the throat. His faint protests met with a shower of curses. From his pocket, Octave took the white cockade that he had worn with Sémallé in Paris. He fixed it to the ribbon of his hat and was able to intervene.
‘My friends! My friends! What are you looking for?’
‘The tyrant isn’t hidden under one of your cushions, is he?’
‘If you’re talking about the former Emperor, he’s not with us.’
‘And who might you be?’
‘A representative of the provisional government of his Majesty Louis XVIII.’
‘That’s fine!’ said the shepherd.
‘Then cry Long live the King!’ said a joker.
‘Long live the King!’ cried Octave, who was used to doing just that.
‘Long live the King!’ cried the little crowd.
‘And the rest of them!’ the shepherd continued.
Valets and cooks complied as cockades were fixed to their hats, and the residents of Avignon, armed with buckets of tar, daubed the hated eagles that gleamed too brightly on the carriages. Colonel Campbell, who had also alighted from his berlin, negotiated with a captain of the city guard. Free to do as he pleased thanks to his usurped title and the royalist colours that he wore voluntarily, Octave rode over to Campbell.
‘Captain Montagnac is in command here,’ the Englishman explained. ‘He’s telling me about the risks that the Emperor runs.’
‘I’m sure that’s so, but he can’t avoid Avignon; a detour would be too long and no less dangerous.’
‘Does he have sufficient escort?’ asked the Captain.
‘It’s non-existent.’
‘Give us reinforcements,’ Campbell suggested.
Octave went on, ‘Can you assure us that His Majesty will be protected while the horses are being changed?’
‘I’ll try . . .’
Loyal Captain Montagnac rounded up his feeble detachment of guards. They were wearing clogs, held rusty old guns and had dented swords wedged in their belts. Most of them were yawning or rubbing their eyes - they had taken part in the celebrations th
at had been turning Avignon upside down ever since the newspapers from Paris had confirmed the Restoration.
The Emperor’s sleeping car and two accompanying carriages arrived at six o’clock in the morning, and waited behind those of Campbell and the administrators. By that time fresh horses had already been prepared. Farriers quickly harnessed them beneath the concerned but vigilant eye of Captain Montagnac. How would he contain the drunk and excited people who were now crowding around the travellers, very interested and much too close? They became furious at the sight of the imperial coat of arms, pushing back the guards who showed barely any resistance, looking for the tyrant to tear him limb from limb - and thought they had glimpsed him in the depths of the Austrian general’s barouche. One bystander put his hand on the door-handle, but Octave held him back by the shoulder, and was just raising his cane to knock him out, when Montagnac moved him aside.
‘You rascal! Stop that this minute!’
‘Calm yourself, Monsieur Sénécal,’ advised the Emperor through the open window.
‘Let the carriage set off!’ the Captain ordered his guards. ‘And you,’ he said to the coachman, ‘go at a gallop!’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ the Emperor said. ‘I will remember you.’
‘For God’s sake, go!’
As soon as the horses were harnessed, the procession of six carriages hurried forward, dust rising, volleys of stones flying in their wake. Mounting his horse, Octave noticed Count Bertrand, impassive and alone in Napoleon’s carriage. The window was broken. With his glove he was brushing splinters of glass from his sleeve.
*
Napoleon had examined the administrators’ map of the region, crossing out those towns that were too large, and from which only violence could be expected. But he had circled the name of Orgon: he planned to lunch in that village, which reminded him of an episode from his youth as a soldier. It wasn’t a girl, not that, but a punitive expedition against recalcitrant aristocrats. With the help of their peasants they were ruthlessly murdering the soldiers who came and went from the Italian army stationed on the outskirts of Nice. The situation had barely changed despite the passing years, as Napoleon learned when one of the messengers who had gone on ahead halted the convoy before they reached the town.
‘The villagers are waiting for us in the square, I didn’t dare get too close, but it looks as though some hotheads are stirring things up.’
‘Is there any other way to get to Aix?’ asked Bertrand, with his nose to the door.
‘Sadly no, your grace, you’d have to head back towards Avignon.’
‘Oh, no!’
The Emperor had climbed out of General Roller’s barouche, and was walking along the road to the first carriage.
‘In that case,’ said the messenger, ‘you’ll just have to head into the crowd as quickly as you can and hope for the best...’
‘What’s your name?’ asked the Emperor.
‘Antoine Loisellier, sire.’
‘Undress, Monsieur Loisellier.’
‘Sire?’
‘Do as I say, you wretched ass! I will take your place and you will take mine.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, yes, you idiot! Is your life worth more than mine?’
‘I didn’t say that, but...’
‘No buts!’
Loisellier, poor Loisellier, dismounted and obeyed. Napoleon dismounted too, and held his cocked hat out to Bertrand, followed by his grey frock-coat and his colonel’s uniform; he took off his riding boots and even removed his waistcoat and his white breeches. Then he dressed in the clothes he had asked for, ordering the messenger to get into the sleeping-carriage next to Count Bertrand.
First, however, Napoleon wanted to inspect his stand-in. ‘Let’s take a look at you,’ the Emperor said. ‘Yes ... That should do it, I hope, but my clothes are huge on you, and I can barely breathe in yours...’ With one final flourish, the Emperor donned the blue greatcoat and the round hat with the white cockade. He climbed on to the nag with the help of Bertrand and a coachman.
‘Sire,’ said the Count, ‘are you sure this is wise?’
The disguised Emperor spurred the beast on without replying, and launched into a gallop.
‘Monsieur Sénécal!’ cried Bertrand. ‘Go with His Majesty and don’t let him out of your sight!’ Octave immediately followed the Emperor, amid whip-cracks and the sound of the postilions’ bugles.
Two kilometres further on, the horsemen slowed to a trot. They saw the first buildings of Orgon, low and long, whitewashed and with pink roofs, surrounded by little dry stone walls beneath the parasols of a grove of pines. Some noisy activity in front of the post-house disturbed this peaceful vision: as soon as they spotted the procession, the villagers had congregated, brandishing their pitchforks and old rapiers, bludgeons and butchers’ knives. A mannequin made of cloth and straw and drenched in ox-blood dangled from a tree. It bore a piece of cardboard with the word Bonaparte scrawled upon it. Napoleon and Octave waited until most of the cortège had forced its way through, then filed in behind, the Emperor instinctively tugging on the reins to let Octave catch up with him: to crash into this crowd at a gallop would be to risk getting a pitchfork full in the chest.
‘What scum!’ Napoleon said to Octave in a trembling voice. ‘I can’t bear the mob, Monsieur Sénécal, I have never been able to bear the mob; the mob is idiotic and monstrous, it frightens me. You should never see it from too close up, unless you have cannon ...’
They were now advancing at the same pace as the berlins, which acted as a shield; the people of Orgon seemed to be devoting their entire attention to the carriages they thought contained Napoleon, whom they wanted to get their hands on. There he is! The raging crowd rushed towards the sleeping-carriage at the front of the procession. Some tall fellows grabbed the horses by the bit to immobilize them; the animals foamed and whinnied, shied, striking the dusty ground with their hoofs and shaking their harnesses, making the couplings jolt. The postilions lashed out with their whips to beat back the peasants who were assaulting them from all sides. Hurling curses and death-threats in a patois that needed no translation, so distorted were their sun-bronzed faces, they pounced on Bertrand’s sleeping-carriage, sticks raised. They threw large, sharp stones that dented the bodywork and broke the last remaining windows, while the Emperor and Octave trotted on ahead, because the savages of Orgon let the two supposed scouts - with their white cockades - continue on their way unmolested. Octave turned on his saddle: a group of shrieking harpies had dragged out the hapless Loisellier in his enormous uniform, mistaking him for the Emperor. They clutched him by the collar, screamed in his face, tore the medals from his clothes and threw his cocked hat in the air like a ball. Octave could see Colonel Campbell, waving and shouting sharply at the shrewish women, then he dug his spurs into the side of his mount to join the Emperor; the two rode along the road to Aix in the blazing sunshine.
*
The mistral rose. It blew sideways at the horsemen as they plunged into swirls of dust. Their noses deep in the wind-stirred manes of their horses, Octave and the Emperor passed pine forests, rock-piles, isolated farms in a stony desert without seeing any of them. They picked their way up and down steep mountain tracks, and a hundred times risked breaking their necks. The road narrowed. In single file, they trekked through the gorge that opens up in the Roc de Valbonette, they rode through Lambesc, and skirted meadows and groves of grey olive trees. They had to change horses in Saint-Canat, but they didn’t linger there, leaving on empty stomachs, riding hell for leather. No hills now, the road was flat and straight, hamlets came and went, then vines, clusters of almond-trees and chalk quarries. They were hungry and thirsty, and they were exhausted, finally allowing themselves a halt at about one o’clock in the afternoon, in an inn identified by a sign nailed to a post as La Calade.
With some difficulty, the Emperor managed to get his leg over the saddle. Octave jumped down from his horse and helped him dismount because he didn’t have his usual
ladder.
‘Sire,’ said Octave, holding both bridles, ‘I’ll lead our horses to the stable, you go in and find a seat.’
‘You’re going to let me go into that den of cut-throats alone and unarmed?’
‘Sire ...’
‘Stop calling me that! Enough of this madness, Monsieur Sénécal! Call me Loiseau, like the real messenger!’
‘Loisellier.’
‘As you wish, but forget my rank! So you don’t want to lose me?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘Not even monsieur, you idiot three times over! I’m wearing fancy dress, fine, but what if someone were to recognize me?
‘No chance, rigged out like that.’
‘You can be polite, all the same!’
The Emperor shook the dust from his greatcoat. His tight trousers refused to button up beneath his imposing belly, and he’d had to tie them with a piece of string - but such a ludicrous arrangement, so unworthy of a sovereign, deflected suspicion. Nonetheless, Napoleon continued to look distrustfully around him, and followed Octave to the stable, sticking to him like a leech.
They returned together to the courtyard, which was dominated by a gigantic poplar, and entered the inn. On a spit, some fat capons were turning, being basted with stock by a fat woman.
There were no other customers, and the landlady pointed to a table with her ladle.
‘Wait a bit over a carafe, you two. My birds ain’t cooked yet. You all right?’
‘Oh yes, madam,’ said Octave, offering a chair to the Emperor, who muttered between clenched teeth: ‘No stupid deference, Sénécal, you’ll get us noticed.’
Napoleon sat himself down, angry but anxious, with his elbows on the table and without taking off his round hat. The old woman drew a jug of wine from the barrel, and set it down abruptly on the table with two glasses.
‘Have you come from Aix?’ she asked.
‘No, madam,’ said Octave, pouring himself some red wine. We’ve been galloping through the wind from Avignon.’
‘If you’re coming from the north, did you see Bonaparte? He’s supposed to be passing this way.’
Napoleon's Exile Page 13
