The captain checked that his own sword was moving properly in its scabbard, so he could draw it in case of trouble, but the moment the Emperor appeared in the doorway of the inn, the crowd that had gathered fell silent. Respectable bourgeois, ladies in all their finery. These provincials felt they were taking part in a historical event that they would tell their friends and children about for years to come. They parted before the Emperor, who, noticing a pretty girl, asked, ‘Are you married? Do you have children?’
As always, he continued on his way at a measured pace, without waiting for her reply. Waving and smiling, he climbed into a carriage that set off at a gallop for Saint Raphaël. It was a brilliant moonlit night. A soft breeze blew. Along the bay, among the pines and palm trees, a regiment of Austrian cavalry was presenting arms. The Emperor took Ussher’s arm and walked towards the launch. The sailors raised their oars like halberds.
*
With a boiled-leather sailor’s hat pulled low over his forehead, and his frock-coat floating in the wind, Napoleon leaned on the hammock-netting and looked at the waves of foam thrown up by the prow.
‘Where’s Bertrand?’
‘I haven’t seen him all morning,’ replied Octave, who was discovering life at sea. He had never been aboard a ship, having only ever taken the occasional little boat out on the Seine to go from one shore to the other, between the wine market and the market gardens near the Bastille - but here the roll was working its way through his intestines, and he held a handkerchief to his mouth for fear that his hiccups might get worse, and he might vomit up the little food he’d had the strength to swallow. Bertrand was presumably in a similar state. As to the Emperor, he was clearly in a good mood and taking deep breaths.
‘Bring him to me, Monsieur Sénécal, the fresh air before dinner will do him good.’
‘Dinner? Are you mad?’
Octave did not press the point. He took advantage of the break to read an article from the Courrier, cut out and glued into one of Ussher’s books, which gave a detailed description of the Emperor: a few months previously, some reports from London had warned the commanders of the English vessels that Napoleon might try to escape to America. Octave shrugged his shoulders at this outdated cutting, and Bertrand’s seasickness; mutely he returned to the Emperor, who was talking to Captain Ussher.
‘We’re barely moving,’ Napoleon was saying. ‘If you were chasing an enemy frigate, would you have set more sails?’
Looking up towards the masts, Ussher agreed, ‘Probably ...’
‘There’s a sail missing from the quarter-deck.’
‘Ah, yes ...’
‘So unfurl it, it’ll be useful to us. Ah! Sénécal, I expect our great marshal is on his last legs? Too bad! The Captain has invited us to his table, you can take his place.’
On the deck, the sailors stopped mending sails or cleaning their muskets, and lined up instead to receive their rations, after which they squatted down, each with a bowl of cocoa.
‘Since when have your men had cocoa and sugar, Mr Ussher?’
‘They owe that to you, sire.’ (He pronounced it ‘sir'.) ‘Your blockade stopped us from selling on the Continent, so they’re taking advantage of the fact.’
‘They must think I was right to close our ports, then?’
Napoleon joked as far as the officers’ mess, where he alone ate with the Captain, chatting about English trade, the navy, the constant lack of discipline among the men in his fleet. Over dessert he added some pointed remarks about the Bourbons, in a mocking tone.
‘Poor devils! They’re happy to be back in their castles, but they can’t bear those factories I’ve set up; they’ll be driven out within six months! In Lyons, in those parts of central France where I’ve encouraged the construction of factories, the people have celebrated me. You remember that, Campbell?’
‘Oh, yes. . .’
Then they talked about Spain which, the Emperor said, would do well to bomb Gibraltar day and night to dislodge the English.
‘But you invaded that peninsula,’ Campbell replied, rather shocked.
‘Yes, to abolish the Inquisition, feudal rights and the privileges of certain classes.’
‘They didn’t see it that way in Madrid and Saragossa.’
‘I am not always understood, Campbell.’
Life on board proceeded in this way, amid cordial discussions in which no topic was out of bounds, dull walks on the deck and interminable hours spent inspecting the sea or birds that indicated the proximity of the coast. On Monday 2 May, Octave couldn’t get to sleep in steerage and he visited Napoleon before daybreak, since the Emperor rose at four every morning. The ship was being tossed about by a storm and Octave had difficulty walking without falling, or rolling from port to starboard and crashing into the cannon.
‘If the storm gets any worse, sir,’ said Ussher, ‘we’ll have to drop anchor.’
‘Why not off the coast of Ajaccio?’
‘It’s not on our route.’
‘What about Calvi? The water’s deep around there, and the port is sheltered from gales.’
At the sight of Calvi, the Emperor grew feverish. Despite the big waves, he stayed with his bodyguards. As the coast drew nearer, he remembered one accursed day in June 1793.
‘The nationalists accused my family of having been bought by the French, but at the same time they wanted to sell Corsica to you lot, the English. My mother had to flee with the children at dead of night, through the tracks and potholes of the Campo dell’Oro, through streams swollen by the showers, to the Genoese tower of Capitello stuck up there on the rocks ... I was a captain; I had bombed the citadel of Ajaccio, and I was in retreat ... I put out a launch and gathered up the fugitives, and together we climbed up towards Calvi where the partisans of the republic were gathering ... Pauline was thirteen ...’
The Undaunted rounded a rocky cape three cables’ length away from the coast. ‘Why don’t we explore the cliff, Captain?’ the Emperor suggested. ‘A good walk would stretch our legs and clear our heads, don’t you think?’
He received no reply. But the ship lay to off Calvi for seven hours before setting sail again. On the fifth day of sailing, a dot was seen on the horizon. The ship made straight for it. A block of jagged black rocks loomed out of the sea. It was the island of Elba.
Four
IN EXILE
PORTOFERRAIO FACED away from the sea. Its Levantine houses, grey or ochre, with pointed windows, were tiered along the slopes of a rocky amphitheatre. On the other side, a series of belvederes and Florentine walls fell to the sleepy waters of the port. Most of the streets climbed the hill; they finished in crude steps, without railings. As Monsieur Pons de l’Hérault had lived on the island for five years, his calves had grown very big from all the climbing he’d done - and he was climbing that morning, towards the Forte Stella, which gave a view of the Mediterranean; the lookout had signalled an English ship, and Monsieur Pons wanted to find out more. He stopped in the middle of a steep alleyway, which formed a kind of landing before the next flight of steps. The sun beat down. Monsieur Pons was sweating. His thin, lank hair stuck to his forehead. His glasses had slipped down his not inconsiderable nose, and he slid them back into place with one finger, wiped his face with his handkerchief and looked across at the flat, pink roofs and the harbour below. Then he recommenced his climb with the regular pace of a mountain-dweller, joining General Dalesme, the Governor of this poor Sub-prefecture, on the tower of the crenellated fort. It was then that he saw a motionless three-master next to the keep that defended the narrows leading into the port.
‘Did you try to blow it up with your cannon?’ Monsieur Pons asked the General.
‘Warning shots.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing, see for yourself.’
Dalesme lent him his spyglass to study the unflagged ship. Before administering the iron mines on the island of Elba, which he had restored, Pons de l’Hérault had served as a navy captain. The General said in his broad
Limousin accent, ‘It’s an English frigate, do you agree?’
‘By the shape of the sails, there can be no doubt.’
‘Damned rosbifs! What do they want from us this time?’
An English squadron had blockaded the island for a long time, since London coveted Elba for the island’s strategic position as much as it did Corsica. For five months, they’d had no news from the Continent. British agents had driven the islanders to rebellion, encouraged mutinies, delivered weapons on the sly; a press-ganged regiment of Corsicans, Tuscans, deserters and draft-dodgers had revolted in April. These crooks had murdered their commander, and Dalesme had ordered them shot by his 35th Light Infantrymen. Some survivors had seized a merchant ship to make their getaway, while others had been forced aboard and dumped ashore in Italy. Meanwhile the French garrison, 400 strong, had barricaded itself up in Portoferraio and lived on biscuits and salted meat from the store.
The British had laid claim to the island, the Bourbons returned to power in Paris, and an emissary announced that Elba now belonged to the vanquished Emperor, who was about to take possession of it. Dalesme was suspicious. What did they want, the occupants of that frigate anchored in the roads, refusing to answer and threatening to stay there if the wind did not rise? The garrison had taken up arms, the loaded cannon on the ramparts were trained on the intruder; the Sea Gate was closed to bar the dock, and so too was the Land Gate, at the outlet to the tunnel beneath the fort of Sant’Ilario. On that side, they had only to pull up the drawbridge over a sea-water canal to cut off the island completely.
‘Fire!’ ordered General Dalesme.
Waves splashed the hull of the frigate, as the cannon-balls fell short of their target.
‘If they don’t react next time, I’m going to break the masts!’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Monsieur Pons, who had taken off his glasses to put an eye to the telescope. ‘He’s furling the sails, he’s going to cast anchor . . .’
‘Let me see, administrator.’
‘Wait! They’re hoisting a flag at the main-mast ... a white flag. . .’
‘With a fleur-de-lys?’
‘No ... A launch is being lowered from the davit, at the stern ... Some uniforms ... A blue uniform ...’
‘A Frenchman?’
‘It looks that way, but all I can see from here are patches of colour ...’
‘Perhaps they’re bringing us our new king.’
‘You must be joking, Dalesme! I can hardly imagine the English handing us Bonaparte like a common prisoner.’
‘I’m going down!’
The General ran the length of the rampart walk and jumped on the horse that was waiting for him in the courtyard. By galloping along the sloping street he could get to the harbour more quickly.
*
Monsieur Pons de l’Hérault, meanwhile, took the alternative route - the steps of the alleyways - to reach the harbour, grumbling as he hurried on his way lest he miss the docking of the foreign launch. He was nettled by the idea that Napoleon might come and settle on the very island where he had taken refuge specifically to get away from him.
What did Napoleon know of the people of Elba? Nothing. Monsieur Pons, on the other hand, was respected because, having been placed in charge of the local mines, he had put his republican ideas into practice by treating his workers as citizens. He had allowed them to build suitable housing, there was a full granary, warehouses, boats to deliver the mineral to Piombino, and he paid them in grain. Bonaparte, by contrast, had substituted the power of soldiers for the power of citizens, a coup d’état for which Pons had never forgiven him, writing ferocious pamphlets against the Emperor’s omnipotence. And now a decision in Paris was bringing the man to Elba, turning the island into an absurd kingdom. The other man - his contemptuous name for the defeated Emperor - was going to spoil everything. (Pons had known Captain Bonaparte very well at the siege of Toulon. At that time - when he had insisted on being called Marat Lepeletier Pons, in honour of two eminent patriots - he’d been a member of the local Jacobin club, and had commanded the artillery of Bandol. Robespierre’s brother, Augustin (known as Bonbon), had protected both of them, since they tried to outdo each other in republican ardour. But Pons had been intransigent on the basis of principles that events had done nothing to change. He had found Robespierre’s hauteur almost impossible to bear when they had met briefly in Paris, and he had been horrified by the corruption of the members of the Directory who’d tried to bribe him. He even considered that the Thermidorean Reaction, the revolt against Robespierre, had been worse than the Terror. Should Pons leave? And where would he go? To live on what? At the age of forty-two he found it hard to imagine drifting hither and thither with his wife and his two little girls. But if they stayed, would he be forced to apologize for not having betrayed (as Napoleon had, in his view) his republican ideals? Either option was unthinkable.
Brooding over his misfortune, he joined General Dalesme at the end of the wooden dock. ‘Take a look at what’s in the launch,’ said Dalesme, handing him the telescope again.
Monsieur Pons gave a cry of astonishment: ‘Drouot!’
‘If that man Drouot sets foot on dry land, Administrator, it means that the Emperor is on board . . .’
‘I fear so.’
‘Paris has made our decision for us. Go on! It must be our great man.’
‘It’s easier to be a great man in a vast empire than in a small state.’
‘You hate him that much?’
‘I certainly do!’ replied Monsieur Pons.
*
From a distance, with its Italianate appearance, the pastel tones of the houses against a rocky amphitheatre, Portoferraio looked rather charming. Octave liked it already; the sky was solid blue, the water translucent, and shadows stirred on the mole. Octave had a premonition of discovery and joy.
The previous day, at sea, a fisherman had told the Undaunted’s passengers about the brutality of the people of Elba: as in Provence, they had burned an effigy of Napoleon, and their hostility remained intense, despite English attempts to calm the troublemakers. Informed of this unfortunate situation, the Emperor agreed to come ashore only once his security problems had been resolved. With this in mind, a delegation fronted by Drouot was dispatched to the island. Octave, although not part of this official deputation, accompanied them nonetheless, keen to see the town and its inhabitants for himself.
The oars rippled regularly as the launch approached the quay, and Octave contemplated the landscape with delight. The muted colours and the mildness of the air rendered him naïve: how, he thought, could violence erupt in such a paradise? Stepping on to the dock, though - while Dalesme and Drouot hailed each other as old accomplices from a hundred battles - Octave found himself reconsidering his initial impression: dilapidated buildings, generally topsy-turvy, climbed towards the ramparts, and in places even loomed above them. Past the Sea Gate, the façades of Via San Giovanni sweated, paint that had once been pink was flaking away, and pistachio-coloured shutters dangled from their hinges. Channels of dirty water emerged from adjacent alleyways, streaming together in the middle of the road, forming bubbling puddles where insects buzzed. A strong smell of excrement, urine and soap hung in the air, but this did not appear to upset the onlookers who had assembled to watch the delegation pass by. Bourgeois in shirt-sleeves and women fanning themselves with palm fronds appeared at balconies filled with flowers and reddened foliage. Tanned fishermen with mistrustful eyes gathered by the gates and along the walls. Octave noticed a bevy of girls, who hid their faces and shook with silent laughter beneath their black straw hats. Dressed in very short red or blue skirts, they had solid, brown legs, their feet bare in the mud.
The delegates climbed towards the parade ground. Following in the wake of Generals Drouot and Dalesme, both in full dress, came a colonel of the Polish lancers in heavy scarlet cloth, collapsing with the heat, and a stoical Austrian major dressed entirely in white. Octave brought up the rear with Campbell, who was discreetly hold
ing his nose. Monsieur Pons followed them, head lowered, dawdling like a carthorse resigned to being led to the knacker’s yard. Beneath the plane trees in the square, the group turned towards the town hall, where those worthies who had already been alerted were waiting by a small flight of steps. These gentlemen introduced themselves at the invitation of the Mayor, Monsieur Traditi, and the delegates were led inside, up a very cramped staircase and onto the first floor, where they passed into a drawing-room, its shutters lowered to keep out at least the worst of the heat. The local authorities stood because there were not enough chairs for them all, while Drouot showed them the official documents that placed the island under the Emperor’s rule. Then General Dalesme read aloud the letter sent by the Emperor himself:
Dear General,
I have sacrificed my rights to the interests of the fatherland, and I have reserved to myself the sovereignty and the ownership of the island of Elba, as agreed by all the Powers. Please inform the inhabitants of this new state of affairs, and of the fact that I have chosen their island for my sojourn, in consideration of the mildness of their customs and their climate. Tell them they will be the constant object of my keenest inte rests ...
The Sub-prefect, the Mayor, his deputy and Monsieur Pons de l’Hérault had listened with pursed lips, but no obvious sign of effusion, reluctance or objection. Stunned by the news, they knew that their lives, which until then had been idle and free of any real turmoil, were about to be turned on their heads. Drouot mopped his brow and the back of his neck with a lace handkerchief that he drew from the embroidered sleeve of his Imperial general’s uniform. He spoke to break a painful silence.
‘Gentlemen, what is the current state of mind of your inhabitants?’
‘Not very favourable to His Majesty,’ ventured Monsieur Pons in a hoarse, deep voice.
‘They will have to submit to the French provisional government,’ the Austrian major replied crisply.
‘I hope we won’t need to fight,’ said the Polish colonel, reaching for the pommel of his sword.
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