The conversation thus turned to nearby Italy, which was occupied by the Austrians: Napoleon thought that all the nations in the peninsula would one day have to merge into a great Italian fatherland. To do so they would have to forget their rivalries, and Rome, Florence and Milan would have to reach an agreement if they were to be strong together. When the war was mentioned, Napoleon replied abruptly.
‘Don’t talk to me about war! I’ve had enough of war ... You see, I’ve thought about it a great deal . . . We have waged war all our life, the future may force us to do so again, and yet war will in the end become an anachronism. These battles? The confrontation of two societies, one which dates from 1789 and the ancien régime. They couldn’t live together, and the younger devoured the older ... Yes, war has brought me low, me, the representative of the French Revolution and the instrument of its principles. None of it is of any import. It’s a lost battle for civilization, but civilization, believe me, will take its revenge ...’
His bouillabaisse, which he had not yet touched, was going cold but, waving his knife in the air, the Emperor pursued his theme, his eyes half-closed.
‘There are two systems, the past and the future: the present is merely a painful transition. Which, in your view, must triumph? Surely the future? Well, the future is intelligence, industry and peace! I say once again, gentlemen, don’t speak to me of war, it is no longer one of our customs ...’
Monsieur Pons thought this speech was directed at him, that His Majesty, in neglecting his bouillabaisse, was needling his own republican convictions. Was this despot going to lecture him under his own roof? He fulminated, but he stayed sitting where he was.
When the Emperor rose before coffee, he deigned to ask his host for precise details about the working of the mines and how much they yielded, but Monsieur Pons merely said he would provide all the information in writing. (This reply was something he regretted, however, when, just as they were walking past the very place where the ore was piled for loading, a group of clerks and miners approached the Emperor, knelt before him and handed him a petition to keep their beloved administrator in his job. The Emperor frowned as he read it and Monsieur Pons, very embarrassed, said, ‘Monsieur, I know nothing of this inappropriate gesture.’)
‘Are you still a Republican?’
‘A patriot, yes.’
‘Do you want to stay with me?’
‘I ask only to be of use to you.’
‘That wasn’t the question, I was asking only if you want to continue with your administration. Are you staying, or are you not?’
‘I will do as you wish.’
The visit had got off to a dreadful start, and finished as it had begun. Monsieur Pons made one gaffe after another, couldn’t bring himself to call the Emperor ‘sire', stammered as he called him ‘monsieur', ‘your grace', ‘your worship', and the general feeling of unease was heightened because he did not travel with the sovereign on the boat back to Portoferraio, as etiquette required.
Monsieur Pons was unhappy, and that evening he thought of the jobs he might be able to do in Italy, working for one or other of the buyers of his ore, once Napoleon expelled him along with his family.
*
Octave was already on to his second notebook, dated Sunday 22 May: ‘I can write only what I see, and show it to the Emperor without explanation. His character is clearly visible in everything he does. When he is not waging war, he puts the same amount of energy into travelling. It took him only a few days to turn the island into a building site. Anyone who can dig, lay bricks, nail, cut, terrace, paint, sew or plant has contributed. Foreigners are now arriving as back-up for the Elban workers; there is talk of Italian sculptors who will open studios and exploit the neglected marble quarries. Everything, up to now, has been abandoned, everything is to be built or restored, like the salt-marshes and the tuna-fish pounds. The coral will not be reserved for the Neapolitans, and wheat will be permitted to enter the island. The old roads will be broadened, and new ones opened up. Already, avenues of young mulberry trees surround Portoferraio, whose streets are slowly being paved. The warehouses of the saltworks will be turned into stables, the forts will be equipped, a hospital is planned and customs will be reorganized. His Majesty finds water tanks unsatisfactory, and wishes to bring mountain water into the town. He has identified a spring from which the sailors of the Undaunted draw their supplies, and one of them has even given him some of it to drink, serving it to him in a dent in his hat. He found it delicious. Through the French window I can see His Majesty talking to the architect, no, the engineer, Monsieur Bargigli, beneath the palm-trees and the cypresses in the garden. . .’
The Emperor now had a palace, right at the top of the town, between Forte Stella and Forte Falcone; from his terrace he could see Italy. He had not been able to bear life in town for long, amid the people, the nauseating smells, the constant serenades beneath his windows that drove him out of his mind. It was his conviction that an emperor should live apart from his subjects, and avoid any kind of familiarity with them, that he should set up a court as soon as possible, and enforce a strict code of etiquette. On his nocturnal strolls (for his days began at three o’clock in the morning) he’d kept his eyes open for an ideal site for a palace, and had liked this place as soon as he’d seen it; it overlooked Portoferraio on one side, and on the other plunged down to a shingle beach largely inaccessible from any other direction. The house itself was an old gardener’s cottage, flanked by two pavilions accommodating artillery officers. Its name, the Mulini Palace, came from recently demolished windmills whose ruined foundations could still be seen amid brambles and weeds. Shacks and bits of useless dry-stone walls had been cleared away very quickly, and a building constructed between the pavilions, a storey higher than the old house. Avenues had been paved between the palm, trees and myrtle bushes as far as the parapet of the covered rampart walk that connected the two forts at the top of the cliffs. The Emperor had drawn the plans himself, and they’d been implemented by builders, joiners and upholsterers overseen by engineer Bargigli, with whom His Majesty was chatting on this particular day.
‘Is the road into these mountains passable?’
‘Which mountains, sire?’
‘Are you blind? Over there, on the right!’
‘But they’re on the mainland, sire.’
‘Aha? My island really is very small...’
Impatient to live in his palace, the Emperor had moved in before work was completed, and so lived amid dust, paint, damp cement, hammer-blows and the song of the nightingales. To speed up the pace, he helped the builders with the most menial tasks. Octave had seen him using a pick and getting his white breeches covered with soil, he had seen him sitting on a pile of rubble eating a boiled egg, and clinking glasses with the workers who were painting the façade pink. For the sake of economy, Napoleon had launched a raid on the palace of Piombino, which could be seen through binoculars from the terrace of the Mulini Palace: Elisa, the Duchess of Tuscany, the sister who had betrayed him, had left her furniture there while fleeing the Austrians. With the amused complicity of the English sailors, a quartermaster had managed to strip the place - even dismantling the sycamore parquets and removing the shutters from the windows - transporting everything to the Mulini Palace where white and gold stools and roll-top bedside tables were now stacked chaotically next to ladders and pots of paint.
In the room that would soon serve as a library, Octave closed his notebook on the insignificant details of this life that was more bohemian than Imperial and looked through the bay window. Outside, two Elban National Guards were placing a statue of Minerva on a plinth that was barely dry. At that moment one of the English NCOs in charge of the running of the house came to announce the arrival of a visitor. Monsieur Pons appeared shortly afterwards. Octave guessed the tenor of the conversation from their gestures and facial expressions: Napoleon was looking scornfully at the mine administrator. Monsieur Pons stood as straight as a sword. He must have been giving crisp replies to the
questions or orders of the Emperor, who was clearly irritated because he belched, twisted his mouth and gesticulated. But the scene was short, and Monsieur Pons turned to depart while His Majesty kicked the parapet violently, beneath the startled eyes of engineer Bargigli.
Octave went into Napoleon’s bedroom, which was filled by Elisa Bonaparte’s bed, its wooden uprights spiky with claws and gilded beaks. From there, through the antechamber at the bottom of the stairs, he emerged near the street and found himself face to face with Monsieur Pons - pale, furious, his jaw set - leaving the Mulini Palace at a furious pace. Octave tackled him.
‘I glimpsed you in the garden ...’
‘Your Bonaparte does not know how to behave!’
‘Did he dismiss you?’
‘No, he summoned me, but it comes to the same thing, because I am going to hand in my resignation!’
‘As serious as that!’
‘Yes, my dear fellow, I refuse to spit on people who have placed their trust in me!’
Together Octave and Monsieur Pons crossed the stepped street that a squad of workmen was digging up to replace it with a ramp, so that vehicles would be able to pass along it.
‘What a mess!’ groused Monsieur Pons.
‘What did His Majesty ask of you?’
‘Money, for heaven’s sake! The money from the mines to satisfy his whims!’
‘The mines belong to him ...’
‘From the II of April, fine, but not before then! I also told him that the coffers were empty, and he said, “You have reserves, I know you do.” How does he know that, if you please?’
‘And is it true?’
‘What?’
‘That you have reserves.’
‘Of course it is! Since we learned of the fall of the Empire, I hurried to pay my creditors and set aside the rest of my takings.’
‘A considerable sum?’
‘More than two hundred thousand francs, but it’s going back to the Order of the Légion d’honneur that employed me, so from the moral point of view it’s not at my disposal! Your master has claimed not to understand, or perhaps he isn’t used to meeting honest people. He yelled right in my face: “Are you refusing to obey? Do you know the consequences? I can easily find another administrator!” ’
‘He’s right there: you have the best-paid job on the island . . .’
‘My word is my bond!’
‘The Emperor will send his gendarmes to get you.’
‘They’d better be strong, then, because I’ll greet them with my miners! Force, that’s all Bonaparte understands! And money to corrupt the weak!’
Monsieur Pons was in a rage. The presence of the Emperor was going to attract all kinds of crooks to the island; communication had already been re-established with Piombino and Italy. Every day ships brought building materials, strangers were disembarking at random, trade would spread and money circulate; the Emperor already employed Elbans as chamberlains or ordnance officers on salaries they had never dreamed of.
‘No one is rich here,’ said Monsieur Pons, ‘and this luxury will spoil men and women accustomed to a simple life.’
*
As part of his duties, Octave spent the morning wandering about the quays. He checked the arrival of boats unloading merchandise and passengers at Portoferraio. Genoese businessmen, an architect from Livorno, artists seeking sponsors, adventurers or entrepreneurs in search of building sites, a man who had constructed a village of wooden houses for when the neighbouring islands were colonized, ordinary visitors, most of them English or Italian, and Roman countesses hoping to obtain an audience with the great man; when they were not received, they consoled themselves by buying alabaster busts of Napoleon in the shop recently established by a Florentine craftsman. A new twenty-room inn had opened to accommodate these bountiful strangers. The fishermen and shopkeepers were beginning to become wealthy. Nothing was free now, nothing was spontaneous, and prices were rising along with temptation: the Elbans all hoped to profit from it. Each passing day confirmed to Octave that Pons de l’Hérault was right. The customs of the indigenous people were changing quickly, and they even turned into thieves when the occasion presented itself.
In his rooms at the Mulini Palace, Monsieur Peyrusse had kept a quantity of bags, each containing 1,000 gold napoleons, which he had brought from Fontainebleau. When the treasurer had finally got around to putting his hoard in safe keeping, a member of the National Guard by the name of Paolini, a shoemaker by trade, and very poor, stirred the straw with his boot to check that no coins had inadvertently rolled into it. He found a whole bag. Would he give it back? Not at all. He hid the bag and its contents in his shako. Naturally enough, his sudden and insane spending spree announced his larceny, but no one dared to punish him.
Now everyone was claiming his share. The peasants who accompanied the Emperor on his nocturnal rambles with their lanterns wanted a salary to walk the dug-up streets. The supernumeraries demanded by Count Bertrand, who were herded all over the island whenever they were needed to hail the passage of the Imperial cortège, had to be paid as well.
Napoleon himself was setting a bad example, Monsieur Pons had suggested to Octave. On the evening after a storm, a ship had sought refuge in the gulf of Porto Longone. The vessel was carrying furniture belonging to the Borghese prince; Pauline’s lover was having it transported from Genoa to Rome, where he now lived. The Emperor ordered that it be requisitioned, and justified the act with a quip: ‘It’ll be staying in the family.’ All of a sudden Bertrand had to turn Elbans out of their homes, to transform the buildings into furniture warehouses, just as he had turned the tuna-fishing warehouses into stables. And then, Monsieur Pons had elaborated, there was such insolence in that display of silver-gilt, of gold, of horses, landaus and barouches, some of which carried nothing but fruit and eau-de-vie. And the costumes, the uniforms, the postilions’ green morning coats with gold braid, the Imperial eagle on the horses’ harnesses, the red-jacketed grooms who watched the people from on high. Such contempt! Bourgeois and dignitaries were running up debts trying to emulate the Emperor, and the ladies were forever wanting smart dresses to show off at parties. How could one move from economy to extravagance, from frugality to so much gluttony, without doing damage to oneself?
Octave understood that a sleepy Sub-prefecture could not be turned abruptly into an operatic principality, but he had nothing to say on the matter. He never had anything to say. He carried out orders. He did his job, and was careful never to express the merest hint of a personal judgement out loud. However, the growing numbers of visitors worried him; the Emperor was in exile, but he was close to the coasts of Europe and Octave was sure the royalists’ Committee, from whom he’d received no news, would try to join him, that they would send an emissary, whom Octave would have to provide with verifiable information in order to retain his credibility. Consequently, he kept his eye on strangers, suspecting them all of being enemy agents, even killers, and his permanent watchfulness exhausted him while at the same time giving him a reason to be near Napoleon.
Late in the morning, when the ships had disgorged their contingent of tourists, it was Octave’s custom to go to the Buono Gusto to find out what was happening. He kept his ears pricked. He sometimes engaged in banal conversation with anyone who spoke French. The Via Gran Bastione had been recobbled, and tables had been placed outside the café, which was always full. The landlord had bought his neighbours’ house so he could rent rooms at outlandish prices; he never complained about His Majesty - oh no - and neither did Gianna. She had other girls to help her now, including her sister. With their short, brightly coloured skirts they effortlessly titillated the customers.
At the Buono Gusto now Octave looked for a seat, but couldn’t find one. Gianna was chatting in dialect with some Tuscans. She was wearing shoes, and a gleaming bracelet flashed on her wrist.
‘Where did you get the jewellery?’
‘Someone nicer than you,’ she replied to Octave in his own language
&n
bsp; ‘Oh? So you’re having a go at speaking French, then, Gianna?’
‘I learn from a officer.’
‘More than one, isn’t that right?’
‘Lasciami!’
Grumbling to himself - Monsieur Pons’s predictions even involved the girls of the port; the money of the sailors and the foreigners seemed easy, never again would he see Gianna without giving her presents, but her venality stripped her of some of her charm, and of the illusion that she liked him just for himself - Octave went down to the docks.
‘The air of Portoferraio,’ said the mine administrator, ‘will become just as vicious as the air at the Palace of Versailles, you’ll see!’
Octave had already seen, but he was not interested in jeremiads, turning his attention instead to a Neapolitan frigate that had arrived the previous evening. Parcels were piled in front of a platoon of suspicious grenadiers of the Guard supplementing the contingent of customs officers. That was something else that had changed: Cambronne had managed to transport his battalion across France and over the Italian coast; his 600 grognards had come to replace Dalesme’s garrison, most of which had returned to the metropolis. Cambronne’s fine fellows, employed on tasks that were less than warlike, sweated beneath their fur hats and intensified their zeal, roughly interrogating an Elban who had taken delivery of a mountain of barrels. Seeing Octave, the man waved wildly at him.
‘Monsieur Sénécal! Come and tell them who I am!’
Octave picked his way through the barrels and sacks of grain. Like everyone else, he knew the merchant, a man just short of middle age, five feet tall, with a round face and a flat nose, and very black hair. His name was Alessandro Forli, and he made oil with olives he bought from the farmer Vantini.
‘Are you having problems, Monsieur Forli?’
Napoleon's Exile Page 18
