‘Do you think we’ll be able to quash the rumour?’ asked Bertrand.
‘Once a rumour is out, you can’t hush it up, your grace ...’
‘Nonetheless, Madame Walewska won’t be able to play the part of the Empress!’
‘I can try to put the gossips on the wrong track ...’
‘Do as you wish, Monsieur Sénécal, but sort this matter out! Come and see me in two hours in the Imperial stables.’
On the parade ground, the townspeople were already hanging Chinese lanterns from the branches of the chestnut trees. Octave walked towards the deputy, who was in charge of the operation.
‘These illuminations are premature, Monsieur Hutré.’
‘What? You mean the good news is bad?’
‘Somewhere in between ...’
‘Is it the Empress or is it not?’
‘Yes, it is she, with her son, aboard the Neapolitan ship, but they will not be staying for long.’
‘What?’
‘They’re stopping here briefly before going to Parma, or Rome, I can’t remember, but anyway, they’ll be back this winter when everything is ready to welcome them properly.’
The mayor’s deputy, crestfallen, indicated that he understood, but added, ‘How are we going to explain this disappointment to our compatriots?’
‘Simple. You need only take down your lanterns, and when the people ask you why, you will tell them what I have just said to you.’
‘They’ll never believe me.’
‘Lower your voice. Say to anyone who asks, “Just don’t repeat it.” In an instant, the whole island will know.’
*
A coach and four was waiting in an olive grove, near the hamlet of San Giovanni beside the bay. The coachman and his valets, lying in a heap in the shade of the coach, were drinking warm water from a leather bottle, passing it from hand to hand. Further away, saddled horses and mules were tethered to tree-trunks. On the pebbly beach, meanwhile, Bertrand and Octave stood about kicking their heels.
As dusk fell, Bertrand used his tinderbox to light a wood fire, already prepared on the shore. At that sign, a launch was lowered from the ship that lay a hundred yards off the coast. There was not a breath of wind, and the only sound that could be heard was the oars dipping rhythmically into the calm water. The coachman had sat back on the bench, and the valets were untethering the horses and the mules; Count Bertrand walked beside the waves, holding a lantern. The sailors, meanwhile, had reached the shore, carrying the first of the passengers, lest she wet the hem of her grey faille dress. Her face was hidden by a little veil, but Bertrand recognized her frail figure, her manners and her way of holding her son by the hand - it was Marie. Next came her sister Emilie, then Teodor, her brother, soaked to the knees.
They wasted no time. Once their luggage had been tied on to the back of the mules, they drove along the shore, two grooms pointing the way with their lanterns. Cliffs, valleys and hills, for two hours; a vineyard, lined with cactuses, led down to a creek. The procession passed through the village of Biadola and stopped further along, on the road to Proccio, where a lantern was seen swinging in the darkness. The Emperor, seated on his horse and wearing his ordinary colonel’s uniform, handed the light to a lancer escort, before dismounting and opening the door of his berlin. Marie lifted her veil and Napoleon kissed her hand, hugged little Alexandre, their son - who barely stirred from his sleep — and greeted Teodor and young Emilie. The caravan then continued at a trot, trusting to the moon and the pale glow of the lanterns.
Not long after midnight, in Marciana Alta, the party had to abandon the berlin to make their way down a track of flat stones with streamlets trickling through it. Napoleon took little Alexandre, who might easily have been mistaken for the King of Rome, and wedged the sleeping child between his fat belly and the saddle. On they rode in file, the Emperor and the ladies on mules, the men on foot carrying torches. Finally, at the end of a tunnel of chestnut trees they emerged outside the hermitage of the Madonna. The chapel’s crenellated bell-tower, with its Moorish arrow-slits, stood out against the moon. There was no sound, except for the fountains bubbling in their sculpted basins. All the birds were sleeping. The air was mild, and smelled of mint and turpentine. The Imperial tent was set up outside. Supper awaited the travellers.
Sitting at table by torchlight, they talked of their crossing, the calm of the island, the late summer heat. Napoleon complimented young Emilie, who, despite his famous uniform, thought he looked like a large landowner. The Emperor said to Marie Walewska: ‘Countess, why would your sister not marry a French officer?’ They laughed, ate and drank cool drinks. Raised up on cushions, little Alexandre sat sleepily on his armchair, and his father teased him.
‘Let me eat!’ the child protested with his mouth full. His directness amused everyone, but Napoleon had eyes only for Marie, blonde and graceful, an ermine scarf around her shoulders. She was to take the waters at Lucca or Pisa, she had not yet made up her mind, she said - but in fact she was going to Italy for the sake of Alexandre, who had come into an endowment in the kingdom of Naples. (Marie was planning to visit Murat: he was the one who was responsible for Marie’s relationship with Napoleon, for it was he who had selected her to distract the Emperor during the rainy winter of 1806 in Warsaw. Now she wanted Murat to give her the payment due to her son, and ensure that he did not sequester the income previously granted by the Emperor.)
Eventually everyone withdrew, tired after a long day; the visitors to the modest bedrooms of the hermitage - the caretaker having been relegated to the cellar - and Napoleon and Bertrand to their tent. Everyone else, the chamberlain, the valets and the guards, climbed down the path to Marciana, while Octave chose to spend the night under the open sky, more or less, to keep watch on the surrounding area from one of the wooden workmen’s huts that lined the route of the village’s annual procession, and which were used as storehouses for the rest of the year. When rain started falling, gently at first, but soon turning into a storm, he was happily sheltered from the lightning and the rain.
*
‘Sénécal!’
Napoleon came out of his tent half dressed. Octave came running, with shaving foam on his chin.
‘Where were you?’
‘Sire, I was shaving in the sacristy.’
‘In the sacristy? Scoundrel! Hurry up, we’re going to Marciana.’
No doubt he planned to visit Madame Mère, and Octave wielded his cut-throat razor with such haste that he nicked one of his cheeks, cursing and splashing himself with spring water. Just as he reached the tent, Dr Foureau de Beauregard was arriving astride a donkey. He was glistening and red in the face; a handkerchief protruded from his hat to shield the back of his neck from the sun. He proffered his services in a distinguished voice.
‘Sire, here I am.’
‘Unfortunately, so I see!’
‘I thought the queen and the heir to the throne might need a doctor.’
‘They’re absolutely fine. But how do you know they are with me?’
‘I have ears, sire, and good eyes. The inhabitants of Portoferraio are talking only of this, and are preparing their reception as we speak.’
Napoleon turned to Octave. ‘The Grand Marshal swore to me that you had sorted this problem out, and yet the gossips are still at it?’
‘I tried to throw them off course, sire.’
‘And where is the Grand Marshal?’
‘Count Bertrand has joined his wife in town, sire; she may be about to give birth ...’
‘I had forgotten. Go and get me Count Alexandre.’
Octave slipped into the hermitage and reappeared with the child, who was pouting just as his father did. The Emperor sat down on a chair he’d placed in the grass, and took his son on his knees.
‘What do you think of him, you charlatan?’
‘The King has grown ...’
‘Go back to town and don’t talk to anyone. The boy and his mother must set off again, but they will be back.’
Nonetheless, the doctor’s visit changed the plan, and there was no longer any question of going down to Marciana. The meal, cooked in Madame Mère’s residence, was already being carried up from the village in large baskets strapped to the backs of mules. Traditi, the Mayor of Portoferraio, led the food convoy; he had been promoted to chamberlain, and his breast swelled in his new embroidered costume. They lunched in the tent, His Majesty carving the meat like a bourgeois entertaining in his country retreat. The conversation remained determinedly trivial - much was said, but it was all about nothing - and the Emperor left before dessert because he needed to be alone.
Accompanied by a batman and one of the grenadiers in charge of security, Octave watched after his master, not losing sight of him until the moment he entered the chapel. It was there, at about one in the afternoon, that the chamberlain brought the Emperor his son and Countess Walewska as he had requested. Soon afterwards, Octave saw them emerging together. Marie had opened her umbrella, and the Emperor carried little Alexandre on his shoulders. They walked up a path lined with the bright green prickly pears that grew in the dry earth among the rocks; they breathed in the perfume of late mauve cyclamens, and walked like any family taking a Sunday stroll.
Alone, and spied upon only from a distance, they were neither sovereign nor countess, they spoke without protocol, which is to say that Napoleon set off on long monologues inspired by the landscape of his tiny kingdom.
‘These colours, these smells, are Corsica, Marie. If you had any idea how lost I was the first time my father dispatched Joseph and me to the Continent. We were very isolated, but he was older than I and destined for the seminary. I was not then ten, and locked away in a boarding school, in Autun, to learn French, which I didn’t speak at all. No orange trees flowered in the spring, there were no mountains, there was no sun, no scrubland smell. We ate heavy meat, drowned in brown gravy to hide the fact it had gone off. I was puny and wild, I wanted to run in the forest, I wanted to throw stones. The others laughed at my small size and my accent; oh, Marie, how I loathed the French!’
They had reached the promontory from which Corsica could be seen, to the left Capraja, on the right Pianosa, and far behind, Montecristo. ‘From Bastia too,’ Napoleon said, ‘you can make out the islands.’ A strong breeze gusted in from the sea, and, on the way back, the Emperor interrogated his son, who was striking the bracken with a switch.
‘Do you have any friends, Alexandre?’
‘He is as serious and solitary as you were,’ his mother replied.
‘Which do you prefer, learning to read or horse-riding?’
‘I have a little horse, but I’ve fallen off it twice.’
‘I’ve fallen off a horse as well.’
‘But if you fall it’s not the same.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I don’t get hurt.’
The Emperor burst out laughing, as he did only with children. He had often surrounded himself with them, especially in Saint-Cloud, where they had played around him as he had his lunch - first his official son, who was allowed to get away with anything, and who was allowed to drink the Emperor’s Chambertin mixed with water, and then his nephews, whom he enjoyed teasing. Everyone at the palace knew that if you wanted something done, the best idea was to send a child. Napoleon continued interrogating Alexandre.
‘I’m told you never mention my name in your prayers?’
‘Never.’
‘So you never think of me?’
‘Yes, I do, but I say “Emperor Papa”.’
Napoleon opened the box of sweets that he always carried in his pocket, and took out: a piece of liquorice.
‘I want some too!’ said Alexandre.
‘You won’t like the flavour.’
‘I will!’
The child took a piece of liquorice and spat it out, but when the Emperor laughed at him he got annoyed.
‘I want to try it, to find out if I like it or not!’
‘He’s quite right,’ said Napoleon to Marie. ‘Splendid fellow!’
The family continued on its walk, calmly bantering. Down below, a shepherd was guiding his flock. Napoleon called to him and the man ran away.
‘Did you frighten him?’ Alexandre asked in surprise.
‘I frighten lots of people, you know...’
‘I’m not afraid of you!’
‘That’s lucky.’
They took advantage of this rare time together by making up games. Alexandre’s parents spent ages pretending to look for him as he hid behind a big round brown rock, then it was the turn of the Countess, the child finding her straight away because her dress was sticking out from behind a pine trunk. As the boy was counting to ten, wrapped in his mother’s arms, the Emperor lay silently beside an enormous clump of tree-like ferns. The boy ran hither and thither calling out to his father. All of a sudden, the Emperor, still prostrate, found himself surrounded by people he had not heard approaching; registering their scarlet breeches with double blue stripes, Napoleon recognized his Polish lancers and said, in a low and very discontented voice, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘We thought Your Majesty had taken a bad fall...’
‘Idiots! Can’t you see I’m busy?’
‘We didn’t know ...’
‘I’m playing hide and seek, and I don’t need you!’
The lancers sheepishly withdrew, but treasurer Peyrusse, who was with them, put his account books down on the moss and helped the Emperor to his feet.
‘Peyrousse! You too! Will you never leave me in peace?’
‘I wanted to give Your Majesty a report on our tax revenue, and the fines that we’re imposing on the prostitutes in the harbour, who are growing considerably more numerous . . .’
‘Couldn’t that wait for a couple of days?’
‘Got you! Got you!’ cried Alexandre, gambolling towards them.
*
At dawn the following morning, Octave went into the tent where the Emperor was calling for him. He had a sore head, because dinner under the chestnut trees, to which he had been invited as a replacement for Bertrand, had gone on for ever. A Polish officer of the lancers had played a nostalgic tune, and the guests had joined together to sing songs that sang the praises of Warsaw and the Vistula. Emilie had danced like an angel, in short boots, and her skirt held up above her knees. Marie had even persuaded the Emperor to dance a mazurka, laughing at his ungainliness.
Once the mists had cleared, Octave found the Emperor in a feverish state; he was waving a letter from Drouot that a dispatch rider had just delivered.
‘Monsieur Sénécal, get me a pen from my case, quickly! Portoferraio is decked with flags and they aren’t allowing the woman they think is the Empress to leave! Even the Guard have signed a petition! It’s infernal! Write!’
‘I’m ready, sire,’ said Octave, pen in the air above a pedestal table.
‘The Neapolitan brig is to head for the high seas.’
‘The ... high ... seas ...’
‘She is to turn to the west...’
‘West...’
‘Follow the coast and heave to off Marciana Marina, three miles from our hermitage.’
‘Hermitage...’
‘No! Stop at the name of the fishing port, cretin! Countess Walewska and her family will leave at nightfall from the nearest port. Copy and send to Drouot.’
Emerging from the tent, Octave stepped aside to let Marie enter.
‘You didn’t tell me you were short of money,’ said Marie.
‘I’m not short of anything,’ replied the Emperor, surprised and brittle.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Ah, you’ve been talking to that damned Peyrousse!’
The Countess set a well-wrapped package on the same pedestal table that Octave had used to write his missive for Drouot.
‘What are you doing, Marie?’
‘Since you’re sending me away, I won’t be wearing these jewels any more.’
‘I’m sending you away?’
‘All right, then, give me a little house, and I’ll stay with our son.’
‘Elba is a village, it’s impossible, you would be the subject of all kinds of awful gossip ...’
‘The Empress and the King of Rome will never join you.’
‘Marie-Louise wants to, and my son is demanding it.’
‘Austria is opposed to it.’
Once the Countess had left, the Emperor opened the package. The cases contained brooches, earrings, bracelets, even the necklace he had given her after the birth of Alexandre. He closed the boxes, and no one saw him again before evening. He had gone hunting, he claimed, with an officer and some guns - but he had found no game, not a single hare, not even a partridge.
Napoleon's Exile Page 21
