Duval and the Italian Opera Singer

by Michele McGrath

  I didn’t have time to argue with her and I was grateful for her help. I did make the mistake of pointing out her condition and that really made her angry. I spent the rest of the journey calming her down and I was heartily glad when we arrived at the Ministry at last. It is not often my wife takes it into her head to oppose me. When she does, it is better to back down immediately and let her have her way.

  Her mood had not softened when we reached Réal’s office and he looked a bit startled when he saw her. He shot to his feet as she walked through the door holding Marco by the hand. She had made a great difference in the boy’s appearance in the short time since I had left him with her. He was washed and his dark straight hair had been brushed until it gleamed. From somewhere she had found him a jacket, breeches and a white shirt. His shoes had been polished and his stockings clean. It was obvious that the two of them got on well together because Marco was clinging to her and smiling whenever she smiled at him.

  “You remember my wife, Réal?” I said to him. “She has been looking after Marco for me.”

  “Of course. How do you do, Madame Duval?”

  Fouché must have heard her voice and wondered because, for once, he came out of his room rather than wait for us to be shown in. He stood with his hand still on the door knob, looking down at Marco, an arrested expression on his face.

  “So this is the young man in question?” he asked.

  “This is Marco Contini, Monseigneur,” I confirmed.

  “Make your bow please, Marco,” Eugénie said and showed him what to do. He copied her and I caught an amused glance pass between Fouché and his deputy over her head.

  “He is very like. You have not found his mother?”

  “Not yet, unfortunately.”

  “Well, this cannot wait. The Emperor has given instructions that the boy had to be taken to him at once. Réal, send the messenger for the carriage if you please.” He turned to us. “Madame Duval, Duval, come with me.”

  Eugénie looked horrified. “But I am not dressed to visit the Emperor, Monseigneur,” she spluttered.

  “You look charming, Madame and, in any case, I am sure that the Emperor will be only too happy to see you under these circumstances.” I did not know that Fouché could be so pleasant, but then I rarely meet him in feminine company. He offered Eugénie his arm and she took it! I’ll tease her about it when we are alone, I thought, trying not to let the smile show on my face.

  We arrived in the Tuileries and Fouché, who is, of course, well known there, had no difficulty in securing our admission to the Emperor’s inner sanctum. I must admit I was wondering how he would respond to the boy. We were shown into an anteroom and asked to wait for a few moments while the Emperor was informed of our presence. I explained carefully to Marco in Italian how his Mamma would expect him to behave. I did not tell him that he would be meeting the man who might be his father. Time enough for that if the Emperor chose to acknowledge him.

  We were kept waiting so long that Fouché became impatient. He is not inured to it as we are. No one except the Emperor would dare to deny him immediate access wherever he wanted to go. Fouché started to frown and to walk up and down the room. Eugénie was sitting on a coach, playing with Marco and making me translate some nursery rhymes to amuse him. She was on edge, I could tell, for occasionally her voice trembled. No one who did not know her well would have noticed, but I did. I put my hand over hers and she smiled at me.

  When the page came to show us in to the Emperor, the reason for the delay was immediately obvious. He was not alone. An elderly lady wearing a turban decorated with nodding feathers, sat beside him. I had to stifle a gasp as I realised who she was — Madame Mère, the Emperor’s mother. She was recognisable, even though the engravings of her in the Moniteur are terrible. She looks like a harpy in those but, in reality, her face is much softer and she has laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. Eugénie and I followed Fouché into the room, with Marco between us. We bowed and Eugénie curtseyed as well as she could in her condition. Thank goodness she had the sense not to use the full court curtsey — she would never have been able to rise again without help. As it happened, neither the Emperor nor his mother was looking at her. As soon as Marco raised his head from his bow, Madame Mère half rose; her hand going to her lips.

  “Oh, Napoléone!” she exclaimed.

  The Emperor came forward and dropped onto one knee before Marco, taking his hand.

  “Hello my boy,” he said in Italian. “Come and meet my mother.” He led Marco up to the old lady who stroked his hair with trembling fingers. I cannot remember all the words they spoke to each other, yet they were joyous. We were treated to the unusual sight of the Emperor of the French bouncing a little boy on his knee and tickling him until he giggled. I remember one snippet of conversation when the Emperor asked,

  “What do you want to do when you grow up Marco?”

  “I’m going to be a soldier like my father,” he replied and looked bewildered when everybody laughed.

  “How do you know he was a soldier?”

  “Mamma told me. She said he had a fine horse and a sword. He wore a green coat and had a big black hat.”

  “Did he indeed? Well perhaps you had better become a soldier then.” The Emperor turned to his mother. “Well, Mamma?”

  Her eyes were full of tears as she answered,

  “He is the image of you at the same age. Look, Napoléone, he has the very same fingers and grey eyes that change to blue. Come to me Marco.” Marco came and stood in front of her. She slipped her hand inside his jacket and pressed hard on the left side of his chest.

  “I cannot find his heart beat.” She looked intently at the Emperor. The room fell silent for a few moments and the tension seemed unbearable.

  Then I blurted out, “Is that important, highness?”

  Madame Mère jumped. I think she had forgotten there were others present. It was the Emperor who answered me,

  “I cannot feel my heartbeat either, Duval.”

  Instinctively my hand went to my own breast and felt a distinct thump. A doctor once showed me after a battle how to find for the vessels in the wrist and the neck that show whether a man is dead or not.

  “May I test this, Sire, on both Marco and yourself?”

  He smiled. “I did not know you were a physician, Duval.”

  “I’m not, but a doctor told me how to check whether someone is still alive. It was on the battlefield at Rimini.”

  His eyes glazed for a moment as he remembered the battle and then he asked, “How?”

  “The vessels in the wrist pulse with the beat of the heart.”

  He immediately held out his arm to me. I pushed his sleeve aside and ran my fingers over his skin. Although I poked and prodded, the vessels were buried too deep for me to find them.

  “What’s going on?” Fouché asked and I suddenly realised that none of my companions had understood the exchange, which had been carried out in rapid Italian.

  “A test, no more,” the Emperor told him, reverting to French.

  “I can find nothing, Sire,” I said and he nodded. “Marco, give me your arm for a second.” Marco held out his hand and I performed the same action. “I can’t find Marco’s pulse either, Sire.”

  The Emperor smiled. “Even Doctor Corvisart has trouble with mine at times. So you think Marco is my son because you cannot find our heartbeats?”

  “It is an unusual characteristic, Sire, and one you appear to share. I have never heard of such a thing before.”

  “Your father was just the same,” Madame Mère said. “I sometimes thought he had died, so I used to hold a mirror to his nose to check that he was still breathing.”

  “Well, Mamma, is he or isn’t he?”

  She looked hard at him. “If you were with his mother at the right time, then there is every chance that he is yours.” Her smile suddenly lit up her face. “You have finally given me a grandson at last.”

  The Emperor ran a hand over his eyes and muttere
d something which might have been “Thank God.”

  Chapter 11

  Things happened fast after that. Eugénie, Marco and I were driven home in a carriage which had a crest emblazoned on its doors. A soldier of the Imperial Guards had been sent with us. He had orders to stay with us until Carla was found and new arrangements had been made for both mother and son. The Emperor told him ‘to guard Marco with his life’. I was to find Carla as soon as possible and to make the search my priority. Eugénie pulled a face when she realised that our protector would be in our home for a while but Jules seemed to be a pleasant fellow, for all his enormous size. I liked the arrangement, for he would also be able to watch Eugénie for me. She was moving awkwardly so near her time. People are too fond of telling you harrowing tales about second babies arriving so quickly that nothing is prepared. No wonder I worried about her.

  We had just got into the apartment and Eugénie was putting Marco to bed when someone knocked on the door. It was Lefebvre. Although we are close friends, it is unusual for him to call on me at such a late hour and with no warning. One look at his face told me something important had happened. I thrust him into a chair and gave him a glass of brandy before I asked,

  “What is it?”

  “Charles Evrard’s dead.”

  “What!” I leapt to my feet.

  Eugénie put her head around the bedroom door and hissed, “Be quiet! You’ll wake Marco. I’ve only just got him to sleep.” She disappeared again.

  “Do you want me to wait outside, Monsieur, while you talk to your friend?” Jules asked. I looked at Lefebvre, who shrugged.

  “It’ll be all over the Ministry by morning anyway, but who is this young man, Soldier?”

  “A guard for Eugénie and the boy. His name is Jules. This is my friend Jean Lefebvre. He is to have access to this apartment at all times and if he gives you an order, you are to obey it,” I told him.

  “D’accord.”

  Lefebvre held out his hand and Jules shook it.

  “Odd that you need a bodyguard, Alain.”

  “I don’t. It is the Emperor’s idea. Stop hesitating and tell me. How did Evrard die?”

  “He hung himself.”

  “How? With what?”

  “He tore his shirt into pieces and tied it to one of the cross beams. I only left the room for a short while to talk to Fournier. It’s my fault because I untied his hands but I never thought he’d take his own life.”

  “Merde! What did you say to him that made him kill himself?”

  “The usual. I talked about the guillotine and the Emperor’s reaction to his crime. We often blather on like that, as you know. It usually works and they crack but they don’t commit suicide. I didn’t realise how scared he really was. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. I’d have done the same myself. Just a pity you didn’t go back into the cell sooner, you might have saved him.”

  “At least it proves his guilt, as if we needed further proof.”

  “Did you get anything further at Les Halles?”

  “Now here’s the strange thing, Soldier, I did or I should say Fournier did. He was lucky and went into the right tavern. Jacques Evrard is well known as a bruiser in the district. Do you remember our old friend Christophe that journeyman at the jewellers’ on our last caper? Jacques is like him. They say he beats up people for money.”

  “A different type from his brother then?”

  “Very different. You wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night when he has a club in his hand. Apparently he’s vicious although he doesn’t look it.”

  I grinned. Before I had turned twenty, I’d learned exactly how to dispose of bruisers with clubs whatever the time of day. Otherwise I wouldn’t have survived and I’ve never forgotten my training. The only time I can remember being unprepared was the evening Lefebvre saved my life.

  “Where’s Fournier now?”

  “He told me he’d had a sudden thought and he left me. Said he’d meet me here, later on.”

  I cursed silently at the thought of a sleepless night, but it couldn’t be helped. When someone knocked at the door, I thought it was Fournier arriving but it wasn’t. Another large guardsman had come to relieve Jules. The Emperor was serious in giving us protection. This new soldier was called Antoine. He appeared to be a little older than his colleague. Apparently he had orders to alternate with Jules. Since it was the very late by now, I suggested to Jules that he should curl up in a corner. Four hours off, on a bleak night, does not give one much time to do anything other than sleep. He accepted my suggestion and it was not long before he started to snore. Eugénie and Marco went into the other room while Lefebvre and I dozed by the fire. From time to time, Antoine got up to check the bedroom and then walked down the flights of stairs, to find out if there was anybody about. He proved to be a conscientious man, someone I would have been pleased to have in my platoon when I was in the army.

  The first rays of sun had started to filter through the clouds when Antoine went to the door. I was startled to see that he held his unsheathed sword in his fist. I rose to my feet, picked up my swordstick and stood beside him.

  “What is it?” I breathed in his ear.

  “Footsteps on the stairs. More than one person is coming.”

  I listened hard. Three people, one of them lighter than the others. There was a creak and a shuffle. We drew back, so that we would be hidden for a few seconds when the door opened. A key rattled in the lock. Only my two friends and Eugénie’s mother know where we keep our spare key. It is not in a place most people would use, but concealed under a floorboard some distance from the doorframe. I realised who it must be just as the door was opening, but Antoine lunged before I could stop him. The point of his sword caught the intruder under his chin and the man fell back with a cry. I leapt forward and got between Antoine and his prey.

  “This is my friend, the one I have been waiting for all night,” I shouted and drew Fournier into the room. “Don’t skewer him for the love of God!”

  “Sorry, Monsieur.” Antoine sheathed his sword and went out onto the landing.

  By now everybody in the apartment was awake. I had not thought to keep my voice down and Fournier was cursing loudly. His vocabulary is even worse than mine. A small elderly couple came into the apartment after him. Eugénie was less than pleased we had woken Marco, but in the end she stopped berating us and made coffee.

  “Introduce us to your companions, Claude.”

  “These are Monsieur and Madame Basille. They keep a draper’s shop near Jacques Evrard’s lodgings. They can tell you what has happened.”

  “Please sit down, Madame, Monsieur. I’m sorry you have had such an abrupt welcome to my home.” I showed them to the two seats by the fire and perched on Aimée’s stool while Fournier and Lefebvre sat on the table. After Eugénie had served us, she went back into the bedroom and was busy trying to coax Marco to sleep again. Our two guardians waited discreetly outside while we talked.

  “What have you come to tell us?”

  “It was a day or so ago,” the lady started, casting a glance at her husband who nodded encouragingly. “A carriage drew up next to the building we live in, a very grand affair. We rarely see anything like it in our street.”

  “We weren’t meant to see it,” her husband interrupted. “It was very late. Normally we would be asleep, but I had cramps in my stomach and my wife got up to make me a tisane. I was feeling better and we were just going back to bed when a horse whinnied.”

  “I wondered who it was calling at that time,” Madame Basille said. “It was so unusual, I was curious. So I looked out of the shop window and I saw this big coach with four horses pulling it; the sort of vehicle the Emperor himself might ride in. It was only outside for a moment or two. Two men climbed out and they carried a muffled figure between them. As soon as they went next door, the carriage was driven away.”

  “So I thought, why would people who can afford that sort of a carriage, go into such a building? It’s a ho
vel, Monsieur. You’d never believe the size of the rats we sometimes get in our home because of that place.”

  “I thought the person who they carried inside must be sick, so I sent my husband to ask if I could do anything to help them.”

  “My wife has a reputation for her healing potions,” the man said with a trace of pride in his voice. “She’s better than the doctor who thinks he’s so good curing people.”

  “My mother taught me,” Madame Basille murmured. “She came from the country.”

  “I went into the building. The three of them were going very slowly up the stairs as if they were tiptoeing like dancers. I followed them but I didn’t call out because I didn’t want anyone else to wake up. They stopped and opened a door on the right, then kicked it shut behind them. It didn’t latch properly and left a small crack open. I walked up after them and was about to knock when I hear a murmur of voices and one said to the other something about ‘untying her now’. Well that stopped me knocking as you can imagine.”

  “What did you do?” Lefebvre asked.

  “I started to turn around when the other one asked, ‘what are you going to do with her?’”

  “What was the answer to that?”

  “He said that he would take her to Saint-Cloud the following night.”

  “Saint-Cloud? You’re sure?”

  “That’s what he said. I didn’t stop for more. I got down those stairs as if the hounds of Hell were after me. Then I went home, blew out the candles and bolted the door behind me.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “Me? Why nothing, Monsieur. We didn’t want to get mixed up in a government affair. People who live in palaces can do terrible things to you if you interfere with them. We just want to go on with our lives in peace.”

  “Yes, but you did get mixed up in it, didn’t you?” Fournier prompted them.

  “I’m the curious one, not my husband,” his wife said. “I wanted to find out what was happening to the poor lady. Fancy being tied up and dragged into a place like that! I might have been able to help her. I’ve a friend who lives in that hovel, so the following day, I took some fresh bread as an excuse and listened at the door where the woman had been taken. I heard nothing. I tried the door, ever so carefully but it was locked. Neither Bernard nor I are strong enough to fight off young men, so I realised there was nothing I could do. I went home again. That evening I kept watch to see if anything more happened. After a while, another carriage pulled up to the next house. Not a smart one this time. A man and a woman got in. The woman looked the same size as the one from the night before.”