"Which does not agree with Pouzin's, or Choundas's, opinions, citoyen" Fourchette pointed out. "They think this Lewrie just lucky, or well-tutored. Un type de poorly educated Anglais officer, one who will do anything to avoid being called 'too clever by half,' n'est-ce pas?"
"Which public face can disguise a wealth of cleverness," Fouchй snapped, ill at ease with what he'd heard so far.
"This Lewrie did run into legal troubles last year," Fourchette told him. "He stole a dozen Nиgres slaves from an Anglais planter he'd duelled with… from the family, that is… to crew his ship, then was tried in absentia and sentenced to be hung, but… the Abolitionists in England got him off."
"Perhaps he is lucky, as well," Fouchй commented.
"Two medals, participated in the battles off Ushant, at Cape Saint Vincent, and Camperdown, and lately at Copenhagen," Fourchette tossed away. "Got sent into the Baltic, alone, to scout the Danish, Swedish, and Russian fleets before the battle… the new Anglais head of their Ministry of Marine is said to have appointed him to the duty directly. It is also rumoured that he carried two Russian nobles home… men who are further rumoured, so the Foreign Ministry dossiers say, to here participated in the assassination of the late Tsar."
"What? Assassination, you say?" Fouchй perked up, going into an instant rage. "How sure are those dossiers, Fourchette?"
"Oh, citoyen… ," Fourchette disparaged, flicking more ash on the floor, "speculative, at best. The Foreign Ministry people whom I talked to about it don't believe the Anglais could ever undertake anything that simple and direct. The Russky aristos most likely wangled a rapid way home, promising a diplomatic solution… so they could be in at the kill, and prosper on their own. That's how Talleyrand and the rest of the Ministry interpret it."
"Talleyrand and his grands lйgumes are a pack of simple fools, Fourchette!" Fouchй barked, rising to pace with his hands in the small of his back, head down, and unconsciously imitating his idol, the new First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. "Limp-wristed, over-educated, closeted aristos, and arrivistes! They would not recognise a rampaging bear in their dining room… They'd call it a hungry foreign visitor with no fine manners such as theirs! You have placed this salaud under observation Fourchette?"
"Since the first moment I spoke with you, citoyen" Fourchette assured him. "A rotating crew of watchers, so he will not take alarm, even should he be here to spy on us, and has been instructed in tradecraft. The concierge at his lodgings reports he and his wife mostly spend their time here in touring cathedrals, palaces, and such, with shopping and dining. The Comйdie Franзaise a few nights ago, accompanied by another Anglais couple, uhm… " -Fourchette had to refer to his notes for a moment-"neither of them are fluent in French, and he is the biggest offender. Both need the aid of bilingual servants and guides for even the simplest exchanges. Hardly what one would expect of a man sent to spy on us," Fourchette said with a shrug and a sniff of derision.
"No, it is not, is it?" Fouchй said, raising his head and ceasing his frenzied pacing, calming as quickly as he'd raged. "What are they doing today?"
"Coaching along the Seine, citoyen" Fourchette told him. "Taking the air. Under observation by at least six watchers."
"Well, then… perhaps…," Fouchй allowed, sitting back down behind his desk and running his heavy hands over his bald pate. "Our terrified Capitaine Choundas… our deluded Citoyenne de Guilleri… both have good cause to seek revenge on this Anglais, and imagine him an agent of the Devil. In so doing, they magnify this Lewrie's cleverness and guile. To get me to do their dirty work, hein?"
"Pardon, citoyen." One of Fouchй's clerks, a fellow much warier of his employer than Fourchette would ever be, tremulously rapped on the half-open door. "You are busy, citoyen? A letter has come from Minister Talleyrand, at the Foreign Ministry?"
"Oui, bring it," Fouchй snapped, waving the man in impatiently and snatching the folded and sealed letter, winking at Fourchette as he did so. "More foolishness from that oily, lame bishop, the lecher. Mon Dieu!" Fouchй exploded a moment later. "Zut alors! Putain! Mort de ma vie! The fucking fools! Get out, get out, get out!" he barked at the little clerk, and threw the letter at Fourchette, startling the wiry younger man to his feet. "At the next levee, two days hence, the First Consul will greet the very man we discuss, Fourchette! They've come up with a piece of diplomatic theatre, in the name of peace, bah!
"The Anglais, this espиce de merde, this fumier, Lewrie, will present to Bonaparte some swords he'd taken from defeated French captains, asking for one of his taken by Napoleon from him years ago! So everyone can applaud and fawn and simper about what good friends we and the sanglants now are! Within the reach of a dagger to Bonaparte, within a point-blank shot of a hidden pistol!"
"Are they mad?" Fourchette exclaimed.
"Non, Fourchette… deluded by their own foolishness," Fouchй accused, eyes darting about the room for something he could smash, and not regret later. "Suddenly, it all makes sense, that this man is a spy, an assassin sent to destroy our head of government, and start the overthrow of the Republic! If the salaud did have a hand in the assassination of the Tsar, last year…! The faithless, perfidious British have sent him to do this."
"Uhm, citoyen… how might he plan to escape, once the deed is done?" Fourchette pointed out after a brief, quiet moment. "And would a man, even a mad Anglais, endanger his wife, as well? If she is here in Paris, will she not be presented with him? I do not see how anyone could be ordered to face certain death for both himself and his woman. And for England to envision such an act, hein? Surely, they know it would mean immediate war."
"Which they might be planning on," Fouchй hotly rasped. "Their army and navy might even now be mobilised, just waiting for news of the success of their murder!"
"Have we seen any sign of that, citoyen?" the more practical spy suggested. Fourchette suspected that Fouchй saw plots where he'd put plots were he in their enemies' shoes, and had spent so many years at sniffing out opposition where there really was no opposition, that he had become as fixated as that dйbile old sailor, Choundas.
Despite what Fourchette publicly espoused about the Revolution and the Republic, he was too pragmatic a fellow to give heart and soul completely; such sentiments-for a fellow who held very few sentiments- were the social oil necessary to keep his delightful career, and gain him plum assignments which guaranteed his steady rise in the Police Nationale. The Committee of Public Safety, the Directory, the Triumvirate, and now the First Consul, Hell… they could bring back a king, an emperor, and he could really care less.
Fouchй, though, Fourchette considered; he owed his life to the continued good health and firm grip on power of his master, Napoleon Bonaparte. Fouchй was his man… for as long as it looked like Bonaparte held sway. After that, perhaps he would jump ship and espouse another leader, but… for now, Fouchй would go to any lengths to protect the fellow. Too devotedly, too slavishly, Fourchette thought him. A cool head was needed here.
"This gars Lewrie wishes to present captured swords? Let us ask for them to be held by the Ministry of Marine 'til the levee," he breezily advised his chief. "Before the presentation, call the fellow aside and check him for weapons. What can he do after that, leap and try to strangle the First Consul, hein? In the meantime, I will keep him under the strictest surveillance, and look into anyone that Lewrie speaks to… for any connexion to reactionary elements, n'est-ce pas?"
"One to keep watch on will be his former lover, the owner of a parfumerie in the Place Victor, a woman… "
"Well, I should hope so," Fourchette japed, "though so many Englishmen prefer boys."
"This is no laughing matter, Fourchette," Fouchй cautioned him. "A Citoyenne Phoebe Aretino. She fled Toulon aboard his ship as our army re-took the city, fled good Republicans with aristos. In fact, assign one of your men to look into her, no matter whether this fumier contacts her or not."
"I will do so, Citoyen Fouchй," Fourchette vowed, and, departed, after stubbing his cigarro o
ut on the fireplace surround. And wondering, if the woman had been Lewrie's lover, would she be entertaining enough and pretty enough to interview himself?
BOOK III
Their hearts battered by this din.
Were torn in two and much afraid.
Flightby land, said one…
The sea is better, said another.
GAIUS PETRONIUS,
THE ROAD TO CROTУN, 330-33
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Napoleon Bonaparte, all-conquering general and the First Consul of France, always rose at dawn, when the brain was keenest. After one cup of tea in his bedroom, he spent an hour in the marble bath tub, in water kept so hot that Constant, his valet who read the morning papers to him, sometimes had to open a door and duck out into the hallway to escape the thick, foggy steam.
"… at the levee this afternoon, the First Consul will receive an embassy from Great Britain, represented by chargй d'affaires Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton, escorting Capitaine de Vaisseau Alan Lewrie of His Britannic Majesty's Navy, and his lady…," Constant intoned.
"A prissy, primping pйdй" Bonaparte grumbled. "A shit in silk stockings. They send me titled boy-fuckers, not a real ambassador… and how long has it been since the peace was ratified? Even though my man, Andrйossy, has been named to them for months? This salaud's old sword had been found?"
"It has, First Consul," Constant told him. "Rustam has it."
"Well, let me see the damned thing," Bonaparte snapped. Usually his steaming bath relaxed him immensely and eased his constant problem of needing to pee, yet being unable for long, impatient minutes. But today, it was one vexation after another.
Rustam, his Mameluke servant brought back from his Egyptian Campaign, stepped closer, dressed in magnificent native garb, holding out a scabbarded sword. "Cleaned and polished, General," Rustam assured.
A hanger-sword, no grander than the sabre-briquet a Grenadier of the Guard might carry on his hip: royal blue scabbard with sterling silver fittings, its only decorative touches being a hand-guard shaped like a sea-shell, silver wire wound round its blue shark-skin grip, and a matching sea-shell catch on the throat to fit it into a baldric, or a sword belt. The pommel was the usual lion's head, also in silver.
"And where the Devil did I get it? Remind me, Constant," Napoleon demanded. Young General Bonaparte had always awed his troops with a steel-trap memory for names, ranks, faces, and past heroic deeds… Unknown to them was his preparation, and prompting by officers on his staff to provide those names, ranks, and deeds.
"Toulon, towards the end of our siege, First Consul," Constant read from notes made in Napoleon's own hand in the inventory of his personal armory. "The British officer was in command of a commandeered French two-decker, lowered by one deck and converted to a mortar ship. She was shelling Fort Le Garde, quite successfully, until you gathered General La Poype's heavy artillery and shelled her in return, scoring a direct hit and blowing her up."
"Ah, oui… now I remember." Napoleon brightened up, enjoying the memory. "The survivors swam ashore, and we rode down to take them prisoner. The officer…?"
"Lewrie, General," Constant provided. "Your note says that despite your offer of parole, he preferred to surrender his sword and go with his men."
"He looked like a drowned rat… but he had hair on his ass." Bonaparte hooted with glee. "Oui, just after I took his sword, those 'yellow-jackets,' Spanish cavalry, approached from Fort Sainte-Marguerite, and we had to scramble for our lives, hawn hawn! It was quite a day, Constant… quite a day. Doesn't look all that valuable, though, to me. Not enough sterling silver to make a tea-pot, really. The blade is more valuable. Unsheathe it, Rustam, aha! Made by Gills's. Even better than Sheffield or Wilkinson, or a German's Kligenthal. Now I see why that Anglais fumier wants it back."
When Napoleon Bonaparte shaved himself (not using a servant to do it), he secretly preferred pearl-handled razor sets smuggled in from Birmingham, England, since French steel could not take so fine an edge.
"Put it where we remember it, Rustam," Bonaparte ordered. "Any more interesting items, Constant?"
"Indeed, First Consul. Shall I continue?"
"Red velvet suit today, General?" Rustam asked.
"Non," Bonaparte decided. "If that preening fop Talleyrand is desirous of a theatric with the Anglais, then I must dress for my part… and I do not wish to portray the smiling, peaceful dunce. No one pulls my strings like a puppet! The British lie, stall, and delay… with such wonderful smiles. They play the same game they did with the Amйricains after they lost the Revolution over there. They keep hold of French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies the same way they kept New York and New England, the settlements on the upper Missouri and Mississippi… on the Amйricain side of the Great Lakes. Do the British even say when they will evacuate Malta, for instance? Pah, they do not!
"Today, Rustam," Napoleon Bonaparte instructed, wiping his face free of sweat with a fresh, dry hand towel, "I will appear more martial… as a sign of my displeasure. Lay out my Colonel of Chasseurs uniform."
Though it was but a short distance from their lodgings in Rue Honorй to the main entrance to the Tuileries Palace, a coach-and-four was de rigueur, laid on by the embassy and Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton.
"Oh, lovely suitings, Captain Lewrie," Sir Anthony gushed once they'd gotten aboard. "You used my tailor? But, of course you did… and Mistress Lewrie, enchanted Your humble servant, Mar'm, and allow me to tender my regrets that we have not, 'til this instance, met. I beg your pardons, but I must also express how lovely you look today, as well. Congratulations. My, won't it be fine, though, as I said to Captain Lewrie, for you to be presented to the First Consul? A day to remember the rest of your lives, aha!"
Stop yer gob, 'fore I do it for ye, Lewrie thought, in no better takings than the first time he'd been exposed to the simpering young twit; Christ, but he will prattle on!
"I am led to understand that a factotum from the First Consul's staff came round to retrieve the swords you are to present to him… All is in order, Captain Lewrie?" Paisley-Templeton enquired.
"Aye, all done," Lewrie told him. "Shifty-lookin' cove."
"You will be thrilled to learn that the First Consul's office sent me a letter, informing me that your old sword has been discovered in Bonaparte's trophy room," Sir Anthony further enthused (languidly), "and will be on-hand to return to you, once the pacific speeches about our new relations are done. Erm… you would not mind looking over a few thoughts that might go down well, were you to express them to the First Consul during the time he gives you, Captain Lewrie?"
"Some actor's lines t'be learned, sir?" Lewrie balked. "Why is this the first I've heard of em?"
"Just a phrase or two, some hopes for a long, continued peace," Paisley-Templeton assured him, producing a sheet of paper from his velvet and embroidered silk coat.
"Well, Hell," Lewrie said with a put-upon sigh, quickly looking them over. "Damn my eyes, sir! Do people… real people ever talk in such stilted fashion?"
"Well, erm…," Sir Anthony daintily objected, blushing a bit.
"Captain Lewrie will phrase things his own way, Sir Anthony," Caroline told the prim diplomat. "With luck, he will be able to get the gist of what you wish said across. Won't you, my dear?"
She was too impressed by the grandness of the occasion to be angry with him today, and sounded almost supportive, as if she'd tease the young fop, too. Almost like a fond wife of long-standing content.
"And, here we are!" Paisley-Templeton said with overt relief as the coach rocked to a stop and a liveried palace lackey opened the kerb-side door. This sea-dog was being a bit too gruff this afternoon for Paisley-Temple ton's liking.
"You do look lovely, Caroline," Lewrie whispered to her as they debarked from the coach, into a sea of onlookers and other attendees garbed in their own grandeur. "Especially so."
That put a broader grin on her face and a twinkle in her eyes as she lifted her head to gaze over the incoming crowd. Lady Imogen
e had done her proud, with a choice of gown in the latest Paris fashion, with the puffy half sleeves, low-cut bodice, and high-waisted style of the moment. Caroline's gown was a delicate light peach colour, trimmed with a waist sash and hemmings of braided gilt and amber twine, with an additional trim of white lace; all carefully attuned to her complexion, her sandy light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. A gilt lamй stole hung on her shoulders, draped over long white gloved arms, and nigh to the bottom hem of the gown. Some of the late Granny Lewrie's gold and diamond jewelry adorned her ears and wrists, while a gold and amber necklace encircled her neck. Her hair was done up in the convoluted Grecian style, with a braided gilt and amber circlet sporting egret plumes bound about her forehead. And, in the style of the times, her gown was racily shimmery semi-opaque, which, in the right light, revealed almost all of a woman's secrets. In Caroline's case, her gown hinted at a woman who, despite three children and a hearty cook, had kept her figure slim and nearly girlish.
She did frown for a second, though, to look down at her feet to see if her white silk knee stockings or gilt lamй slippers had gotten scuffed or stained. Satisfied that all was still well, she looked back up and rewarded both Sir Anthony and Lewrie with another pleased grin.
"Beard the lion in his den?" Lewrie japed in a whisper to her.
"The ogre in his cave," Caroline quipped right back.
"The troll under the bridge," Lewrie added.
"The dragon in his golden lair," she said with a chuckle, and leaned her head close to Lewrie's for a moment.
"Those feathers'll make me sneeze," Lewrie said.
"Pardon, m'sieur. Permettez-moi, s'il vous plaоt," a uniformed officer in the Police Nationale said to Lewrie, once they were in the large formal receiving hall. "Un moment?" the young officer beckoned to draw him into an alcove, away from the others.
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