The Barbed Crown

by William Dietrich

“Unethical compared to the espionage and assassination cabal of Sir Sidney Smith? Who is a man with no ethics of his own? Do you know that his heroic escape in 1798, celebrated in song and novel, was in fact the product of bribes to French officials who wanted him gone?”

  “Certainly not. We’re told he wooed comely women from his Temple Prison window, got word to royalist agents, and made a daring escape with the help of my late friend Phelipeaux, hero of the siege of Acre. People treat him like Robin Hood.”

  “History is just that, Gage, a story, and nothing is more fanciful than a man defying impossible odds. No one escapes Temple Prison without connivance.” That had certainly been true in the case of Astiza and me, when we did so in 1799. “The Directory couldn’t prove allegations of espionage against Smith and found his imprisonment an embarrassment. Yet they couldn’t release him after authorities ballyhooed his capture. Easier for both sides were British bribes to key French jailers, who became conveniently stupid when agents arrived with forged papers. This is how the spy game works. A great deal of skullduggery, and then a satisfactory conclusion for everyone involved. Our business is happier than people think.”

  I conceded the argument. Espionage was like juicing cards, and was all the sneaking about simply a scheme to divert some English gold into everyone’s pockets? I tried to work out my chances while deciding if at least temporarily joining the French as well as British was expedient or suicidal. I do have principles: namely, to protect my family from torture. As government, armies, and businesses become ever larger and more implacable, I’m a leaf in a hurricane, a man among millions trying to make my way home. So I take opportunities as they come, and revise strategy as I go along. “How did you know I was in Paris?”

  “We knew everything, Gage, including when and where you’d land, though we didn’t expect the coastal ambush that allowed you to escape capture. We knew your address shortly after you arrived in Paris, and we’ve followed with curiosity the little you’ve been doing since. As an agent of the British Crown, you are remarkably unproductive. I’d suspect it an American trait, but your mentor Franklin accomplished a great deal.”

  “Ambitious as the devil, and a clever conversationalist. It’s not a fair comparison.”

  “We know what you eat, the romance novels your wife reads, and the box under your son’s bed where he keeps his toys. This is not the chaos under the Directory you once knew. This is the empire. France is organized now.”

  There’s no privacy in our new nineteenth century, it seems. I twisted uncomfortably, trying to figure what I might bargain for. “If you’ve found me out, I’m indeed a poor spy. The British would do the same, would they not, and dismiss my reports as useless? Maybe you should just pack us off to Italy.”

  “Of course they’ll discern you’ve been turned, and like us they won’t care. They’re as conceited as we are, and will believe they can skim useful observations from your abominable character. The fact that everyone treats you like a puppet is your only hope.”

  “It’s being a puppet I’m trying to get away from.”

  “All of us are puppets, Gage. Even an emperor has strings pulled by the millions under him, a mob he must ceaselessly placate. But perhaps a better description is that you serve as a go-between, diplomat, to improve understanding. Do you have a model of a flying machine?” The change in subject was abrupt, and his knowledge disconcerting.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Monsieur Gage, I’m inquiring to save your neck.”

  I cleared my throat. “Then yes, I do. It’s a little golden toy, actually, and not much to learn from in my opinion. I might just melt it down.”

  “France is a ferment of ideas about how to cross the Channel. Martel was working on this. So are many others, including some of our most esteemed savants. Bonaparte is open to each, and thinks that while your character is threadbare, your ingenuity might prove useful.”

  “I am an electrician of sorts. A Freemason, too, though I can never remember the ceremonies.”

  “Listen. I don’t know precisely what happened to Leon Martel, and I don’t care, but don’t pretend he didn’t disappear while in your company. He was a rascal but a useful rascal, so you can save yourself only by taking his place. Every attempt you make to wriggle from Napoleon’s control will only enmesh you deeper. And don’t pretend you don’t know a great deal about flight and firearms. You escaped Egypt in a balloon, worked with Martel to find this Aztec flying machine, and there are even stories you befriended an English scholar of flight named Cayley. Not to mention the American inventor Robert Fulton.”

  “I like smart people.”

  “Bonaparte wants your expertise again. He says you’ve occasionally been unwittingly inspirational, such as provoking his brilliance in crossing the Alps for the Marengo campaign.”

  “He gives me too much credit.” Requisite modesty again. “I did remind him about Hannibal.” Napoleon wanted to see me? And would I accuse him of jeopardizing my family if I did? Should I shoot him and be done with it? Every time I stayed in Paris, life became more complicated. “He’s a difficult chap. Napoleon, I mean. Hannibal, too, I suppose.”

  Réal was impatient. “Should we guillotine you instead?”

  “I am a fount of intriguing ideas. You know, your emperor once gave me a mark of favor.” I pulled the pendant out like a trump card. It was a golden N, surrounded by a golden wreath. “I worked on negotiations for Louisiana and kept pirates from a dangerous weapon.” The trinket glittered.

  “So you’re warming to my proposal.”

  “I’m just trying to save my family.”

  “Napoleon doesn’t fear that you can provide anything truly useful to the British. But he does want your thoughts on military matters. He said you’re a thinker when pressed.”

  “Then perhaps I should earn a thousand francs.”

  “Be prudent, not ridiculous.”

  The trouble with hurling yourself into a conspiracy is that once it collapses, you have few options. I stewed only because my weakness was so humiliating. Then I remembered another possible sign of favor. “By the way, Pasques said Bonaparte wants to give me a present?”

  He scowled. “Yes. A joke of sorts, from one soldier to another. But not a joke, as well.” He picked up a twin-bladed dagger on his desk of the kind a murderer might wield—had it been confiscated?—and used the blade to ring a small brass bell. Another policeman entered, carrying a long package bound in a cotton sheet.

  I perked up. Everyone likes a gift.

  “The emperor said you claim you lost your long rifle to a dragon, a story that has provoked a great deal of amusement at dinner parties.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “He’s decided to offer you a replacement.”

  “A gun?” It was the last thing I expected.

  “More than just a gun. It is, after all, from an emperor.”

  I was presented with a German Jaeger hunting rifle, which had been the Old World inspiration for the Pennsylvania long rifle I’d once brandished. The Prussian weapon is grooved in its barrel like the American version but is shorter, making it easier to carry in brush or on horseback.

  “More indeed,” I admitted. This particular piece was gorgeous, its stock carved with stags and unicorns. “The brass plating is really quite brilliant,” I said. “The entire piece is pretty as a Spanish saddle.”

  “Not brass. Gold, like your pendant.” He watched me like a horse trader.

  Good heavens. A man I’d vowed to kill had just given me a weapon perfectly suited to do it with, and worth a diadem besides? “Solid?”

  “Plated. But more than you could afford.”

  The rifle had the same N with engraved laurel wreath, I saw. The generosity was embarrassing, the bribe clear, and the arrogance annoying. Pure Napoleon. “You first have me followed and then trust me with this weapon?”

  “Rest
assured it’s unloaded.” The tone was dry. “And men like Napoleon never give without expecting something in return. You know that. The emperor actually does want your advice about tactics and aerial maneuvers. And he thinks you’ve become confused about what each side stands for. Therefore, he commands you and your wife to attend him in the first public display of imperial ceremony.”

  “Astiza as well?”

  “He’s created a new Legion of Honor to which every Frenchman will aspire, and he’s betting it will remind you of what the new France is all about.”

  “And what is it you are about again?”

  “Reforming Europe, restoring honor, and institutionalizing ideals. This country is the future, Monsieur Gage. And despite your transgressions, you’re still invited to be a part of it.” He looked stern. “The British are about to be conquered. You would do well to ponder which side you want to be on when the tricolor flies over London.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The unveiling of Napoleonic pomp and glory came with the smell of sawdust. Adjacent to the gigantic Invalides—the Bourbon hospital for wounded soldiers that was also a church, then a “Temple of Mars” under the revolution, and now a marble stage for national pageantry—was a new, makeshift shipyard for boats being built for the invasion of England.

  While larger craft were under construction on the Channel, the Seine was being used to build the péniche, sixty feet long and ten wide, which was capable of carrying sixty-six soldiers and two howitzers. The completed vessels would be floated down the river to Le Havre, then up to Channel ports to join the armada being assembled for attack. On July 15, 1804, when Napoleon’s Legion of Honor was ceremonially inaugurated, many of the boats were still half planked, ribs jutting like combs and guards posted to prevent thievery of firewood. Royal woodlands were being cut to build an invasion fleet of at least two thousand landing craft, fifty of them here.

  The line of cradled péniche was a fist of war made visible. War’s glory was a bombastic parade of flags, military bands, saluting cannon, church hymn, and tramping boots on a scale Paris had never seen. As first consul, Napoleon had taken care to appear as a modestly uniformed democrat, a Gallic Thomas Jefferson. But France was not Virginia, and French passion isn’t ignited by modesty. So while it was still half a year before Bonaparte’s papal coronation would give the general a crown, the newly elected emperor put on a show.

  “Vive l’empereur!” came the answering roar.

  Napoleon rode across the Seine in an open golden carriage, Josephine in a white coach behind. Plumed and helmeted cuirassiers rode escort while infantry lined the route with bayonet and banners. Cavalry breastplates shone like mirrors. Sabers were blades of light. Pennants bobbed as chargers trotted. A hundred drummers thundered welcome. Field gun salutes covered the river in a fog of smoke.

  No would-be assassin could come near the elevated warlord. I watched Napoleon approach our crowd of dignitaries at the Invalides with wonder and envy, mystified that Astiza and I had been invited at all. The policeman Pasques was our towering escort. Catherine had reluctantly agreed to watch Harry in return for my bargaining to spare her from torture and prison. “I’ll take you to the next one,” I promised.

  “They put me in a cell and peered at me as if I were an animal,” she recounted. “They treated me as if I were common.”

  “But now they want something, and our fortunes have turned,” I said, secretly doubting my own optimism. When authorities notice, trouble sticks like tar.

  “You see how France loves our new emperor?” Pasques now asked. “Conspirators fear his genius, and the people adore his ambition. If you can persuade the British of his popularity, they’ll give up on the Bourbons and avoid a lot of killing. It’s a noble cause you’ve enlisted in, Monsieur Gage.”

  I avoided responding. “It looks damn costly to have a king back,” I said instead. Napoleon was already reputed to have 250 servants, including 64 footmen. “Jefferson is cheaper.”

  “On the contrary, Bonaparte saves money by preventing chaos.”

  “He provides spectacle like the pharaohs and Caesars he hopes to emulate,” Astiza assessed. “Bread, circuses, and a new trinket for his soldiers.”

  Pasques frowned. He trusted my wife even less than he trusted me.

  When I told Astiza of my uncomfortable interview with Réal, she’d been sober and realistic, advising me to play along until “fate shows a way.” While Comtesse Marceau had been given the taste of a cell, Astiza and Harry had been detained in an office. Far from threatening Harry with hot tongs, a police recruit gave my boy a top to play with and let him keep it. I realized that Réal’s threats had probably been exaggerated.

  Astiza said our invitation to the Legion of Honor was as intriguing as it was unavoidable. “I’m as curious as anyone.”

  So how was I to regard the godlike Napoleon, who’d once chatted with me on an Egyptian beach and given me my future wife after bombarding her house? He seemed as remote as a deity now. His Mameluke bodyguard Roustan Raza, a gift from Egypt, was proud as a centaur as he trotted behind the carriage in turban, Greek costume, and curved scimitar. An entire company of these Oriental warriors followed. There were Georgian giants from the Caucasus, Abyssinian blacks, expert Arab horsemen from Syria, and sharpshooters from Malta, all recruited in Egypt and sworn to defend Napoleon with their lives.

  The emperor’s real protection wasn’t his soldiers or bodyguards, however. It was the cordon of cheering French who lined the parade route in relief and hope. The long dark years of the revolution were over. I saw not a single jeering or sullen face amid the masses chanting Vive l’empereur! As intended, the conformity was intimidating. I’d been conspiring against a man who’d just won more than 99 percent of the popular vote. Still only thirty-four years old, he wasn’t just the most powerful man in France, he was the most powerful man in the world.

  Madness.

  It didn’t help that Napoleon’s appointees were making the order of things clear. “Severity but humanity!” Dubois had proclaimed in writing when appointed Paris prefect of police five days before. “My eye shall penetrate the innermost recesses of the criminal’s soul, but my ear shall be open to the cries of innocence and even the groans of repentance . . .”

  My old foe Fouché had been reinstated as head of the national police that same day. He’d first been reminded by Napoleon that he could fall, and now was reminded that, under Napoleon, he could rise again.

  So be it. I wasn’t about to martyr myself and leave my family bereft; that’s for men with greater conviction than me. So I’d convey news to England they already knew by reading French newspapers: namely, that the man they feared most was the most popular French hero since Roland and Joan of Arc. I’d once more play the murky role of double agent, never quite belonging to anyone but myself, and deciding at each crisis which path to take. My wife would search for tidbits in the ossuaries of musty records. And we’d wait for opportunity to . . .

  What? Somehow undermine Napoleon’s legitimacy, as Catherine had urged. It seemed a futile goal.

  I glanced at Pasques, but he wasn’t even watching us. Like everyone else he had eyes only for the emperor.

  The triumphant procession commemorated a new medal of merit. The Legion of Honor was roughly modeled on the Roman legion, but it was an honorary fraternity of the best of France, a pantheon that all men could, and should, aspire to. Inductees had to either achieve something outstanding or serve the state for at least twenty-five years. It was open not only to soldiers but to scientists, inventors, artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and explorers. No women, of course.

  Today was public demonstration of the society of merit Napoleon had in mind for France and Europe. Granted was prestige without the requirement of high birth. I’ve never seen a more baffling juxtaposition of symbols. Here crippled veterans and bright young scientists alike would be given democratic honor by a man more absolute th
an former kings. All human situations have their inconsistencies, Franklin had observed.

  With Napoleon’s arrival we went inside the Invalides, its brilliantly white arched church a sumptuous backdrop for political opera. Dark-suited senators and deputies occupied the front rows of temporarily erected tiers of seats, as if elected representatives still mattered. Colonels, society ladies, contractors, savants, and artists sat in rows behind, looking down as if on an athletic contest. The main floor was jammed with the new legionnaires and the most favored generals, bishops, and ministers. An altar was ringed by Catholic clergy with splendid gowns and mitered hats, demonstrating Napoleon’s astute recruitment of the Church. The prelates were led by ninety-four-year-old Cardinal Jean-Baptiste de Belloy, who won the post by supporting the new regime and who’d moved into the Archbishop’s Palace next to Notre Dame.

  The Invalides church was dominated by Napoleon, not God. Green-carpeted steps, the color of Corsica, led to a scarlet-and-gold armchair that was the day’s throne, the elevated perch canopied by a red awning gaudily crowned with ostrich plumes and a gilded imperial eagle. Standing below on the nave floor were the milling honorees. Grizzled grenadiers boasted imposing mustaches. Rising generals sported muttonchop whiskers. Courtiers and diplomats sneezed bits of snuff into lace handkerchiefs: Napoleon himself used two pounds of the inhaled tobacco a week. Male hair was in transition from powdered wig to the revolutionary pigtail and on to the newly fashionable “Titus cut” of short curls combed over the forehead. Napoleon’s youthful curtain of shoulder-length hair had been clipped to this Roman fashion to disguise a prematurely receding hairline.

  There were also enough epaulettes, medals, velvets, silks, and leathers to outfit a dozen American armies. Here in Paris men could be peacocks, strutting in uniforms costing a year of laborer wages. How brilliantly they would ride into battle! They had the gusto of survivors from the catastrophe of revolution. It had been computed that of the original 1,080 members of the Convention after the fall of King Louis, 151 revolutionaries had been executed or murdered, had committed suicide, or had been driven into exile. Those remaining felt reprieved.