The Price of Glory (26 page)

“I confess you surprise me,” said Nathan. “I had thought the Royalists were finished. At least in Paris.”

“Not at all.” He looked at Nathan in surprise but he dropped his voice. “There is a great deal of disillusionment with the Revolution, even in Paris. Perhaps especially in Paris. And Paris, you know, is all that matters. No, ideas are all very well, but a Frenchman wishes, above all else, for security—and food in his belly. Food and wine. And to know his job is secure.”

Nathan filled his glass.

“When I was sixteen, I would have fought to the death for Rousseau,” Buonaparte continued. “Now? I tell you frankly, the man was a fool. A simpleton. A Republic of Virtue, with the morals of the French? Pah! And their vices. Absurd! It is a chimera. The French, they have been infatuated with the idea. But it will pass away, like all other ideas. What they want is glory. Glory and the gratification of their vanity. As for liberty, of that they have no conception. Look at the army. They require a master, sir. And the nation is as the army. It must have a head: a head rendered illustrious by glory and not by theories of government, fine phrases, or the talk of idealists, of which the French understand not a whit. Let them have their toys and they will be satisfied. They will amuse themselves and allow themselves to be led.” He frowned in consideration and added, “provided the goal be cleverly disguised.”

Nathan chose his words with care. “So you think they would look to a new king?”

“A king or a more natural, a more inspired leader. For I must tell you, frankly, I have no time for kings. But provide the people with a strong leader …”

“Like Barras … ?”

“Barras! Pah! Have you seen him? Well, I should not be so scornful. He is not without talent but indolent, incredibly indolent, even for a survivor of the old regime. And too inclined to be ruled by his vices—as Paris is ruled by its women. Women, my friend, hold the reins of government and men make fools of themselves for them. Even I.” He lapsed into melancholy. “No, it is beyond hope,” he brooded. “My career is in ruins. My friends have deserted me, my purse is empty, my personal life …” But he sighed and left the details to Nathan's imagination. “Every venture, it appears, is doomed to failure. Indeed, I am become so desperate I am writing a novel.”

Nathan expressed polite interest. “On a military subject?”

“Romantic.”

“Ah.”

“But the hero is a military man, based in part upon myself. It is a tragedy. The tragedy of Eugénie and Clissold. Clissold is me. I think in the end he is going to kill himself. “ He had become so dejected Nathan was moved to offer solace.

“But a man like you, with so much talent …” He floundered. “Surely there is an alternative?”

“To writing?”

“I meant suicide, for I do not scorn writing as a means of consolation, though I am told it often has the opposite effect and it is diffi -cult to make a living from the occupation.”

“And what do you think I should do?”

There was a dangerous glint in his eyes and Nathan recalled that he was quite mad.

“Oh I would not presume to give advice,” he began, “but as an artillery officer, you must have a great knowledge of mathematics, geometry and the like.”

“And how would that advantage me, outside the artillery ?”

“Well, I am sure I cannot say, but often something turns up.” Nathan struggled for inspiration—and found it in an unlikely quarter. “I once knew a man whose greatest ambition was to build bridges, but no-one would let him, so he turned to writing political tracts, with some success. Many people read his works and found them stimulating. He became a great man in America. France, too, for a while, until they locked him up for sedition. Perhaps you know him, for he is still living in Paris. His name is Thomas Paine.”

“I know of him, of course,” Buonarparte admitted with a frown, “but I do not think he is the happiest of men, or the most admired.”

“No.” It occurred to Nathan that Tom Paine was probably not a good example after all. “He served his apprenticeship as a corset maker,” he continued, “so he has always had that to fall back upon, which is useful.”

“Not in Paris,” Buonaparte pointed out. “Not among the women of my acquaintance.”

They reflected upon this in a gloomy silence. But another bottle was procured and the wind became more favourable. The general began to talk eagerly and with great knowledge of other generals including Alexander the Great, which subject carried him in turn to Asia Minor, Egypt and India. He was passionate, he said, about the East. He had a great desire to travel. Indeed, he had just had an offer, he said, to go to Turkey.

Nathan blinked a little. “Why Turkey ?”

“Why not? They wish me to train their artillery. A man could do worse. I will lead an army into the East. Egypt, Persia, India … I am fed up kicking my heels in Paris. I have applied for permission to leave for Istanbul. The moment it is agreed, I am off. “

“Well, I would be very sorry,” Nathan assured him. “The Republic can ill afford to lose a man of such prodigious talent.”

“You think so?” Buonaparte gazed at him soulfully. “Monsieur Ouvrard said you are a great friend to the Republic.”

“I hope I am.”

“Well, if you have any influence at all, tell them to read my report on the invasion of Italy.”

“Of Italy ?”

“It is with the War Offi ce at present. They have only to read it. Italy is the answer to all our troubles. Glory, that is what the French need. Glory and gold. And I can give them both, if only they will listen to me. Imagine, if you will, that this is the Alps …” He reached for the salt but succeeded only in knocking over his glass of wine. He gazed at the spreading stain in comic dismay. A waiter rushed up with a napkin.

“I fear I am too much in drink,” Buonaparte confessed. “We must speak again.”

Nathan became aware of a presence at his shoulder. He looked up, expecting to see one of the waiters, but it was the man who had lingered outside his hotel: the general's aide. He looked at the red stain on the tablecloth and then at Nathan as if it was all his fault, which it probably was.

“Ah, here is the good Junot,” the general announced. “Come to carry me home.”

It appeared that this might be a literal requirement for he staggered to his feet, clutching his chair for support. He flapped a hand in Nathan's direction. “This is Captain, Captain …”

“Turner,” said Nathan, bowing. “At your service.”

“A good man,” said the general. “A very good man. I feel renewed, sir, by your faith in me.” Nathan was nonplussed. “I have seen my star in your eyes, sir. And it is rising in the East.” He squeezed Nathan's arm firmly, but his own gaze was unfocused. He threw his arm around his aide's shoulder. “I believe our fortunes are about to change for the better, my good Junot. But now you must get me to my carriage.”

Junot looked confused.

“I speak in jest, fool.” He rolled his eyes at Nathan. “Just get me to my lodgings, Junot. The carriage can wait for better days.”

Nathan followed them to the door and watched the pair make their way down the street, the general walking unsteadily and discoursing with his aide, doubtless about his plans for the invasion of Italy, or Persia, or wherever his star might guide him. He felt deflated of a sudden with a sense that he was wasting his time in Paris, that Imlay's much-vaunted contacts had led him only to this: lunch with a derelict, washed up on the beach like some half-pay lieutenant, destined to rabbit on endlessly about his ambitions and the injustice of his superiors while his uniform became increasingly threadbare, his speech more incoherent. And then he realised that the general had gone off without his hat. He turned back to retrieve it and walked straight into Benjamin Bennett.

“Well, Captain,” said he, softly, “and what brings you to Paris? Still looking for your missing countess? Or is it something else you have lost?”

I
T IS OF
SOME
ADVANTAGE
to be an American in France,” Bennett declared as they walked in the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace, “as doubtless you will have discovered.”

“More so than being English, assuredly,” Nathan conceded.

And Bennett laughed. He seemed remarkably at ease, in the circumstances, though Nathan detected a certain artifice, entirely in harmony with the fashions of the day. He was dressed much as he had been at La Chaumiere, with the addition of a tall beaver hat and a silver-tipped cane. No-one observing him strolling through the Luxembourg Gardens, Nathan thought, could have imagined him swarming up the rigging of a British ship-of-war in the striped jersey of an able-seaman, or skulking in the marches of the Vendée with a band of Chouans. But then nothing in Paris was as it seemed.

The Luxembourg had been built for Marie de Medici, widowed queen of Henri IV, in the style of a fairytale castle of the Renaissance. After the Revolution it had become a prison. Thomas Paine had been interred here, and Danton and Desmoulins during the time of the Terror. And Nathan, too, on his last visit to the city. Now it looked to be empty, most of its windows broken or boarded, though he could still see bars here and there, and it wore the haunted look of tragedy and loss. The gardens were neglected, though still opened to the public, and a riot of brambles and dog roses clawed their rambling way up the walls.

They walked upon a long terrace overlooking the park lake, its fountain long stilled, its waters clouded: Nathan with his hands clasped behind his back, much as he might have walked his own quarterdeck aboard the
Unicorn,
though not with an able-seaman wearing a beaver hat and carrying a silver-tipped cane. At one end, nearest the palace, a number of men sat playing chess on folding tables set out in the open air.

Nathan kept his explanation simple, as befitted the disparity in their rank. It was not for Bennett to question him, who had once been his captain, though he held Nathan's life in his hands. He had become stranded on the beach at Quiberon, he temporised, and finding himself cut off behind enemy lines, had made his way northward in the guise of an American sea captain called Turner. And so at length came to Paris.

“Doubtless thinking to catch a ship here for Dover or Deal,” Bennett proposed in his mocking drawl.

“I knew a man in Paris, an American, who I thought might be of assistance,” Nathan informed him tersely. “But unfortunately he is away on business.”

“Still, you are not without friends, I find,” Bennett observed. “Indeed, you appear to move in the most exalted of circles.”

“Come now, Bennett,” Nathan rebuked him sternly. “We are both in some way of being incognito. And in your case I see the owl has become something of a peacock.”

Or a songbird, he added silently, for Bennett's finery did not come cheap and he suspected him of selling his services as an informer and peaching on his former associates among the Chouans. But, as Bennett explained it, things were a lot more complicated than that.

His story was that he had fought with the Royalists on the Quiberon peninsula until, abandoned by the British fleet and running out of powder and shot, they had been obliged to surrender to the forces of General Hoche.

“Hoche was generous,” he told Nathan. “At least to begin with. He promised we would be treated leniently and as legitimate prisoners of war. Then Jean-Lambert Tallien returned from Paris—and brought the Terror back with him.”

Tallien, it appeared, had been sent to Brittany as a representative of the National Convention, to keep an eye on the military and ensure its efforts were unimpeded by any lack of Revolutionary zeal. According to Bennett, he had initially given his backing to the policy of reconciliation but then had word from his wife, Thérésa, that his enemies were accusing him of indulgence; or worse, of plotting to restore the monarchy. Fearful of suffering the fate of Robespierre and others who had misread the mood of the Convention, he revoked the promise made by Hoche and embarked on a series of savage reprisals. Hundreds of Royalist prisoners were condemned by military tribunal and shot by firing squad in a field just outside Auray. They included over four hundred nobles of the old regime and many of Bennett's comrades among the Chouans. Bennett himself was saved by his accent. When they discovered he was an American they sent him to Paris to be interrogated by agents of the Committee of General Security.

“They locked me up in the Châtelet,” he told Nathan, “while they figured out what to do with me.”

Nathan was familiar with the Châtelet, the gaunt fortress-prison on the River Seine opposite the île de la Cité. In his previous incarnation as Captain Turner he had seen the insides of three French prisons: the Châtelet being the first, though by no means the worst. It had not been an encouraging start to his career as a British agent and he had no desire to repeat the experience.

“I told them I had been pressed into the British Navy and left on the beach but they knew I had been fighting with the Chouans. I must suppose some of the other prisoners had talked before they were shot. I demanded to see the American ambassador but they said I had forfeited any rights I had as an American citizen by joining the Royalists and fighting against the soldiers of the Republic. Then one day there was a new interrogator, someone more senior, a
commissaire
of the
Sûreté
. He proposed a deal. I was to be given my liberty—and a passage back to Boston—provided I remained in Paris to spy upon my fellow Americans.”

“And you agreed?”

Bennett did not trouble to answer. They were not, after all, walking in the exercise yard of the Châtelet.

“I was set up as a wealthy American come to enjoy the pleasures of the French capital. A Sybarite. You appear surprised but I assure you there are such creatures in the world, though they are not usually from Nantucket. I was provided with an apartment in the Rue de Condé and a servant, who is doubtless in the minor ranks of the police force, and a sum of money to enable me to play the part with conviction.”