Evil in a Mask (10 page)

Napoleon's mother, Letizia, he said, was a woman of immense determination, but narrow mind. Left a widow, she had overcome every sort of difficulty to bring her large family up to be honest and God-fearing. A typical Corsican, she had once remarked that, if faced with a vendetta, she could count on two hundred kinsmen to take up their weapons on her behalf. Her native language was an Italian patois, and she could still talk French only with difficulty. She had flatly refused to play any part in Napoleon's self-aggrandisement so, perforce, he had had to content himself with styling her simply as ‘Madame Mère'. When her other children were in trouble, she always took the side of the weakest. She strongly disapproved of the splendour with which Napoleon, as Emperor, now surrounded himself; could not be convinced that his incredible rise to power would be lasting and hoarded the greater part of the huge income he insisted on giving her, so that, in the event of disaster overwhelming him and the Kings, Princes and Princesses into which he had made her other children, she would have enough money to support them all. She was religious, austere and, on occasion, could even browbeat her greatest son into giving way to her wishes.

The only person from whom Madame Mère would take advice was her half-brother, Joseph Fesch, a little abbé who, during Napoleon's first glorious campaign in Italy, had temporarily abandoned the Church to become an army contractor, and made a small fortune out of selling his ‘nephew' equipment of dubious quality. He had then returned to his religious duties and, when Napoleon had made his Concordat with the Pope, included in the deal had been the elevation of
‘Uncle' Fesch to Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons. Still able and avaricious where money was concerned, he now owned vast properties and was extremely rich.

Joseph, the eldest of Letizia's sons, had been trained as a lawyer, and was a very able man. Fat, good-natured and honest, he gave Napoleon less trouble than his younger brothers. But he was no diplomat, a worse soldier and a poor administrator. The Emperor had, a few months earlier, actually had to push him into becoming King of Naples, as he would have much preferred a quiet life without responsibilities.

Lucien, a tall, awkward fellow with gangling limbs, was the
enfant terrible
of the family. From his teens, he had been a red-hot Revolutionary; even changing his name to Brutus. A Deputy of the Convention, chance had elevated him to be its President during the month of the
coup d'état
and he had made a major contribution to Napoleon's becoming First Consul. But he had done everything possible to obstruct his brother's ambitious measures to make himself a dictator. Although he declared himself to be a true representative of the people, he had not scrupled, as Minister of the Interior, to divert millions of francs from the Treasury into his own pocket, and to use his power to advance the fortunes of a score of ambitious men as the price of their wives becoming temporarily his mistresses; for he was a born lecher. At length, glutted with enough gold to make him independent of his brother for life, he had quarrelled violently with him, and had taken himself off as a private citizen to Italy. Roger declared roundly that he despised and loathed him.

Napoleon, when a poor student at the
École de la Guerre
, had sent for his brother, Louis, to Paris to share his cheap lodging, and had, himself, educated the boy. For years the Emperor had been under the delusion that Louis had the makings of a military genius. But Louis detested soldiering, and proved a great disappointment. Josephine, in the hope of getting a foot into the camp of her husband's family, who loathed her, had pushed her daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, into marrying Louis. As they disliked each other intensely, the marriage
was far from being a success. Louis had become a neurotic, jealous, hypochondriac. Adamantly determined on the aggrandisement of his family, Napoleon had made him King of Holland; but he was disliked by all who came in contact with him and, with gross ingratitude, did everything he could to cause trouble for his illustrious brother.

Jerome, the youngest son, had proved equally troublesome. He had been put into the Navy. In 1803, during a courtesy visit by his ship to the United States, he had gone ashore at Baltimore, and there had been so fêted as the brother of the already legendary First Consul, General Bonaparte, that he had stayed on without leave, fallen in love with a Miss Elizabeth Paterson, the daughter of a merchant, and married her. Napoleon, having already conceived the ambition of marrying off his brothers and sisters to Princesses and Princes, was furious. In vain he had endeavoured to persuade the Pope to annul the marriage; then, not to be thwarted, when he became Emperor, he had dissolved it by an Imperial decree. Greatly disgruntled, Jerome had returned to France and, in the previous autumn, had sullenly obeyed his all-powerful brother's order to marry the Princess Catherine of Württemberg.

Napoleon had, too, been unlucky in the matter of an alliance for his eldest sister, Eliza. In 1797, while he was in Italy, behind his back his mother had married her off to a Corsican landowner named Bacciocchi, a moron of a fellow who had taken sixteen years to rise from Second Lieutenant to Captain in the Army. Realising that no possible use could be made of him, Napoleon had given Bacciocchi a profitable administrative sinecure in Corsica, and sent them back there. Dumpy and plain, although physically less highly sexed than others of her family, Eliza's mind seized avidly upon everything to do with eroticism. A born blue-stocking, her great ambition was to become a famous patroness of the arts and letters. Having badgered Napoleon to allow her to return to Paris, she had started a salon. It failed to attract any but second-rate men of talent, and she made herself a laughing stock by designing an absurd uniform to be worn by all the members
of a literary society she had formed. In due course, as Emperor and King of Italy Napoleon, much as he disliked her, had given her the Principalities of Piombino and Lucca; but she ruled them with such ability that he later said of her that she was his best Minister.

About Pauline, by far the loveliest of the sisters, and considered to be the most beautiful woman in Paris, Roger was somewhat reticent, refraining from disclosing that her beauty was equalled only by her lechery. In her teens, Napoleon had approved her marriage to General Leclerc, because he was an aristocrat. But Leclerc had died of yellow fever in Dominica. She had then become Roger's mistress but, during his enforced absence from Paris, married again, this time Prince Borghese—not because she loved him, but so that she might wear his fabulous family emeralds, and on account of his vast wealth. Borghese had proved a poor bed companion but, even had he not been, that could not have prevented pretty Pauline from enjoying her favourite pastime with a score of handsome young men, both before and after her second marriage. Napoleon had given her the Principality of Guestalla in her own right, but she was fated to derive little pleasure from it, as she loathed having to give up the magnificent palace in Paris on which she had spent a fortune in decorating with admirable taste; and she had since become the victim of chronic ill health.

The youngest sister, Caroline, had, apart from Napoleon, a better brain than any other Bonaparte. She also shared his ruthlessness and inordinate ambition, but not his generosity and loyalty to friends. When very young she had fallen in love with the flamboyant Murat, doggedly resisted all Napoleon's efforts to persuade her to accept other suitors that would have better served his own plans and, on leaving school, married the great cavalry leader.

On becoming Emperor, Napoleon had created Joseph's wife, Julie, and Louis' wife, Hortense, Imperial Highness; but he had not bestowed that rank on his three sisters. At a family celebration dinner at which he had announced these honours, Pauline was absent in Italy. The other two had been
hardly able to contain their rage at his neglect of them, so had gone to the Tuileries next day. All the Bonapartes had extremely violent tempers and habitually threw the most appalling scenes whenever they suffered a disappointment. The two women had screamed abuse at their brother until he had agreed to make them, and Pauline, also Imperial Highnesses.

During 1806, the Emperor had entirely remade the map of Germany; first welding numerous small Principalities into the Confederation of the Rhine. He had then deprived various states of portions of their territories, to create the Grand Duchy of Berg-Cleves, and made the Murats its sovereigns. Caroline had since been busily dissipating its revenues but, her ambitions still unsatisfied, had packed her stupid, gallant husband off to Poland, in the hope that the Emperor would make him king of that country.

There remained the Emperor's stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais. Napoleon had always had a great fondness for him and, while still a boy, had taken him on his campaigns as an A.D.C. Eugene, although not brilliant, was honest, capable and devoted to his stepfather. In 1805, Napoleon had made him Viceroy of Italy and, in the following year, formed another valuable alliance by marrying him off to the Princess Augusta of Bavaria.

Most of this was already known to Roger's audience, but they delighted in his personal descriptions of the Bonaparte family, their idiosyncrasies and the way in which they had battened upon their illustrious brother; costing the nation hundred of millions of francs, spent mostly in vulgar ostentation with the vain idea that they could impress the ancient sovereign families of Europe and be regarded by them as real royalties.

An elderly Major remarked, ‘The “Little Corporal” has done so much to restore the greatness of France, that one can't grudge him the pleasure of showering benefits on his relations; but what does stick in my gills is the licence he allows his Marshals.'

‘They, too, have some claim on France,' Roger replied,
‘for many of them have made notable contributions to the Emperor's victories.'

‘True enough. Ney at Ulm, Davoust at Auerstädt, and in the early days Augereau at Castiglione and Lannes at Arcola. But so, for that matter, have we all. Yet the Marshals are given vast provinces to loot at will. Out of our wars they are making great fortunes, but not a fraction of it ever reaches us. We have to soldier on for nothing but our pay; and that is often in arrears.'

‘I wouldn't object to that so much,' said a youngish Captain of Dragoons, ‘if only the fighting would come to an end, and we could get home.'

At that there was a chorus of assent, and Roger knew that it now voiced a feeling general in the Army. Some of the older men had been campaigning in, or garrisoning, distant lands for ten years or more. Only by luck had their regiments now and then been brought back to France, thus enabling them to get leave to spend a short spell with their families.

Roger sympathised, but felt that in his position he was called on at least to make a show of upholding morale; so he said, ‘It's hard on you gentlemen, I know. But the Emperor dare not make peace until he has smashed the Prussians and Russians for good and all. If he did, within a year or two we'd find ourselves back with the colours, having to prevent our enemies from invading France, instead of fighting them in their own country.'

‘And what if we did?' retorted a Lieutenant of Engineers. ‘France's natural frontier is the Rhine, and we could hold it without difficulty. If fight one must, at least let it be there where, between battles, we'd have the benefit of comfortable billets, ample food, good wine and women for the asking. Whereas, in this God-forsaken country, we are frozen, starved and hardly better off then the lice-ridden peasants who inhabit it.'

‘Things will be better in the spring, and that's not far off now,' Roger said, in an endeavour to cheer them up. ‘When the campaign reopens, it needs only one more victory by the
Emperor and the enemy will be forced to make terms which will include all prisoners of war regaining their freedom.'

‘And what then?' put in the Captain of Dragoons. ‘That would be all very well for you, Colonel. You and the rest of the gilded staff would go riding gaily back to Paris with the Emperor. But most of us would be left here to garrison the cities and fortresses we've taken.'

The elderly Major took him up. ‘That's it, and “gilded staff” is right. In the old days they had all risen from the ranks, and were tough, courageous men who cheerfully shared hardships with the rest of us. But since Bonaparte put a crown on his head in Notre-Dame, he's changed all that. He's welcomed back the
émigrés
and surrounded himself with young popinjays:
ci-devant
nobles, who are better at making a play for pretty women in ballrooms than risking their skins on a battlefield.'

Roger frowned, sat forward and asked sharply, ‘Are you implying …?'

‘No, no!' the Major interrupted him quickly. ‘I meant no offence to you, Colonel. All the Army knows the exploits of
le brave Breuc
. And gentle birth is no crime. But old soldiers of the Republic, like myself, take it ill to receive their orders from ex-aristos who were living in idleness in England or Coblenz while we were fighting on the Rhine, in Italy and Egypt.'

With a shrug, Roger let the matter pass, for he knew that there was much in what the Major had said. From those earlier campaigns many thousands of France's best fighting men had never returned and, although the Army still had a leaven of them as junior officers and N.C.O.s, its ranks were now composed mainly of young and often unwilling conscripts; while Napoleon's policy of marrying the new France with the old had led to his giving staff appointments to considerable numbers of inexperienced youths of noble families, many of whom lacked the daring and
élan
of the men with whom he had earlier surrounded himself. In numbers the Army was greater then it had ever been; but its quality had sadly deteriorated.

Next morning, the Russian soldier-servant produced for Roger a pair of field boots a little too large for him, but comfortable enough, and the tunic and busby of a Hussar officer who had recently died in the local hospital. Somewhat more presentable in this false plumage, he spent the next six days with his gloomy companions, alternately taking exercise in the walled garden, drowsing in an armchair with broken springs and talking with them about past campaigns. Meanwhile, with the best patience he could muster, he waited for some indication that the Hetman Dutoff had carried out his promise to request General Bagration to arrange for his exchange.