Evil in a Mask (67 page)

This feeler and polite rebuff had been whispered about only among a very limited circle; but recently there had been much more widely-spread rumours that, when Napoleon had conquered Austria, he intended to ask, as part of the peace terms, to be given a Hapsburg Princess as a bride.

As one of Josephine's oldest and staunchest friends, Roger deplored the possibility that, for reasons of State, she might be deprived of the husband that she had come to love so deeply. But, knowing Talleyrand's pro-Austrian leanings, he saw the great statesman's hand in this. Abused and insulted by the Emperor as he had been six months earlier, he had regained considerable influence with him. And it could not be denied that a Franco-Austrian alliance fortified by an Imperial marriage would materially strengthen both countries.

Staring hard-eyed at Lisala, Roger said, ‘Naturally, I am aware that certain people would like to see the Empress replaced by a Hapsburg Princess; but Austria is far from having been conquered yet.'

Lisala shrugged. ‘Whether Josephine stays or goes is all one to me. I intend to submit my resignation to her, and employ myself in more profitable activities.'

‘But a brothel!' Roger cried. ‘You seek only to shock and horrify me for your amusement. You cannot possibly really mean that you intend to run a brothel.'

‘I do, and out of doing so I'll get even more amusement than seeing your face as it is at this moment. In brothels, as you must know …'

‘I do not know,' he cut in harshly. ‘I entered one only once, when I was in my teens, then fled from it in disgust.'

‘Then I'll inform you. There are peepholes in the walls of all the rooms. Through them one can witness the peculiar games in which couples at times indulge. That will provide me with much entertainment. And, when I witness some gallant who performs with unusual vigour, I'll give him an assignation to come another day and have me “on the house”.'

‘You … you vile creature!' Roger burst out. ‘Undertake
this foul enterprise, and I vow I'll burn the place down with you in it.'

‘For that you will have no opportunity, as it will be neither here in Vienna nor in Paris.'

‘Where then?'

‘That is my affair.'

‘Wherever it may be, I'll run you to earth. Yes, whatever it may cost me, I'll not submit to the ghastly humiliation of it becoming known that my wife is running a whorehouse. And it will become known. Satan has endowed you with too great a beauty for your identity not be bruited abroad in any city.'

‘In that you are mistaken. I am as anxious as yourself to keep this matter secret. I intend, from time to time, to return and inflict my company on you. Now that I am a Baroness, I shall find Court functions more enjoyable than ever.'

‘What you propose is impossible. From having been a member of the Court for above a year, your face is known to hundreds—may, thousands of people. Inevitably some officer: French, German, Dutch, Italian, will visit your brothel, recognise you and tell others of your infamy.'

‘Again you are wrong.' Lisala smiled and shook her head. ‘While exercising my profession I mean to wear a black velvet mask with a long fringe. My body is beautiful enough to tempt any man I desire, without his seeing my face. In fact, a mask will prove an added seduction for such encounters. And, should a lover of the moment be so imprudent as to tear it off, I'll drive my stiletto between his ribs.'

Roger could find no more to say. Short of killing her, there was no way in which he could prevent her carrying out her plan; and that he could not bring himself to do. Rising, he flung his glass of wine in her face, then left the room and the house.

That night, the little sleep he got was at an inn, and next morning he sent a message to Berthier that he was ill after having eaten bad fish. For three days he did not go out, and ceaselessly pondered the problem of what he could do about having been cursed with such a wife. To that he could find no answer. Even making off to England was no longer a fully
satisfactory solution, as he could not bear the thought that if Lisala was found out, the fine name he had made for himself in the French Army would for ever be besmirched. He could only endeavour to comfort himself with the possibility that Lisala would succeed in remaining incognito while pandering to her insatiable lust for sexual excitement.

When he forced himself to return to Court, several people condoled with him on his wife's illness. Then Josephine spoke to him most kindly, regretting that Lisala had had to leave her on account of having been ordered by a doctor to take the waters at Baden-Baden. A good actor, as he had always been, Roger produced the reactions expected of him. That evening he returned to the little house, to find that most of Lisala's clothes were still there, but she had gone; so he settled in again.

The armistice continued, but negotiations for a peace got no further, as the terms proposed by Napoleon were unacceptable to the Emperor Francis.

Early in August, it was learned that the British had landed a strong force on the large island of Walcheren at the mouth of the Scheldt. Roger deplored this strategy both for timing and place. Had the landing been made six weeks earlier it could have enormously encouraged the Austrians to still greater efforts, and had it been made at Stralsund it could have incited the Prussian patriots to force their King into joining Austria in her war against France. As things were now, it seemed, to be a grievous waste of effort, for he felt sure the Dutch would not rise against the Emperor, and knew the malarial swamps in the estuary of the Scheldt to be one of the most unsuitable places possible to form a bridgehead for an invasion of the Continent.

News then came in from Spain. The remnant of Soult's army had straggled back, without guns or baggage, into Galicia. There Ney's men had derided them as cowards and tempers flown so high that the two Marshals had been with difficulty prevented from fighting a duel. Meanwhile, Wellesley had turned speedily upon Victor. Realising his peril, the Marshal had swiftly retreated towards Madrid; but, on July 27th,
Wellesley, supported by a Spanish army, had brought him to bay at Talavera and inflicted a severe defeat upon him.

In the middle of August, Lisala returned to Vienna for a few days. Roger refused to speak to her, and took his meals out. She made no attempt to be received again at the Palace and, having collected a few more of her clothes, disappeared again.

On the 25th, the Emperor called Roger into his Cabinet and said, ‘Breuc, I am much disturbed about what is happening in France. I have received intelligence that, in my absence, Fouché has assumed the powers of a dictator. Proceed to Paris at once, return as soon as possible, and report to me what is going on there.'

Taking to horse with a minimum of delay, Roger set out and reached Paris in nine days. After refreshing himself at
La Belle Etoile
, he went straight to the Ministry of the Interior, where the Minister received him within ten minutes of his having sent in his name.

When Roger had explained the object of his mission, Fouché, sniffling as usual, began,
‘Mon cher Baron
, let me …'

‘So you know that I have been elevated to the nobility?' Roger cut in with a smile.

Fouché's corpse-like face twisted into what for him was the semblance of a grin. ‘I knew weeks ago. Very little that goes on in Europe escapes my agents. I even have a flotilla of boats patrolling the sea from the Pyrenees to the Baltic; so that I am informed of most of the smuggling operations permitted by our administrators in order to line their own pockets. But my congratulations. And, now, as I was about to say:

‘On July 29th, forty British ships of the line, thirty frigates, eighty sloops and four to five hundred transports appeared off the mouth of the Scheldt. They landed forty thousand men and one hundred and fifty cannon on the island of Walcheron. It was evident that their intention was to incite a rebellion in brother Louis' Kingdom of Holland. About that I was little worried, as my people had long since dealt with all subversive elements there. The English succeeded in swiftly
subduing Middleburg and, by August 15th, the defences of Flushing. One could then deduce that their next step would be to attack our important base of Antwerp, as the English have always regarded it as a pistol pointed against their heads.

‘That did concern us somewhat here in Paris, because many of the people in those parts still feel a loyalty to Austria, to which, up till recent times, the Belgian Netherlands belonged. Moreover, the majority of them are Catholics. A revolution in those parts, similar to that which has taken place in Spain, could have proved most embarrassing, particularly as our regular forces there were almost non-existent.

‘A Grand Council was called to debate the situation. Cambacéres, as the nominal head of the Government during the Emperor's absence, took the chair. No-one had any suggestions to offer except Decrès, who proposed that we should call up the citizen militia, as we did in the old days of the Revolution.

‘The others quailed at the idea of taking such an unorthodox step without the Emperor's sanction. But I felt that a certain use might be made of it. Next day, my Ministerial colleagues learned to their horror that I had overridden their authority and called up the National Guard in fifteen Departments. I went further. I circulated a letter to the Prefects and Mayors, which ran:

‘ “Show Europe that even if Napoleon's genius may lend splendour to France, yet his presence is not indispensable to repulse her enemies.” '

Roger gave a sigh of admiration. ‘The devil you did! That was a bold stroke indeed. But the Emperor may well call you to account for it.'

‘He may.' Fouché gave a little snigger. ‘But I doubt it. He has always been a trifle frightened of me; yet has found me too valuable to dispense with. In any case, I have sent out my message to the people of France. Should their Emperor fall by the wayside, they can rely upon me to take the reins of Government firmly into my hands.'

‘
Monsieur le Ministre
, you have my utmost admiration,' Roger declared with a smile. ‘I will return and report to His Imperial Majesty that, when others feared to act, you took steps to defend France which you believe he would have taken himself had he been in Paris.'

They parted most cordially, and late on the evening of September 13th, Roger arrived back at Schönbrunn. Two hours later, the Emperor received him, and he made his report.

When he had done, Napoleon grunted, then remarked, ‘I know that you have always disliked Fouché; so are not attempting to excuse his faults. But he has acted in a most arbitrary fashion.'

‘ 'Tis true, Sire, that I have a personal antipathy to the man,' Roger replied promptly, ‘but that does not detract from my admiration of the manner in which he has served Your Majesty. He has uncovered several conspiracies that might have cost you your life; succeeded in subduing those troublesome Breton Chouans, who for years all the Generals you sent failed to quell; and now, by taking it on himself to contain the English in their bridgehead, he has spared Your Majesty the necessity of sending considerable bodies of your regular troops to Flanders.'

‘True; true! He is a slippery devil, but no-one can question his efficiency. And, in many matters he has served me admirably. Now I know how matters stand, I'll let them rest. Here we make no progress; the Emperor Francis is proving as stubborn as a mule.'

‘Since things are at a standstill, Sir,' Roger hazarded, ‘may I crave a few days' rest? I rode monstrous hard to Paris and back, and I am desperately fatigued.'

The Emperor stopped his pacing up and down, smiled at Roger and twisted his ear. ‘You may, Breuc. Few of my couriers can match the speed with which you travel, and there is now little to do. Take a week or two if you wish.'

Roger had already handed over his mount at the Palace stable to be at once rubbed down, watered and fed; so he walked the short distance across the Park to his little house. When he reached it, he saw with some surprise chinks of light coming from between the curtains of the window of the largest bedroom. Evidently Lisala had returned on another visit.
Tired as he was, the last thing he wanted was another acrimonious discussion with her. That could well occur if he roused the house and, as it was close on midnight, he knew that the front door would be bolted.

It then occurred to him that as he had duties which often kept him late at the Palace, he had given his man instructions that, as he hated stuffiness, the window of his bedroom was always to be left a little open. Going round to the back of the house, he quietly climbed up the iron trellis work to the balcony, tiptoed along it and got through the window into his room.

Lighting the candles, he wearily undressed. Then he noticed that, since he had not been expected, his man had not laid out a nightshirt for him. His underclothes were kept on shelves in the clothes closet. Still anxious to get to bed without Lisala's coming in to talk to him, he opened the door very quietly. A streak of light two inches wide at the far side of the closet showed that Lisala had left her door to it ajar. As he stretched out his hand to pick up a nightshirt, he caught the sound of voices. Lisala evidently had someone in bed with her.

Roger was more thankful than ever now that he had not made his return known. Had he done so, and Lisala's lover failed to dress and get away by the verandah in time, he would have been under the unpleasant necessity of calling him out; and it would have annoyed him greatly to have to fight a duel over a woman whom he now detested.

However, curiosity to know if he could identify his wife's latest lover by his voice led him to take a step nearer the door of her room. Breathing very lightly, he listened to their conversation.

It was at once obvious that they were not making love. On the contrary, they were quarrelling. The first words of Lisala's which he caught were: