Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements (33 page)

“Do I descry, may I tentatively imagine, that the Czar or Tsar of all the Russias,” Talleyrand said, “has been in, shall I say, a certain delicacy of communication? Do not answer if you choose not to do so.” He smiled with immense charm.

“A certain gentleman—not one of these sausage-eating—or how might one neologize it—
panticivore
—Teuton beer-swillers—though his immediate destiny is bound up with theirs—a certain Slavonic gentleman—Do you follow me? Do you?”

“When the time comes,” Talleyrand said, “it will be a civilized enough encounter. He has expressed a strong desire to come here to Malmaison. Here, you see, is a flavor of permanency. I wonder—a Romanoff-Beauharnais alliance—an interesting possibility, one involving annulments.” He looked at the Cardinal, who shrugged comically. And then Talleyrand smiled and said: “Cossacks dancing among the late autumnal blooms.”

“Charming.” Cambacérès drank off a flute of exquisitely chilled champagne. “Exquisitely chilled,” he said, “that champagne. There is much of interest lying ahead. After the slaughter. Poor young men. Poor poor young men. It is a pity that the Bourbons—well—”

“Oh, the quality of life,” Talleyrand said, “is not to be legislated by the mere head of the executive. That is one thing we have learned. We must contrive our own patterns of existence. There are some most delicate tea-buds in Ceylon. I should prefer to have a London tailor. How one longs to drain a real cup of coffee,
without guilt
.”

“How very right,” Cambacérès said with large sincerity. “That is a really astonishingly brilliant method of dealing with the sturgeon problem. I am deeply grateful.
Ichtyofrage
, indeed. You will see how it works out tomorrow.”

There were sudden cries of rapture and amusement, the ladies especially going “Ah, too sweet.”

“Charming, charming,” Cardinal Maury said, squinting at the three little figures coming in from the garden. “I do not think,” he said, very myopic, “I recognize that very peculiar—the one in the middle, I mean—now who would that—”

Talleyrand laughed. Napoleon-Louis and Charles-Louis-Napoleon, the young princes, children of Hortense, were bringing in an especial favorite from their grandmother’s private menagerie. It was a young orangutan, neatly dressed in muslin. “Oh really, my sweethearts,” Josephine went, running toward them, not really annoyed, there was really something so very sweet about the tiny group. But the mawas saw the exotic display of fruit on the buffet table. It whimpered, half-barked a kind of apology to the little princes, then broke vigorously away from their little hands. Before any could prevent it, it had leapt onto the buffet table and was now swiftly plucking pineapples from the artificial tree. The servants, smiling, grasped at it vainly. It took a couple of hothouse peaches and then bounced away. It surveyed the chandelier, judged it too high, so went and sat placidly with its spoils on one of the Turkish sofas. Too sweet, really. The hostess did not have the heart to put it out. “Naughty Bobo,” she kept laughing.

“Regard the massivity of that chest,” Cambacérès said, almost like a poulterer. “And the eyes are remarkable—fierce, yet patient, closely watchful yet as though surveying great distances.”

“The copious oxygen it inhales,” Talleyrand said, “feeds no great engine of organization. The subhuman and the superhuman are alike in that neither is human.”

Indulgently they all smiled at the charming bizarre tableau—a jungle exile in a pink and gold eminently civilized ambience.

C
lop clop. Clop clop. Inside the plain unliveried one-horse carriage that jaunted down the immensely long drive of the Tuileries sat a solitary civilian—without title, without identity, without any name but a temporary and invented one: Monsieur Léon Laval. He was dressed in drab brown and the brim of a nondescript hat shaded his brow and eyes. In his hand he held a large red-spotted handkerchief which would serve, if need arose, to cover temporarily his lower features, turning him into a man with toothache. Clop clop. At the great gate the carriage stopped and a sentry had the temerity to look in. “It’s me, you idiot,” said M. Laval. “And I’m getting out here.” The sentry, nearly dropping his rifle, opening the door for him, spluttering. M. Laval got out. He nodded at the solitary coachman and appraised the horse once again. No good horses left. The age of good horses was over. She had eight still, good ones, Arabs, to draw her imperial carriage out there at Malmaison. A terrible, terrible waste. Needed all the horses they could get. “I shall be away,” he said, “for an hour or two. If anyone,” he said to the captain of the guard, who now came spluttering and mustache-wiping out of the guardroom, “tries to follow me, from the Palace that is, stop them. I want to be
alone
. Everything perfectly clear?”

“Sire.”

“Sire.”

“All right then.” And, brim well down over eyes and brow, handkerchief stuffed in backpocket, a few francs jingling in a side breeches-pocket, he made his way left right left right toward the Place de la Concorde. He noted the Seine to his left,
his
river, and watched unamiably ladies and gentlemen on foot, tasting the late afternoon’s
fraîcheur
, coming over the Pont Royal. He saw inly sappers blowing it up, enemy flesh and rags going boom crack up into the air. He invented, for some reason, a stupid sapper ordered to blow up the bridge after the French had got across but, the fucking idiot, getting nervous and blowing it while they were still crossing. The army was not what it was. Too many young untrained idiots, rightly called Marie-Louises, meaning well but getting nervous.

Formations of the right wing. He walked, hands locked behind him, towards the Place de la Concorde. Third Corps. Fifteen thousand infantry, Eighth Division. Lefol? Thousand cavalry, the Tenth. Habert, yes. One hundred and fifty sappers, thirty-eight guns.

He had once regularly, as First Consul, made these quietly listening and incognito ventures into the life of demotic Paris, finding out what was going on, good leadership, hear the voice of the people. Once he had gone without money, ordered coffee and been unable to pay for it. Hell of a row, holding on to his incognito. This is my city. I showed the bastards how to number the houses, for instance. Make your starting-point the river, everything springs from the river. Public fountains. Names. And yet it was possible, just about, that he would never see Paris again. Tomorrow into battle, not incognito then. Decisive campaign, ultimate campaign. By God, there would have to be brilliance, by Christ, there would, as never before. German-speaking bastards of Europe, unite against your common foe. There he goes, ensanguinated tyrant. O bloody bloody. He frowned over to his left at the Pont de la Concorde, a smart carriage coming across, two well-groomed prancers. He packed the charges, ordered ignition, stood back and waited. Rags and flesh and whalebone corset going up crash boom into the air.

Left right left right. He attracted no attention, though he had the impression that a lieutenant on crutches with half a leg looked with the sharpness of sudden recognition of somebody, don’t quite know who, met him somewhere. M. Laval had a sudden spasm of toothache. He sat at a table outside a café called the Saint Dizier, strange name for a café, perhaps the owner was born there, and waited till someone should come to ask him his pleasure, which would be a small black coffee, no real pleasure. Meanwhile he listened and watched from great shadowed eyes. There were two rather silly youths lounging together at a table over
eau sucrée
, playing a stupid idle game which consisted of trying to slap each other’s right hand as soon as it came down to the table before it flew off again. Idle young sods, why weren’t they in the army, every man, every young imbecile even needed. A fat woman in black sat weeping over a large tumbler of red and a plate of cakes. Widow, war, probably. No, too old, if bereavement was recent, probably lost son. M. Laval was surprised to hear the woman say to herself:

“Wretched man, wretched wretched butcher of a man.”

She said it though, though with wet eyes, with a kind of contentment, scoffing away. The waiter came up to M. Laval and asked him what his pleasure was. A small black coffee.

“A small cup of
diarrhée noire
for the gentleman, certainly.”

So that’s what they were calling it. M. Laval could not resist holding the waiter back by his dirty shirtsleeve and saying: “The Continental System, my friend. The filthy British and their filthy control of the seas.” The waiter said:

“The Continental Arsehole, sir, if you will pardon the scatology. I would gladly give my left testicle for a cup of reasonable mocha.”

Go and visit my wife, M. Laval felt like gloomily saying, and join her in a drop of illegal Viennese in one of the locked toilets of the Tuileries. “I will have instead,” he said instead, “a glass of water and a small measure of red wine to mix with it.” The waiter frowned at him, staring, M. Laval had a new twinge of toothache and warmed it against the mild winter with his spotted handkerchief, the waiter went off. M. Laval, his pain abated, saw with softening eyes a couple of scarred veterans totter to the table next to his. They waved at the departing waiter and one of them called hoarsely:

“Two balloons of blood.” M. Laval said:

“Gentlemen, allow me to pay. It will be an inadequate but sincere expression of the heartfelt pride and gratitude any loyal Frenchman must feel in respect of your heroism, suffering and achievement.”

“Well now, that’s kind, sir,” said the one with more nicotine on his moustache. “Make it two large cognacs instead,” he called, but the waiter had already gone in. “And as for what we’ve done, sir, why, we’d be happy to do it again if we weren’t all hacked to pieces like you see.”

“That’s right, sir,” said the other hoarsely. “What battle, gentlemen?” M. Laval asked. “It was the battle of Borodino in Russia,” the more nicotined one said, “and a right bastard it was, wasn’t it, Jules, what with the Cossack horsemen hacking men’s balls off for the joke of it. And we were frozen with the snow and the whole battlefield was like all smoked up with the frozen breaths of the men. It was a terrible occasion, sir, and lucky you were to be safe and sound here in Paris while we were protecting the Emperor, God bless him, from his fierce Russian foes, more like beasts than men, isn’t that right, Jules?”

“There was no snow then,” M. Laval said. “The battle of Borodino took place in September.”

“You’re telling us, who was there? The snow starts in Russia very early and the fields was frozen in late August. Wolves howling round the bivouacs in the night, but the job had to be done for the Emperor, and by the little mother of the good God we did it. Right, Jules?”

“Right, Louis.”

“And what was it all about?” M. Laval asked. “Forgive my ignorance, but I could never make any sense of the newspaper reports.”

“Quite right, too. The papers are all a load of shitten lies put out by the Government.” The drinks came. “Look, it was two cognacs we ordered, this gentleman being kind enough to be willing to pay.”

“Make up your minds, soldiers, run off my feet as you can see.”

“And how about us, friend, with our feet frozen and bleeding and the toes dropping off in the snows of Borodino? We’ll have these but we’ll have two cognacs as well when you’ve given your lilywhite tootsies a nice little bit of repose, friend. Health.”

“Health,” M. Laval responded in watered wine. “You were saying?”

“I was saying don’t believe a word you read, sir. We marched into Russia a million strong to teach the Russes a bit of a lesson. The Emperor wanted to marry the King of Russia’s sister and the King of Russia said: What, my blue-blooded kith and kin marry a Corsican nobody like you? So it had to be revenge, what the Corsicans call the vendetta. So we set fire to Moscow and off home we went, but the treacherous Russ bastards stole all our supplies and killed the cavalry. A great man the Emperor, sir, and we’ll drink to him.” M. Laval joined the others in drinking to him. M. Laval said:

“And what do you think will happen now?”

“In what lies ahead?” The nicotined one was content to do all the talking and the hoarse one, perhaps because of hoarseness, content to let him. “In what lies ahead.” He liked the phrase. “What lies ahead is blue and bloody murder. It’s not the Emperor’s fault, it’s these little boys they’re drafting, some of them don’t even have a razor in their kit, the good men being done for in the great Russian battles. The big days being over, sir, and we must take what’s coming, having had our bit of fun. And no horses to pull the gun-limbers. I remember,” he said, “the sad face of the Emperor—
Le Tondu
we used to call him, to his face sometimes when he was in a good mood, and he’d laugh till he near did peepee in his pantaloons—the sad face of the Emperor, and he spoke to me sadly—he knew my name, knew everybody’s name near. ‘Raybaut,’ he said, that being my name, ‘we’re all getting old now, but by the Lord Jesus Christ and his Blessed Mother we’ve had good times together. Comrades-in-arms, fighting for the glory of France, but the good times can’t last. So I’ll shake hands with you, Raybaut, old comrade, and say God bless you.’” Tears came to his eyes and he wiped a snivel away with the back of his hand. “Loved his men, he did, even while he was sending off hundreds and thousands of them to be castrated by the Cossacks. So there it is, sir, and there’s an old soldier’s story for you. And here come the cognacs, so once again your very good health.”