Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements (36 page)

He lamped her, despite the lateness of the hour, with the luminosity of early morning. She lowered her lashes and poured more coffee.

“I had a visit,” she said, “from your Polish friend. I liked her.”

“Quite right, too. She’s a remarkable woman. But what a damned mess it’s all been. I’m sorry, I’ve always said
I’m sorry
, you’ll admit. And now Austria doesn’t give a damn about dynastic marriage, never taken it seriously, and it would have been the same with Russia. There’s the child, yes, a good boy, but I had a good boy already.”

“You mean Eugène.”

“I mean Eugène. I have to be up early tomorrow. Back to the métier. You don’t mind if I—”

“It’s already early morning really.”

“Yes yes. You realize I may never see you again? You realize I may never see Paris again? Our divorce was a sham and our first marriage was a sham—republican tomfoolery—and our second marriage was a sham—neither of us was in a state of grace—but we end up with things as God intended, whoever God is or was. I want to spend the night in your bed. No nonsense.” He held up hands of shock. “No advantage taken. I just want to be where I think it’s right to be. Before the big battles.”

“Everybody will know. Everybody will talk.”

“There’ll be a lot of lies told in memoirs. Untrustworthy self-seeking bastards—forgive the term, soldier’s language. Besides, I’m M. Laval. Bad choice of pseudonym, really. I should have used de la Vallée. Léon de la Vallée. That’s the meaning of Nabuliune, you know. Valley lion. Why bad? Because the man who had this damned funeral this evening was called Laval. And they threw stones at his hearse. A man who saved fallen women, apparently. Curious coincidence.”

“Why? Nobody’s going to throw stones at
your
hearse. Oh, no, I shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t mean—”

“I suppose that’s why they had his funeral in the evening. Darkness covering all. I could eat a bit of cold chicken. Is there any around? That black devil Roustam steals it, you know—a leg, anyway. I always have cold chicken at the end of the night’s work. Had the damned impudence once to say that it was a one-legged chicken. Exploited, that’s my trouble. People
eat
me. But I’m not finished yet, not by a long chalk.”

Later they lay together in darkness. Her parrot, under his cloth, seemed to know who was there, for he kept trying out an old name—Brnpt Brrrrnprrrrte—until he settled to the blinking night-thoughts that served instead of sleep. Their bodies did not touch, but they held hands. Dreams started.

There he lies

Ensanguinated tyrant

O bloody bloody tyrant

See

How the sin within

Doth incarnadine

His skin

From the shin to the chin

He dreamt he was in Moscow, awaiting a reply to the letter he had sent to the Tsar or Czar Alexander, hugging friend of Tilsit, having just awakened from a dream in which massed choirs were singing and bands playing and he was being transported to a grotesque end in the English Channel. The dream did not possess the tones of terror or misery, for the dreamer knew it was a dream within a dream. The language of the anthem was far too literary to be taken seriously. It suggested Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Talleyrand, and the rest of the failed and envious.

See the re-

Incarnate Cleopatra

Barge burning on the water

Bare

Rowers row in rows.

Posied roses interpose

Twixt the rows and the rose

She dreamt she was consoling herself with a dream, but what she had heard of Egypt, from
lui
and others, made her glad that she was not really that fat fly-bitten sallow Graeco-African, debilitated product of royal incest. It was better to be what she was, the dreamer unseduced by the dream, mother of a queen and a prince, grandmother of princes. And the royalty was no begrudged gift of the terrible Bonaparte family: it was in the blood. Moreover, she was an Empress by right, not by bestowed title, an Empress being woman raised to the ultimate power. To hell with the lot of them. To hell with the lot of them.

The funeral was quite an amusing affair, really. N sat up in his coffin, smiling gently, chin on fist, elbow on padded coffin’s edge, and everybody except the funeral orators knew that he was still alive, young, plump, healthy, ready to conquer Asia now that he had done with Europe. Talleyrand, in purple senatorial robes, had lost many of his teeth and had difficulty in articulation. Moreover, “Moreover,” he chumbled, “I seem to have mislaid my notes. A mere improvisation, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. Not forgetting Your Holiness, fellow dukes and princes. Here was a man. No one will doubt that. No one will doubt that for one minute he was a man that for one minute. His achievements were very considerable. Consider his considerable achievements. Consider the considerability of his considerably considerable considerations. Constellations too, for that matter. There they all are, up there, in the night sky considerately rendered available for this matutinal occasion. I now call upon my dear friend and colleague and whilom mistress, Madame Germaine de Staël, bluestocking extraordinary, to amplify these considerably unconstellated constatations.”

Madame de Staël stood on the rostrum and her dress was billowed up by a great wind. The incredibly masculine sans-culotted longitude of the clitoris was at once disclosed, to vocal amazement. “He lacked virility,” she cried. “He rejected my overtures.” There were catcalls. “He proclaimed an all-male empire,” she shouted. “Spurious priapism. But, by God, what a pair we could have made.”

Then the dream turned sour. The dream turned sour. N, touching her gently, knowing her to be awake, said: “You’re not well, my dear.”

“Oh, I’m well enough. As well as can be expected. I heard you groaning in your sleep. Are you in pain?”

“It’s the mind that counts, the mind will prevail.” The gray dawn was coming up. Coffee and the road and the battle of the nations. Twelfth Division—Pecheau. Fourteenth—Bourmont, but it might have to be Hulot. The parrot, though still artificially benighted, remembered the old name and announced it with glee:

“Bonaparte. Ahahahaha, Bonaparte. Booonapaaaaaaaahahah!”

III

F
rom bivouac to bivouac to bivouac to bivouac to bivouac and all the way it was torches held aloft with Long Live The Emperor and It Is The Anniversary Of His Crowning and God Bless You Sire, rough soldiers in tears of love and joy as he walked, with straw torches blazing all about, from bivouac to bivouac to bivouac. He waved his hand in thanks, tears in his own eyes, God Bless You My Children, and came to the bivouacs of the artillery. Thank You Thank You he cried almost weeping at the soldiers’ tears and the fiery blessing and then:

“Keep those fucking torches away from the artillery caissons.”

And it was torches too, though not straw ones, lighting the way to the great ball at the Tuileries, where a hundred thousand million best sperm candles shone on the glory of Jerome Bonaparte, Prince of France and King of Westphalia; of Joseph Bonaparte, First Prince of the Blood, King of Naples, King of Spain; of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland; of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino. And, carrying their own starlight with them, were Caroline Bonaparte, Grand Duchess of Berg and of Clèves, Queen of Naples; Élisa Bonaparte, Princess of Lucca and Grand Duchess of Tuscany; Pauline Bonaparte, Duchess of Guastalla and Princess Borghese; Madame Mère herself, the Dowager Empress Marie-Letizia Bonaparte. The Princes of the Empire swirled in a waltz with goddesses who were all pink flesh and diamonds—Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte-Corvo, yet to be Crown Prince of Sweden, yet to be King of Sweden; Berthier, Prince of Neuchatel and Prince of Wagram; Davout, Duke of Auerstadt and Prince of Eckmühl; Massena, Duke of Rivoli, Prince of Essling; Ney, Duke of Elchingen, not yet Prince of the Moskowa; Poniatowski the Polish Prince, still to be appointed Marshal of the Empire; Talleyrand-Périgord, once Bishop of Autun, now Prince of Benavente, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Grand Chamberlain of the Empire.

And then the Dukes—of Castiglione, Istria, Parma, Vicenza, Feltre, Frioul, Otranto, Gaeta, Abrantes, Valmy, Montebello, Danzig, Tarentum, Bassano, Ragusa, Conegliano, Treviso, Reggio, Rovigo, Dalmatia, Albufera, Belluno, the titles and gorgeousness of dress uniform clanging with stars and crosses hiding plain tough campaigner’s flesh, except for Fouché the Great Policeman and Cambacérès, President of the Senate, and Gaudin and Maret, Ministers of State. The talk was not of art or of delicate amours but of how best to salt money and that bastard there has done well for himself I remember when he was a snotnosed ensign and Jesus what a pair she has on her and no no no you have it wrong it was just after Wagram he got this dose his prick so on fire you could see it in the dark anyway I could tell the husband guessed what was going on so I got the message to him that I’d had something shot off at Austerlitz and say what you like some spuds and onions fried in train-oil on a bivouac fire tastes better than all that muck they serve up at Nicalas’s and charge you the earth for and good Christ I could have sworn that that bint over there was the one in the knocking-shop at Vicenza. And then, to a thousand trumpets and as many trombones and a hundred hundred thunders of drums, N himself came in, growing bald, growing paunched, Empress by his side. The cheers rose to the candelabra and made the million candle-flames dance, the floor rumbled with the stamping, the Seine heard the hosannas and tremor after tremor after tremor flowed over her bridged and conquered waters.

His Imperial Majesty Napoleon the First, formerly First Consul of the Republic, formerly First Consul for Life, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, sun and wind, everybody’s best solvent, greeted and greeted the greeting greeters, grinning greetings, a word for everyone. Augereau, you old bastard, you’ve got that medal on upside down. Well, Bessières, you’ve come a long way. Hope the duck pâté’s to your gourmet’s liking, Cambacérès, you rotten old gourmandizer. It may be a good liniment for a strained hock, Caulaincourt, but it burns off the hair, man. You still owe me five sous, Clarke, that domino game, remember. How’s my old Duroc, then, weak at the knees with shagging? Get your men to keep an eye on whatshisname, Fouché. Any money in the fisc, Gaudin? That’s not your wife, whoever it is, Junot. Kellermann, I’d say you were too old for her. Hallo, Lannes, I’m not supposed to be on speaking terms with you, can’t think quite why now. Got your Danzig pumps on, I see, Lefebvre. Top of the evening, MacDonald. Try peppermint cordial for heartburn, Maret. Stand closer to the razor in future, Marmont. Taking to little boys, Moncey? Sorry sorry, it’s Mortier. Oudinot Oudinot, get that name set to music, Oudinot, Oudinoooooooot. Mademoiselle Savary, well, what else do you expect to be called with a first name like Anne-Jean-Marie-René, you old shitbag? How are the Dalmatians, Souk? God bless you, Suchet, you’re pissed early. Claude-Victor Victor, the drummer-boy duke, ten quarts to the sitting and never a puke.

Dance dance dance! The orchestra struck up another waltz. Cohorts and caissons and case-shot and grapeshot and flankers and lancers and lines of retreat. Bar-shot and round shot and langridge and limbers and sabers and trail-chests and putrefied meat. Nothing to eat and no boots for their feet. But Mantua, Rivoli, Lodi, Legnano; Austerlitz, Jena, Caldiero, Milan. Auerstadt, Bautzen, Borghetto, Liebertwolkwitz, Shubra Khit, Walcheren, Cairo Divan. Six acres a man ran his promise and plan. But Jacobins, Royalists, ministers, bureaucrats, clergy and peasantry, new constitution, suppress those conspiracies, Codes and Concordat and Legion of Honor, reorganized army, colonial policy, state education, domestic security, public finance. Glance at the France that he taught how to dance. And advance. Assuming a stance leaving little to chance. La France.

The buffet was sumptuous. Truffled pigling Arcis-sur-Aube. Beef ribs Areola. Spiced lamb Bassano. Duck pie Castiglione. Pâté Chateau Thierry. Garlic sausage Durrenstein. Quail Grössbeeren. Cold game soup Hohenlinden. Jugged hare Katzbach. Mille Fleurs Millesimo. Hash of saffron mutton Montebello. Pigeon eggs Mondovi. Ravioli Rivoli. Pyramidal chopped veal, onion, carrot and endive tart. Turkey drumsticks Mount Tabor. Chicken, inevitably, Marengo. Peppered stewed rabbits Sultan El Kebir. N roared genially: