Napoleon's Exile (21 page)

‘Yes?'

‘Had he said that before, to anyone else?'

‘I don't know, it just came to me quite naturally.'

‘What?'

‘Quite naturally, I tell you! What do you expect me to have him say?
To your cannon! Fire!'

Octave laughed, started choking and downed another glass.

‘Where do you get this talent from, Monsieur Sénécal?'

‘It isn't a talent, it's a habit. I have learned to second-guess him. You know, you have to keep second-guessing him all the time - all the time, I tell you - you get used to it, it's exhausting but you get used to it, you become familiar with his turns of phrase, his manner, it's not that hard when you're with him all the time.'

‘Yes, you have that good fortune ...'

‘Good fortune? I don't know about that. Good fortune if you like, but I would say - well, I would say that the closer you are to him the less existence you have yourself.'

‘Really!'

‘Don't you think so?'

‘I'm prepared to believe you. Explain it to me.'

‘I wasn't so important before, perhaps, but I was freer, I had my own life. I strolled around Paris, I opened my eyes and ears, and jotted down anything abnormal. I drew up reports, I knew some nice girls and they helped me out, or rather we helped each other out - and well, now that I'm near him I no longer have a personality. That's what he wants. He likes to surround himself with puppets. And within only a few weeks I've become a perfect puppet myself. Oh, he's good at that all right, he orders you about without a word, and you're trapped, however cunning you may think you are. Your Sub-prefect is a puppet already, and the Mayor, after a single conversation, do you understand? And everyone else here, all puppets!'

Octave's speech was beginning to slur, and he knocked his cup over twice, but he carried on drinking. Monsieur Pons waved to Gianna, who was walking by with plates of dried meat.

After negotiating with the waitress and the landlord of the Buono Gusto to find a bed for Octave, he returned to his pied-à-terre in Portoferraio, where he'd lived full-time since the English blockade had stopped his barges from carrying ore to Piombino. He could see no reason, he reflected, why Napoleon shouldn't let him resume his activities, and start extracting iron again, but that meant submitting to the Emperor. Contradictory thoughts waged war within him at that prospect: he had let Octave babble away to himself about his misfortunes, while he dwelt on his own.

Later that night, when the last sailors were leaving, braying and merry, Gianna, who had the strength of a peasant girl, helped Octave to his feet. He was swaying and mumbling to himself, and took out a gold coin and threw it on the wine-stained table. The landlord whisked it away in a flash: ‘
Piace molto, il denaro del nostro sovranno, è tutto d'oro
...' Octave, eyes glazed, struggled to keep his balance. He could see two Giannas, now, and attributed this to an excess of drink. But no, the waitress had called her sister to help her, and they were incredibly alike, except that Luisa had coloured ribbons tied in her hair. The two girls dragged the drunk by the wrists, guiding him through the door.

As he breathed in the contaminated air of the Piazza Gran Bastione, Octave imagined that he was in Paris, emerging from a certain little restaurant by the tollgate, where the dustmen carted the city's refuse into the countryside and left it to rot beneath the open sky. It was there that Octave used to meet some of the ladies of the night who acted as spies for him - and he was so befogged he genuinely believed that the two Elban girls plied the same trade. When he freed a hand to rest it on Luisa's brown shoulder, however, he got a resounding slap and heard the two sisters chuckling. Letting them guide him, Octave stumbled on the steps, missed one, found himself first on his knees and then on all fours, clutched at a girl's ankle and received a kick from a heel to his cheek - not a hard kick, more of a playful one. He rolled aside, bumped his elbow, and felt himself being lifted and carried like a soft-legged puppet.

The two girls carried Octave into a dark lair where he could see nothing, but was aware of the sound of clearing throats, a dry cough, breathing. It smelled like a den of wild animals. Gianna stripped him of his frock-coat, his waistcoat and his shirt. Luisa deposited him on a kind of straw-stuffed sofa, before pulling off his boots and everything else. Next, he heard the sisters removing their corsets in the dark, heard the slide of their short skirts, their quiet laughter. And he went to sleep with his mouth open.

*

At noon the next day, 4 May, the flag of the new kingdom was raised over the Forte Stella: it showed three bees, stitched on to a white background cut from a sail. (The Imperial bees had actually been part of the old coat of arms of Cosimo de' Medici, Elba's first benefactor, who had fortified the island against the Barbary pirates.) A single cannon-shot saluted the flag, followed by 200 more along the length of the ramparts, with salvoes fired from the
Undaunted
in reply.

This was the signal.

Napoleon climbed down the ladder into the barge, which was bedecked with carpets. To his colonel's uniform he had pinned the orange ribbon of the Iron Crown, and the silver embroidered plaque of the large eagle of the Légion d'honneur, which caught the sun like a mirror. Manning the yards, red-jacketed English sailors hailed the approaching Emperor, their cheers adding to the general din: blanks fired by the cannon, the peals of bells, shouts and cries from the town, music from everywhere. A multitude of barks and tartans, their bowsprits garlanded with banners and pennants, hid the water of the harbour almost completely. The sailors waved their hats on the ends of their oars and yelled, women in brightly coloured dresses hurled handfuls of flowers that floated in the water, a choir sang
Apollo exiled from heaven comes to dwell in Thessaly
... Some girls, wasp-waisted in their traditional corsets, struck little drums with their bracelets, and flautists did their best with various musical scores. By now, the Emperor was standing so he could clearly be seen, deafened but heroic amid the heat and the noise; he had fixed his Elban cockade to his cocked hat, which he held under his arm.

The barge drew alongside the jetty of Ponte del Gallo where the Mayor, the Vicar-General and a line of dignitaries stood in silk breeches and pale frock-coats. The moment he stepped upon the landing stage, the Emperor's heart leapt briefly at the sight of this enthusiastic crowd. His new subjects were bellowing at the tops of their voices, like a tribe of Iroquois, or a band of hysterics who had escaped
en masse
from their asylum.

Mayor Traditi held the keys of Portoferraio on a silver platter. The Emperor looked at them. A fly was dancing about on them, and the mayor leaned slightly over his platter to shoo it away. It flew on to the Emperor's sleeve, and walked about on his epaulette throughout the ceremony.

‘Your worship,' said the Emperor, making no move to take them, ‘these keys could not be in better hands than yours.'

Traditi was very annoyed about this, because he didn't have a free hand to slip into his pocket and pull out the speech he had spent much of the night composing. To his aid came the Vicar-General, Arrighi, a sanguine, gossipy character, a great trencherman who enjoyed a drink, and who had now been taking advantage of his kinship with Napoleon, established the previous day, on the grounds of their shared Corsican background. Arrighi borrowed some words of the Church to glorify the Emperor, who bowed to custom and touched his lips to his pectoral cross. Two children from the choir, urchins in surplices and worn-out shoes, stood on either side of him; one of them swung his censer on the end of its chain as though it were a slingshot, the other had a finger half-way up his nose.

Meanwhile other boats from the
Undaunted
had docked. Bertrand climbed out — his face long, sad and sulky - then came plumed little Drouot, Campbell, stiff in his ceremonial apparel, and the treasurer Peyrusse (jovial, curly-haired, a native of Carcassonne who preserved the cheerful tone for which that town is celebrated, even in the most terrible circumstances — it was said that when Moscow was burned, he was surprised not to be able to find anyone to iron his linen); General Dalesme mingled with the quartermasters, the pharmacist and the secretary.

The cortège could now form, and begin its march to the cathedral. With this in mind, the dais was brought forward. The dais! Held by four ragged villagers, trembling and overwhelmed by the honour, it consisted of wooden handles supporting a piece of decorated fabric, stuck with bits of scarlet cloth and paper cut into motifs and fringes.

‘What a farce!' thought the Emperor. ‘What a lamentable farce!'

Images of his coronation stirred in his memory in contrast ... It had been both snowy and foggy, the princesses had been wearing very low-cut dresses despite the cold of Notre-Dame, there had been dozens of bishops in attendance, and the Pope had worn his gold cloth cope, the dignitaries had bowed their heads in costumes devised by David and Isabey: puffy, slashed breeches, velvet berets, ostrich feathers, wide-brimmed Renaissance hats; antique drapes, gold, a lot of gold - and Josephine had been so moved. A real dais carried along by canons, the silver-gilt sceptre ... And here he was today, fat-bellied under a rickety parasol ... The gunfire, the music, the bells and the shouting had not subsided; those flies of ill-omen buzzed everywhere as though around carrion.

The Emperor settled under the dais to escape the scorching sun, and the procession rattled off, both moving and grotesque, drums at the front, three dull blows then three rolls, more funereal than solemn.

Past the Sea Gate, in the town itself, Dalesme's infantry supplied reinforcements for the National Guard, who were unable to cope with the event by themselves; with some difficulty they managed to create a path through the middle of the crowd. There were people at the windows, on the balconies draped with silk shawls, crowds filled the stands and there were even people on the roofs. There were ladies in turbans and short jackets, wild-looking girls wearing nothing but flowers, rags and jangling jewellery.
Evviva I'lmperatore!
Handkerchiefs flew threw the air, rosepetals rained down, men raised their top hats or tricornes. Terrified by the cannon, swallows swirled around in a flock above the crowd, sometimes getting caught in the festoons of paper stretched between the houses, the branches of palm trees, or the rough flags sewn in the night. To add to the cacophony, little tearaways threw fire-crackers, some of which exploded between the Emperor's legs; Monsignor Arrighi, his face bright red with fury, shook his fist and kicked the boys in the pants. The procession advanced with some difficulty over scattered armfuls of box and bayleaves, and despite the short distance it was almost an hour before it reached the Piazza del Duomo.

The promised cathedral was nothing but a small, sober church, with white walls and a mosaic façade. The Emperor finally entered, framed on either side by two petrified chamberlains. Disguised in theatrical costumes, they tried to strike a pose.

*

‘Thank you! Well done! Ah, you've made a proper fool out of me!' croaked Octave, shaving his chin over a basin.

‘You wanted to see some indigenous people close up,' Monsieur Pons defended himself with a flash of irony.

‘Well, I've certainly done that! Savages, they are! Monkeys!'

‘You aren't being very nice about your new compatriots ...'

‘I've been to slums in Paris, I swear to you, but really, that takes the biscuit!'

‘Don't exaggerate, now, Monsieur Sénécal, and anyway, you're going to help the Emperor to civilize them.'

Octave had woken at first light, because Gianna's family home had no shutters. Looking around him, he'd thought he was still asleep and having a nightmare. In a large rough bed with neither sheets nor blankets, seven or eight people, infant to grandmother, lay sleeping, all completely naked - as indeed Octave was himself. He had leapt up, pushing aside Gianna's arm and her right leg, which had pinned him to the palliasse (she was buxom, certainly, but so what?), rummaging around for his clothes, which he found among others, on the beaten earth floor. Shaking the dust from them, he had dressed in silence and escaped into the steep deserted streets. He'd had to wait for ages on the steps of the town hall, because it was so early that the door was locked. Finally, however, shutters opened, blinds were raised, activity resumed. Workmen were checking the solidity of the platforms by jumping up and down on them, and men on ladders were hooking up garlands. A cart covered with mauve flowers passed by.

It was Joseph Hutré, the Deputy Mayor, who opened the town hall to Octave. Hutré, a musician from Toulon, had fled the Republic in an English sloop, chased by Captain Bonaparte's cannon, but he had compensated for that regrettable episode by marrying a woman from Elba, and he now kept the prestigious salt-works store on the Piazza Gran Bastione. He showed Octave the apartment the council had reserved for the sovereign: four austere rooms where, in the days of the Consulate, a disgraced colonel, Hugo, had lived with his three little boys, their nurse and a fat mistress. Together, Octave and the deputy helped some English soldiers, and Hubert the valet, to unload the first pieces of furniture from the
Undaunted.
As they worked they saw the mountain people trekking down into the town behind their priests, and massing near the port.

Early in the afternoon, just as the Emperor was being subjected to an interminable Te Deum in the neighbouring ‘cathedral', Monsieur Pons had surprised Octave in the tiny room where he was doing his best to shave, because if there was one thing His Majesty could not bear it was an untidy chin. They had barely exchanged three rather sour phrases when the Sub-prefect announced: ‘He's coming!'

The Emperor was walking beneath the plane trees of the parade ground, through the middle of a crowd, amid ceaseless hubbub, and he had only a few more yards to cover before entering the town hall, where he expected to hold an audience. The official drawing-room had been modified for the purpose. The Mayor's throne, decorated with gold paper, was perched on the school platform. Some letter ‘N's cut from cardboard were stuck to the wall, a number of crystal candelabras had been arranged around the place, and a large painting, showing tuna fishermen in the Gulf of Procchio, had been hung in pride of place. Some musicians who had taken refuge in a corner of the room were tuning their instruments - three violins and two harps.