Napoleon's Exile (22 page)

Octave and Monsieur Pons stayed in the background as Napoleon, by now seated on this fantastic throne, gave an audience to the people of Elba. Handpicked by the Sub-prefect, and channelled along cramped corridors, these privileged folk stepped forward to hear the Emperor. They were curious and deferential, and Napoleon, as much at ease as he would have been in the Tuileries before a panel of princes, spoke to them. So familiar was he with the problems and geography of the island that his listeners were won over. Monsieur Pons, however, knew that the dignitaries had, only that very morning, talked the Emperor through their record books, and he had simply assimilated everything they told him.

In French or Italian, depending on who he was responding to, Napoleon gave confident and pertinent replies to everyone; he found solutions for the development of the sardine trade in Porto Longone, the exploitation of salt or the growing of wheat, which was sadly restricted to the single canton of Campo; he spoke of the excellent chestnut purée that was a staple on the island, the black lodestone used for magnetizing compasses, the medicinal plants that could be collected nowhere else. He spoke of the Etruscans, and the Romans who had cut the columns of their porticoes from the island's greenish-grey marble. He told the story of the Lombards, the Vandals, the Genoese, the King of Naples who had given up this rich but arid land to France.

The whole affair lasted till nightfall.

Outside, people who had not been invited to the audience set off fireworks and danced at the crossroads. The town was illuminated, but the mountain people were already lighting torches to return in long processions to their provinces.

Monsieur Pons identified the bigwigs for Octave: the chief justice, surrounded by magistrates like a hen and her chicks, the archpriest, some smiling curés, the garrison officers, the handful of French residents (some of whom had, only a day before, been wearing white cockades and who would be leaving by the first boat), the town councillors, a few shopkeepers. Octave nudged his mentor, having spotted the two Italians Pons had pointed out to him at the Buono Gusto café: they were talking in an undertone to Count Bertrand, unfolding documents and showing them to him. As they were still there when everyone else had gone, Bertrand immediately led them into the drawing-room to speak with the Emperor. Before the door closed on their discussion, Octave caught a phrase:
‘Dite si faccia l'Italia, si l'Italia si fará
' which Monsieur Pons translated for him: ‘Say that Italy should form, and Italy will form.'

‘Meaning?'

‘That they are patriots, and would like our Emperor to be theirs. After all Napoleon is Italian ...'

The two Turinese conspirators left the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later, pulled their hats down over their eyes and slipped out without a word. The Emperor followed them thoughtfully, stopping in the corridor and noticing Octave. At once his mood changed.

‘Shut that window, Monsieur Sénécal! I have already put up with those dreadful violinists and their wretched ritornellos, but enough's enough! Can't we ever have any peace and quiet around here?'

A girls' choir was giving a serenade outside the town hall, and Napoleon, aghast, retired with Bertrand and Dalesme to a more soundproofed room. Meanwhile Octave was waiting to show the Emperor his excessively modest apartment. Hubert, the valet, had brought up the camp-bed used on expeditions, and set out some familiar trinkets on the chairs and rustic chests of drawers that had been donated by local families.

Monsieur Pons saw no point in keeping watch, since it was midnight, and was just preparing to take his leave when the door opened.

‘Mr Mining Administrator, will you allow me to lunch with you, at Rio Marina?'

‘Yes, sire.'

‘At nine o'clock in the morning?'

‘Yes, sire.'

‘Grand Marshal Bertrand tells me that the mines have not worked for weeks, that you have abandoned your lovely house for a dwelling in Portoferraio, and that my desire cannot be satisfied in such a short time ...'

‘On the contrary, it's very easy.'

‘You see, Bertrand, killjoy that you are!' said the Emperor, then, addressing Pons once more: ‘Tell me frankly if it isn't too much of a disturbance for you ...'

‘It doesn't disturb me at all, it's just...'

‘Just what?'

‘I crave Your Majesty's indulgence.'

‘And I grant it you, but what about Madame Pons? Wouldn't it be an abuse of her kindness?'

‘It will make her very happy.'

‘You see, Bertrand!'

‘At nine o'clock, Your Majesty will find his table laid.'

Even more sullen than before, Bertrand left with Monsieur Pons and told him to mobilize a beaming populace to acclaim the Emperor.

*

At five o'clock in the morning, when the sky was still black, a group of horsemen entered the tunnel of the Land Gate, at the bottom of the curtain walls of the Forte

Sant'Ilario, the portcullis of which was reached by a steep path. The vault of the tunnel was wide enough for large berlins to get through, but it was gloomy and cold, lit only very faintly by the glow from a grilled niche containing a statue of the Madonna. Suddenly, though, a flickering light illuminated the walls at the first bend in the tunnel, and the horsemen had to press themselves against the wall to make room for a religious procession. Penitents in pointed hoods carried smoking torches, walking ahead of a bald priest and a coffin carried on a litter decorated with biblical scenes, bringing a Brother of Mercy to the cemetery. Other penitents followed behind them, then women dressed in black, hidden behind floral wreaths. The Emperor removed his hat and whispered to General Dalesme, who was escorting him and his entourage to the Rio mines, where Monsieur Pons awaited them, ‘A funeral? At this time of day?'

‘Because of the heat, sire, burials take place before dawn or at nightfall. . .'

Once the last of the penitents had passed, the horsemen were finally able to leave the smoky tunnel, emerging on to a stony road at the entrance to a valley tinged red by the rising sun. They didn't have far to travel, but had to stop often to receive the tributes of the peasants at every village, every hamlet. After that the roads were bad, narrow and poorly marked. At the foot of the mountains they rode along the gulf, and then beside ravines, they climbed into wild pine forests, and back down a road lined with aloes. Beyond the fortress of Porto Longone, built on granite blocks, battered by the waves, the land of iron began: no more trees, and not a tuft of grass; instead they saw grey houses, and hillsides left ashen by slag from the mines. The path was pitted by the carts that brought the ore to the barges.

Evviva l'Imperatore!
On the ridges, workers unfurled their new banners, and at Rio Marina, 150 miners, picks shouldered, hailed His Majesty. Boatmen lit the fuses of their antique culverins and local girls, their black hair entwined with ribbons, ran to meet him, throwing flower petals, squealing like mad things and trying to kiss his hands. Pons de l'Hérault, who was quite nervous, and the representatives of the local councils - some of whom had, the previous week, cried
Death to Napoleon!
and set fire to effigies of him - now welcomed him with open displays of emotion. When Bertrand and Dalesme helped the Emperor from his horse, the ovation rose a notch, but the endlessly repeated cheers of
Evviva l'Imperatore
were now joined by clear cries of
Viva il nostro babbo! -
which Napoleon understood perfectly well - directed at Monsieur Pons.

‘I get a sense that you're the King,' said the Emperor irritably, as the two men walked beneath the inevitable triumphal arch of chestnut and oak leaves.

‘Oh no, I'm not their sovereign ...'

‘But you are their father, isn't that what they're shouting?'

‘I am their father, yes...'

‘That's even better.'

The day had not started well.

Monsieur Pons kept the ceremonies to a minimum, cut short the compliments that Napoleon had heard twenty times already since his arrival and, after a brief stroll on the rocks, took his visitors to lunch at the mine administration mansion -where he lived under normal circumstances, a sad but spacious mansion by the sea. He had not been idle. He'd galloped to Rio at dead of night, woken his workers with a lantern, asked the gardener to bedeck the front steps with flowers, ordered nets put out at the first light of day. By some miracle his fishermen had caught a twenty-five-pound fish, and others besides; enough to prepare a bouillabaisse every bit as good as the one he had given Captain Bonaparte in Bandol, the first Napoleon had ever eaten. Would he remember?

None of Monsieur Pons's efforts were rewarded, however, and were in fact seen as pure insolence because the gardener, who was a fine man but ignorant of symbols, had arranged white lilies very conspicuously at the bottom of the steps. This was not greatly to the Emperor's liking.

‘This insignium bodes well!'

Inside, Napoleon asked his host, ‘Isn't Madame Pons here?'

‘She stayed in Portoferraio,' Pons replied uneasily.

‘Couldn't she receive me?'

‘She's still making flags ...'

‘You will thank her for the care she is taking . . .'

‘Certainly, monsieur,' stammered Pons, forgetting the correct form of address.

His guests passed into the dining-room and poor Monsieur Pons wondered what blunders he was going to commit next, but His Majesty had stopped talking to him, preferring to direct questions about iron extraction at General Dalesme - or that imbecile Taillade, a naval lieutenant without a vessel, who had settled on the island but was so pretentious that the people of Elba simply laughed at him. Now he acted as though he knew everything, and tried to puff himself up by explaining things Napoleon already knew: that the name Elba came from the Etruscan
ilva
, iron; that the Medici had sent their convicts to the citadel of Porto Longone, and it was from them that the mine-workers were descended.

Bertrand himself had arranged the seating of the guests, placing Monsieur Pons far away from the Emperor, as though he were being punished. Dalesme, clearly exasperated by the situation, kept an eye on the administrator, gesturing him to be calm. The worst moment was when the Emperor expressed surprise that the ore could not be transformed on the island, for want of wood to feed the kilns. ‘Then we will plant forests,' he said, adding cheerfully that he felt himself turning into a peasant. When the bouillabaisse was served, he asked what the dish was, and claimed never to have eaten it before — glancing at Monsieur Pons out of the corner of his eye as he did so. Pons could hardly contain himself, and almost left the table several times, but the Emperor then began talking about transforming the island, building real roads, sewers in the towns; he thought it wrong that Elba was unable to produce enough wheat for its own needs, and had to import its grain.

The conversation thus turned to nearby Italy, which was occupied by the Austrians: Napoleon thought that all the nations in the peninsula would one day have to merge into a great Italian fatherland. To do so they would have to forget their rivalries, and Rome, Florence and Milan would have to reach an agreement if they were to be strong together. When the war was mentioned, Napoleon replied abruptly.

‘Don't talk to me about war! I've had enough of war ... You see, I've thought about it a great deal . . . We have waged war all our life, the future may force us to do so again, and yet war will in the end become an anachronism. These battles? The confrontation of two societies, one which dates from 1789 and the
ancien régime
. They couldn't live together, and the younger devoured the older ... Yes, war has brought me low,
me
, the representative of the French Revolution and the instrument of its principles. None of it is of any import. It's a lost battle for civilization, but civilization, believe me, will take its revenge ...'

His bouillabaisse, which he had not yet touched, was going cold but, waving his knife in the air, the Emperor pursued his theme, his eyes half-closed.

‘There are two systems, the past and the future: the present is merely a painful transition. Which, in your view, must triumph? Surely the future? Well, the future is intelligence, industry and peace! I say once again, gentlemen, don't speak to me of war, it is no longer one of our customs ...'

Monsieur Pons thought this speech was directed at him, that His Majesty, in neglecting his bouillabaisse, was needling his own republican convictions. Was this despot going to lecture him under his own roof? He fulminated, but he stayed sitting where he was.

When the Emperor rose before coffee, he deigned to ask his host for precise details about the working of the mines and how much they yielded, but Monsieur Pons merely said he would provide all the information in writing. (This reply was something he regretted, however, when, just as they were walking past the very place where the ore was piled for loading, a group of clerks and miners approached the Emperor, knelt before him and handed him a petition to keep their beloved administrator in his job. The Emperor frowned as he read it and Monsieur Pons, very embarrassed, said, ‘Monsieur, I know nothing of this inappropriate gesture.')

‘Are you still a Republican?'

‘A patriot, yes.'

‘Do you want to stay with me?'

‘I ask only to be of use to you.'

‘That wasn't the question, I was asking only if you want to continue with your administration. Are you staying, or are you not?'

‘I will do as you wish.'

The visit had got off to a dreadful start, and finished as it had begun. Monsieur Pons made one gaffe after another, couldn't bring himself to call the Emperor ‘sire', stammered as he called him ‘monsieur', ‘your grace', ‘your worship', and the general feeling of unease was heightened because he did not travel with the sovereign on the boat back to Portoferraio, as etiquette required.