Authors: Patrick Rambaud
Octave stood patiently while the Princess chose an outfit appropriate to the season and the weather, her hair-dresser arranged her curls and a light but skilful application of make-up brightened her complexion. Then, with the help of a valet, he carried the Princess downstairs on her portable cushion - because she was afraid of wearing out the soles of her laced boots - outside to her café-au-lait landau, where two titivated companions waited for her.
On horseback, with an escort consisting of a few gendarmes, Octave guided the coach along the new road that ran close to the salt-works. Strolling visitors greeted them as they passed, and peasants raised their hats. They soon arrived at the villa of San Martino, built on a hill; it was a very plain house with whitewashed walls. The landau stopped among the recently planted pines and acacias, and Pauline said wearily, ‘Help me to the house, Monsieur Sénécal.’
Dismounting, Octave opened the door of the landau. He picked up the Princess and carried her to the entrance, which was so narrow they had to squeeze through it sideways. With an indolent gesture, Pauline asked her retinue to wait outside, and they joined the gendarmes and the caretaker of the villa, who were setting up trestles for the picnic table, so mild was the winter. Beside the square of turned earth that was the kitchen garden, the Emperor’s six milch cows distractedly assessed the intruders as they chewed the hay from their byre.
Octave deposited the Princess on the floor, at the foot of a staircase as steep as a ladder, which she then climbed, asking him to follow her. Octave had never been inside San Martino, a place to which Napoleon came very seldom, and where he hardly ever lingered for any length of time. On the first floor, which opened out on to a garden at the back (the red-tiled house was built on the slopes of a hill), he found himself in some small rooms furnished in the Florentine style, with sofas and chests of drawers stolen from Prince Borghese, Pauline’s husband, who was now cavorting in Rome with his young Italian mistress.
‘It’s as though I’m in my palace,’ said Pauline, throwing down her wide-brimmed hat and loosening her laces. ‘Look, this divan could tell you an awful lot about me.’
‘What about this statue?’
‘Isn’t it a good resemblance?’
Octave studied Canova’s statue for a long time. The Trevisan sculptor had shown the Princess in a complicated pose, crouching with one knee on the ground, one arm behind the back of her neck and the other holding her breasts. Octave was about to ask, ‘Is it you?’ but by the time he turned around, Pauline had adopted the same pose, as naked as her effigy.
‘Non essere sciocco!
It’s me, you fool! But look, the real
Paoletta isn’t made of white marble . . .’
*
Dr Foureau de Bauregard had no trouble identifying Octave’s illness. He gave him a sly and disapproving look, sighed and offered him a scrap of morality.
‘Obviously it was bound to happen to you sooner or later, sleeping with the whores in the harbour.’
‘The whores in the harbour, yes,’ Octave repeated, buckling his belt.
‘The sailors who visit them don’t just bring those girls souvenirs from their travels. All right. I’ll prescribe you the same medication as I have done for His Majesty. Our pharmacist will prepare the mixture, he’s familiar with it. Two injections a day.’
‘With a syringe?’
‘Well obviously, not with a flute!’
‘I’ve never given injections . . .’
‘You’ll get used to it, my friend. You know, imitating the Emperor isn’t always glorious,’
Thus Octave had to set about treating the disease, as embarrassing as it was venereal, given him by Napoleon’s sister, and he would think often of that little mishap as he studied the comings and goings of the gallant officers that Pauline took for walks far from the Mulini Palace, to engage in her indiscretions far from wagging tongues. As one might imagine, not a trace of this bawdy episode featured in Octave’s diary; instead, he recorded other events that were all happening at once, and which seemed to contradict one another.
‘Monday 13 February. The Emperor is going ahead with his major building project. He has set aside four thousand francs for bridges and roads, to be paid in monthly instalments until July. He wants to build a bridge near Capoliveri, and finish a road. He has already closed Cape Stella with a drystone wall and a long trench, and ordered that the whole island be beaten to enclose the rabbits and hares inside the reserve. That seems to herald festivities. This morning, I brought Count Bertrand a letter in which His Majesty asks him to prepare his summer residence at the hermitage in Marciana. Houses will have to be rented for his retinue, the hermitage will need to be repaired, the room that will serve as his study will have to be enlarged, and the kitchens moved from the far side of the chapel. Count Bertrand will have to produce an estimate. At the same time, and this seems to contradict the long-term changes, the Emperor has just asked General Drouot, in my presence, to arm the
Inconstant,
now repaired, with twenty-six guns, and to lay in three months’ supplies for one hundred and twenty men...’
That same Monday, coming back from the town hall to the Mulini Palace, Octave bumped into Signor Forli, who was delivering his olive oil.
‘Monsieur Sénécal, you who know everything...’
‘As much as you, my dear fellow.’
‘Don’t be so modest. Tell me the identity of the false sailor that the Emperor is receiving as we speak.’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I saw you on the steps of the town hall, so you’ve had a meeting with Count Bertrand.’
‘That’s true. I gave him a letter from the Emperor about his holiday plans for next summer.’
‘This morning Bertrand authorized an audience with someone disguised as a sailor.’
‘Why disguised?’
‘His hands were too fine to pull on ropes.’
The oil merchant had noticed the man in question beneath the Sea Gate, showing his passport at the customs office. From Genoa, he’d travelled to the town, where garlands were already being hung for the carnival on 15 February, then booked himself a bed in a hostel for passing sailors. An audience? An ordinary seaman? The sentry outside the Mulini Palace refused him entry. He was to seek authorization from the town hall, like everyone else. When the man came back two hours later with his authorization signed, the soldier looked surprised, but granted the man in his sailor’s uniform access to the Palace.
‘I’m surprised Bertrand didn’t mention it to you.’
‘I don’t know everything, Forli, but I’m going to find out.’
At the Palace, the Emperor was locked away in his study with the visitor, and the conversation seemed to be going on for ever. Octave sat down on a garden wall until he saw the sailor leave; but the oil merchant was right, he didn’t have the air of a sailor, and his disguise was thoroughly unconvincing. It was easier to imagine him in a tie and a black frock-coat. Octave wrote of him:
‘He’s the former Sub-prefect of Reims, who resigned so as not to serve the King, come on behalf of the Duke of Bassano, and His Majesty reassured himself by asking precise questions to which the Sub-prefect replied in a convincing fashion. The Duke of Bassano tells us through him, among other things, that Fouché is plotting with the former Jacobins and a coterie of officers to get rid of the highly unpopular Louis XVIII, to establish a regency but send Napoleon to St Helena, as Talleyrand has proposed. This confirms what we have known for some weeks.’
*
The following Wednesday, which was Ash Wednesday, the god of carnival was ceremoniously buried. Masked balls were planned at the Mulini Palace, at the Forte Stella, and at some private homes which were to be opened specially for the occasion. The population had massed in the streets, where happy tourists rubbed shoulders with Elbans. They danced, laughed, drank, and ate traditional rolled tripe sprinkled with salt from the stalls - and then drank some more. In the square in front of the church, which had been turned into a fairground, street vendors in baroque costumes sold toys and hats, while little boys set off firecrackers. Octave strolled from group to group — always alert and suspicious of joyful multitudes since any murderer could slip in wearing a mask, but he had advised the Emperor not to show his face in Portoferraio - chewing on one of the skewers of baby octopus grilled over coals that vendors were offering at the crossroads. He was amused by an astrologer in a pointed hat, false cardboard nose, and a long robe patterned with silver moons and stars, who was bragging about his elixir of life. An onlooker bought a flask, which he wanted to try straight away; he drank from it and spat it out with a grimace: the celestial mixture was nothing but olive oil. Octave recognized the barker by his voice, even if he was distorting it: it was Signor Forli. While the laughing crowd waiting for the next dupe to come along so they could mock him in chorus, the astrologer turned towards Octave, and adopted an incredible accent to shout: ‘My elixir, noble my lord?’ (and in a whisper), ‘I need to talk to you.’
Their playlet was interrupted by a fat and jovial fellow who was being dragged towards the platform by his neighbours. He wore a comical hat and was enjoying himself hugely. He demanded a flask, but cries and music distracted everyone’s attention: ‘The procession! The procession!’ Inquisitive bystanders pushed their way to the other end of the parade ground, where the street fell steeply from the ramparts. ‘There they are!’ They hurried towards the route of the procession, applauding and climbing up trees and ladders.
The colonel of the Guard, normally so austere, appeared first, dressed as a pasha, with a disproportionately large turban rolled on his head, his moustache twisted into points, puffed breeches and a curved sabre lent him by a Mameluke. Just behind him, to great cheers, a spindly Polish officer was dressed as Don Quixote, wedged into some botched armour, with a paunchy catering officer following him on a donkey to embody the role of Sancho Panza. Then came the regimental band - grenadiers in Pierrot costumes strummed guitars and waved tambourines without much conviction. Behind them came some twenty carts arranged on gun carriages, on which other soldiers, wrapped in muslin and cashmere or fringed curtains, played at being odalisques, trying out lascivious poses, writhing their hairy arms and performing failed arabesques as they threw flowers at the laughing crowd. Next came a cart of bohemians waving mimosa branches, and everyone tried to guess which one was Paoletta. Finally, heads lowered, to round off this risible procession, Bertrand, Drouot and Cambronne marched in full uniform.
While the inhabitants of Portoferraio were concentrated around the festival, the oil merchant had rolled up his astrologer’s robe and doffed his pointed hat. He led Octave down to the port, saying, ‘You’ll have to explain to me!’
They entered one of the warehouses, which was not guarded that day, and in front of a stack of numbered cases, Signor Forli asked, ‘Do you know what they are?’
‘These packages? No.’
‘Some workmen told me. They’re the two gilded berlins that came to Fontainebleau with the Guard: they’ve been dismantled.’
‘You know more than I do.’
‘Read this inscription on the cases.’
‘For
Rome
,’ Octave read.
‘For Rome, that’s exactly it! And why is the Emperor sending his coaches to Rome? To have himself crowned King of Italy?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Stop play-acting, Sénécal!’
‘I’m not play-acting.’
‘Come, come! You’re always around Napoleon!’
‘He’s miserly with his confidences, and anyway I’m not really part of his inner circle.’
‘Find out more, damn it! For some time now you’ve barely been informing me at all.’
‘You know more than I do, Forli,’ Octave replied with a laugh.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Your cardboard nose. You’ve forgotten to take it off.’
Furiously, the oil merchant took off his false nose and hurled it to the ground. But he had noticed suspicious movements. He knew that the horses of the Polish cavalry had been moved from Pianosa island where they had been stabled. The previous night he had witnessed the loading of sixty cases of ammunition on to the
Inconstant.
At the tavern, he listened to the sailors who claimed to be well informed. They all claimed that the Emperor was about to leave. Some said, ‘He’s going to escape to America.’ Others contradicted them: ‘No, he’s going to reconquer Italy with Murat. Murat is already in Tuscany.’
Octave and Forli walked side by side along the quays. Some launches were coming and going from the port to an English ship called the
Partridge.
‘You want me to keep you informed, Signor Forli? That I can do. Colonel Campbell is setting off for Livorno tomorrow.’
‘Will he report to the Austrian chargé d’affaires?’
‘That’s what he claims every time. In actual fact he’s joining Signora Bartoli in Florence. Poor man, he’s bored on this island. And if he’s leaving, it’s because he has no suspicion. That should reassure you about the Emperor’s intentions. Campbell knows everything, much more than you and I.’
The oil merchant did not seem convinced.
*
The next day and during the days that followed, Signor Forli’s doubts were reinforced. He became less and less convinced of Octave’s ignorance, and Octave avoided him by no longer going to the port, always claiming that he was detained by some mission or other. ‘Dust in the eyes!’ Forli thought as he travelled with the tourists to visit the fallow land that the Guard units were transforming into a vegetable garden. He had even surprised a brief conversation between the Emperor and one of his guardsmen.
‘Are you bored?’ Napoleon had asked a digging grenadier.
‘Why yes, my Emperor, I’m not enjoying myself too much.’
‘Here you are, take this gold coin while you wait.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘Spring!’
The oil merchant had immediately communicated this exchange to Livorno: was Napoleon preparing to land in Italy in the spring? The garrison soldiers were no longer found idling in the taverns, but not for reasons to do with vegetable-growing, it was because they were now consigned to barracks in the evenings. Passing sailors were now the only ones Forli could question, but all he ever collected was endless boasting; he heard that King Louis XVIII had almost been kidnapped from his apartments in the Tuileries, or that Masséna, Governor of Toulon, had flown the tricolour. Forli also skimmed the pamphlets that had been brought from the Continent on the trading vessels, which portrayed Napoleon as a grotesque pot-bellied figure: a caricature showed him as an obese Robinson Crusoe lying his back on a beach with a parasol in his hand and his plumed eagle on his shoulder like a parrot; in another drawing he was shown ordering a round-up of thirty men, and in front of him marched a procession of people with goitres, hunchbacks and amputees holding sticks. This did not make Forli laugh, and he turned pale when a fisherman of his acquaintance pushed open the door of the Buono Gusto and yelled inside: ‘The island of Elba is cut off from the world!’