Evil in a Mask Page 3

  But soon after his arrival in Warsaw the tune of his letters to Josephine had altered; the gist of them being that the climate would prove too severe for her, so she must remain in Paris.

  The reason for this sudden change of heart was known to all who were in frequent attendance on him. On January 1st, when on his way to Warsaw, his coach had been surrounded by an excited crowd, cheering this legendary paladin who, rumour said, was about to restore Poland to her ancient glory. At an inn at which the coach had pulled up, two ladies had begged Duroc, Napoleon’s A.D.C.-in-Chief and Marshal of his Camps and Palaces, to permit them to pay homage to the hero. Duroc had courteously agreed, and one of the ladies was the flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, eighteen-year-old Countess Walewska.

  Napoleon, much taken with her, instantly recognised her again when she appeared at a grand ball given in his honour a few nights after he had established himself in the ancient Palace of the Polish Kings. But, from shyness, the young girl had asked to be excused when he invited her to dance. No doubt this had made him more eager to pursue her, which for some days he did, with growing annoyance at her ignoring his letters and refusing him a rendezvous.

  The fact was that Marie Walewska was, although married to a seventy-year-old nobleman, chaste, of a retiring disposition and deeply religious. The thought of taking a lover was abhorrent to her and, although normally Napoleon never took ‘No’ for an answer, in this case help had to be called in.

  Prince Poniatowski, the head of the movement for Polish liberation, pointed out to her how valuable she could be to her country’s cause by becoming the all-powerful Emperor’s mistress. Moved to tears as she was by this appeal to her known patriotism, she still refused to succumb.

  The affair became the talk of the town; men and women, friends and relations all joined in to badger poor little Marie into giving way for the good of the cause. Driven half out of her wits, she at last agreed to allow Duroc to escort her to Napoleon’s apartments. Duroc, who was one of Roger’s closest friends, told him afterwards that, although the couple had been closeted together for three hours, Marie had been in tears the whole time and left the room as chaste as she had entered it.

  Utterly exasperated, Napoleon played his last card and sent his brilliant Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, to talk to her. That elegant aristocrat, a bishop under the ancient régime. a Liberal leader during the first Revolution, an exile during the Terror, after Napoleon one of the two most powerful men in France for the past eight years, and not long since created by his master Prince de Benevento, was not only as subtle as a serpent in negotiating treaties, but also a past-master in the art of seducing women. Where all others had failed, he had persuaded Marie that the gods had blessed her above all other women by enabling her to serve her country and, at the same time, endowing her with the love of the most powerful man on earth.

  Napoleon was invariably kind and courteous to women, and extravagantly generous to his mistresses. His gentleness and charm soon won Marie’s heart. Their happy association lasted for many years. She was one of the few women that he ever truly loved and, in due course, she gave him a son.

  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord, a grandson of the Princess de Chalais, debarred from succeeding his father as Marquis because an ill-cared-for broken ankle, causing him to be lame for life, had disqualified him for the Army, had played a key role in Roger’s life.

  At the age of nineteen, Roger had been knocked out and carried unconscious into Talleyrand’s house. During his subsequent ravings, Talleyrand had learned that his guest was not, as he purported to be, a Frenchman born in Strasbourg who, on his mother’s death, had been brought up by her sister in England; but was in fact the son of Lady Marie Brook and a British Admiral. He had kept Roger’s secret and, for many years, believed that, as was quite common in those days, Roger was a foreigner who had decided to make his career in another country and was completely loyal to it.

  At last Talleyrand had found out that Roger was still loyal to the country of his birth and that, ever since 1789, owing to the high connections he had made in France, he had acted as a master spy for Britain’s Prime Minister. But on two counts Talleyrand had refrained from having him arrested. Firstly, it was Roger who during the Terror had procured for him the papers that had enabled him to escape from France. Secondly, from the very beginning of his diplomatic career, Talleyrand’s secret aim had been to bring Britain and France together; his conviction being that there could be no lasting peace in Europe until her two most powerful nations permanently buried the hatchet.

  Talleyrand was unique among his contemporaries: an aristocrat by birth and breeding, he still dressed in silks and went to receptions with his hair powdered, yet he had succeeded in dominating the horde of strong-willed, self-made men who had emerged from the Revolution. Cynical, venal, immoral, he pursued his unruffled way through court and camp, although he detested having to follow Napoleon on his campaigns—on the way to Warsaw his coach had become stuck for a whole night in the snow. When in Paris he lived in the utmost luxury and, to meet his colossal expenditure, he exacted huge bribes from the foreign ambassadors; but only to listen to their desires, not necessarily to further them, and that had been customary with Ministers of Foreign Affairs in every country in Europe for centuries. That he was immoral he would never have denied; the lovely women with whom, at one time or another, he had been to bed were legion. But he was a man of great vision, whose steadfast ambition was to bring lasting peace and prosperity to France.

  Most men holding such views and serving a master to whom war was the breath of life, would long since have thrown in their hands. But not Talleyrand. Again and again, calm, imperturbable, even showing apparent willingness, he had bowed before the storm and negotiated treaties made against his advice; yet always with the hope that if he remained at his post a time would come when he could stabilise the position of France within her own natural frontiers and bring the other nations of Europe to look on her as a friend.

  As early as October 1805 Talleyrand had sent from Strasbourg a well-reasoned paper to the Emperor. His argument was that the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire could do only harm to Europe. By remaining strong it could act both as a counterpoise to Prussia, and keep the barbarous hordes of Russia in check. After Napoleon had entered Vienna in triumph, Talleyrand had adhered to his policy, begging the Emperor to let the defeated Austrians off lightly and enter into an alliance with them; thus evading the danger that Hungary might break away and go over to the Czar.

  Talleyrand’s despatch had reached the Emperor just after Austerlitz, in which battle he had administered the coup de grâce to Austria and also routed a Russian army. Elated by his double victory he had brushed aside the wise counsel of his Foreign Minister and imposed a brutally harsh fine on the Emperor Francis, taking from him his Venetian and Dalmatian territories, and other big areas of land, to reward the German Princes who had sent contingents of troops to fight beside the French.

  That summer he had arbitrarily united sixteen of these Princes to form under his suzerainty the Confederation of the Rhine. Talleyrand had obediently brought them into line, while looking down his slightly retrousse nose. He, and his Austrian opposite number, Prince Metternich, knew well enough that such a hastily-assembled kettle of normally antagonistic fish could prove no substitute for a strong Austrian Empire.

  In that summer, too, Talleyrand had again endeavoured to bring about a peace with Britain. Charles Fox had all his life been so strong a Francophile that his then being in power favoured it; but negotiations had broken down over the future of Sicily.

  The age had opened when Napoleon was to play ducks and drakes with the ancient thrones of Europe. He had recently made his elder brother, Joseph, King of Naples; his youngest brother, Louis, King of Holland; and his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, Grand Duke of Berg. But Joseph was as yet in possession of only the land half of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Bourbon King Ferdinand had fled from Naples to the great island and, protected
by the British Fleet, still held it. Such was Napoleon’s loathing for Ferdinand’s Queen, Caroline—the intriguing elder sister of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette—that he was determined to conquer the island at the first opportunity, and laid claim to it as part of Joseph’s Kingdom. Pledged to continue to defend the Bourbons, in honour bound Britain could not agree to abandon them. Then, in September, the grossly obese Fox had followed his life-long opponent, Pitt, to the grave.

  There had followed the whirlwind Prussian campaign. After the defeats of Jena and Austerlitz, Frederick William had asked for terms. Again Talleyrand had urged the Emperor to show mercy to the defeated and bind them to him by an alliance. Napoleon would not hear of it. An alliance, yes; but not until Prussia had forfeited half her territories. In vain Talleyrand had pointed out that, with both Austria and Prussia broken, there would be no major Power left to help resist the Muscovite hordes overrunning Central Europe and invading France herself. But Napoleon, by then the arbiter of Europe from the tip of Italy to the Baltic, and from the Carpathian mountains to the North Sea, had become so overwhelmingly confident in his own power to deal with any and every situation that he had refused to listen. The Prussians had sullenly withdrawn to the north, and were still giving the Czar such help as they could.

  It had begun to snow again: large, heavy, silent flakes. As Roger drew his furs more closely round him, he wondered how it would all end. The French had taken a terrible hammering that day at Eylau, but no one could dispute Napoleon’s genius as a General. Roger would have bet a year’s pay that, before the year was out, by one of his fantastically swift concentrations the Emperor would catch the Russians napping and inflict a terrible defeat upon them. But what then?

  Britain alone would remain in arms defying the might of the Continent’s overlord. But she was in a worse way than she had been at any time since the beginning of the struggle. The so-called ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ consisted almost entirely of weak, incompetent men who lacked a firm policy, and spent their time quarrelling amongst themselves.

  If Napoleon’s Continental System proved a really serious threat to Britain’s trade, industrial interests might force the present futile gang to agree a humiliating peace. Again, should Napoleon succeed in defeating the Russians, he would have no enemy left but England; and would march the Grande Armée back to Boulogne. For the time being Trafalgar had rendered invasion out of the question; but, with every dockyard in Europe at his disposal, the Emperor could, in a year or two, build a fleet strong enough to challenge again the British Navy. The great Nelson was dead. Would his successor succeed in defeating a French Armada; or, awful thought, would Lasalle’s Hussars and Oudinot’s Grenadiers yet ravage and burn the peaceful farmsteads of Kent and Sussex?

  As the falling snow formed a blanket over Roger’s hunched body, he knew that the issue was, for him, academic; but he tried to cheer himself by looking on the brighter side.

  There was another possibility. During this past year the Emperor had succumbed to folie de grandeur. He had absolute confidence in his ‘star’ and considered himself a superman whose decisions could never be wrong. Hence his abrupt dismissal of Talleyrand’s far-sighted policies. But it is said that ‘pride goeth before a fall’. It was not only the rulers and the armies of Austria and Prussia that had been humbled by defeat. The peoples of those countries, countless thousands of whom had casually been made citizens of foreign states, resented most bitterly the fate that Napoleon had brought upon them.

  At least there was a chance that they might be seized with a patriotic fervour and rise in their wrath against this oppressor. Between ’92 and ’96 it had been the people of France who had not only overthrown the Monarchy, but defied and defeated the trained armies of Austria, Prussia, Piedmont and Spain. If Napoleon had his back turned—for example being occupied with the invasion of England—might not the Germans and Austrians combine to massacre the French garrisons left in their cities, and regain their freedom?

  The fanaticism that had imbued the early armies of the Republic with the courage to achieve their amazing victories turned Roger’s thoughts to France as it was now, under the benign but iron hand of the Emperor. In ’799, when he had become First Consul, the country had been in a state of anarchy. There was no justice in the land. Every Municipality was a law unto itself, flagrantly robbing such citizens of any means who had not escaped abroad, yet neglecting the roads in its district until they became almost impassable. The country had swarmed with bands of deserters who pillaged and murdered at will. In the cities the Churches had been turned into gaming hells and brothels, half the houses had become rat-infested tenements, and the streets were half-choked with the accumulated filth of years.

  Within a year, in one great spate of inexhaustible energy, overriding every obstacle, the First Consul had cleaned the country up. The venal Municipalities had been replaced by Prefects, answerable only to him. The roads were repaired, the diligences again ran on time, the inns were made habitable and their staffs were no longer surly and offensive. The cities were cleansed, thousands of new schools opened, justice restored and the finances put in order. That one man could have achieved so much in so short a time was miraculous and, as an administrator, Napoleon had Roger’s whole-hearted admiration. But a price had had to be paid for his services. The French people had lost their, hard-won liberty. By a series of swift, crafty changes in the Constitution, Bonaparte had made himself a dictator whose will no man could question. Yet, because he had brought order out of chaos and again given them security, they had accepted this new bondage without a murmur.

  As Roger recalled those days of hectic endeavour to retrieve France from the appalling state of disorder into which she had fallen during the ten years of the Revolution and Directory, the image of another personality entered his mind.

  This was Joseph Fouché. Equally, perhaps, with Talleyrand, after Napoleon, he had for many years been the most powerful man in France. He was, too, the only other who knew Roger to be in fact the son of an English Admiral.

  Fouché was the antithesis of Talleyrand. He had started life as a lay teacher of the Oratorian Order, become a close friend of Robespierre and was the Deputy for Nantes in the Revolutionary Convention. In ’93 he had emerged as one of the most ruthless of the Terrorists. As Commissioner in Nevers he had looted the Cathedral and sent scores of bourgeoisie to the guillotine. In Lyons he had put down a Liberal revolt, had trenches dug outside the city, then had the captured rebels—men, women and children—lined up in front of them and mowed down with cannon firing grapeshot.

  During the reaction that took place under the Directory, he had been lucky to escape with his life and, while in exile forty leagues from Paris, managed to sustain himself by breeding pigs. Somehow he had become an army contractor, made a small fortune, then suddenly emerged again as Chief of Police.

  From Roger’s first year in France right up to the autumn of ’99, a bitter enmity had existed between him and Fouché. Each owed the other a long-harboured grudge and, on numerous occasions, they had pitted their wits against each other, with death as the forfeit. But at the time of Brumaire, when Napoleon had made his bid for power, their interests having become common they had buried the hatchet.

  Roger had brought the aristocratic Talleyrand and the rabble-rouser Fouché secretly together, because he knew that both believed Bonaparte to be the ‘man with the sword’ who could cleanse the Augean Stable that France had become. Talleyrand had stage-managed the coup d’état out at St. Cloud while Fouché had closed the gates of Paris, thus preventing interference by troops still loyal to the Convention and the Revolution.

  Confirmed in his office as Chief of Police by Bonaparte, Fouché had then worked wonders. His spy system was all-embracing, his files contained particulars of every important Frenchman in the country, and out of it. He worked eighteen hours a day and maintained a large staff of highly efficient subordinates. He was aware of every incipient conspiracy and every love affair that mattered. Although hi
mself a Jacobin, he ruthlessly suppressed all his old colleagues who were anti-Bonaparte. He controlled a vast army of agents and his powers had increased to a point where his word became law from one end of France to the other. Meanwhile, he had amassed a vast fortune.

  By the autumn of 1802 he had become so powerful that even Napoleon became afraid of him, so dismissed him and split his Ministry into two. But by the summer of 1804, the Emperor had reluctantly come to realise that, when he was away on his campaigns, Fouché was the only man capable of preventing trouble in France, so he had been reinstated as Minister of Police, and given special powers to deal with any emergency.

  He was a tall, pale cadaverous man whose features resembled those of a living corpse. Habitually he never looked anyone straight in the face. His eyes were like those of a dead fish and, as he suffered from a perpetual cold, his nose was always running. Unlike Talleyrand, he was careless in his dress and his waistcoat was often stained with snuff. Unlike Talleyrand, too, no pretty woman ever graced his bed. He was completely faithful to a dreary wife who was as ill-favoured as himself. In 1804, when creating a new aristocracy to support his throne, Napoleon had made Fouché the Duc d’Otranto.

  Although Talleyrand and Fouché had combined to bring General Bonaparte to power as First Consul, their outlooks on life were as different as oil from water, and they loathed each other. But Roger, while having a deep affection for the former, also admired the latter for his extraordinary efficiency, and for a long time past had been on the best of terms with them both.

  As the steadily-falling snow formed a thick layer over Roger’s furs, his limbs gradually became numb. He felt a great desire to fall asleep, but knew that if he did that would be the end. He would never wake up. Vaguely he realised that he could not have been granted a less painful death. Even so, his instinct was to keep life in his body for as long as possible. From time to time he rubbed his face and ears hard, flailed his arms out and in, beating his chest, and kicked about with his free leg. But gradually his movements became more infrequent, and his mind wandered from one disconnected episode to another.