Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 652
Moreover, the very swiftness of the yacht had contributed to forcing the young Feilding to remain on the island till the King was ready to start — to remain temporarily really a prisoner. In this way: The question about violets that Gatti di Vivario, the night before, had put to the young man and the young man’s answers were in very serious fact part of a ritual by which the Imperialists then in France recognized each other. Napoleon had detached four hundred of his small army to go to the mainland — four hundred of his trustiest — for no other purpose than to spread that as if Masonic formula in places where it could be useful — and the young Feilding’s apparent possession of that knowledge had absolutely precluded his permitting the boy to get away — in the swiftest vessel in the world!
The boy might be perfectly trustworthy but he was in possession of knowledge that was sufficient to hang several hundred thousand — a couple of million Frenchmen — for the conspiracy had by now assumed immense dimensions owing to the unpopularity of the Bourbons, from whose yoke all France prayed for deliverance. Was it then thinkable that the boy should be allowed to go? The yacht might sail straight for Toulon and that same day the news might be in Paris, for the weather was perfectly clear and the telegraph would therefore almost certainly be working. So, once the Colonel-Count had that news, the young Feilding’s fate had been sealed. He had had to fight his duel and to give his parole in circumstances that precluded his communicating even with persons on the island. The authorities had indeed very nearly maintained their embargo on the yacht and the person of Assheton Smith himself; but their fear of embarrassing a person so important, their need of money and the outcry that the Baron had made had been sufficient to lead them in his case to take the chance. The Baron had represented that he had already had sufficient trouble in raising his initial twelve million livres: here was a nabob, a milor, the richest man in the world, who avowed himself willing to raise a similar sum with a stroke of the pen. They could not think of imprisoning him. They had not.
But that fact alone was cause of further misgivings to the girl. She had now no doubt that the milor had come to that unlikely island by pre-arrangement with the Baron. Why else in the world should he have come? And the fact that she already doubted the loyalty of her husband made the affair seem doubly sinister. It was true that by giving passage to Sir Neil Campbell they prevented his seeing the preparations for, and the departure of the expedition.
But that, even if they wanted the expedition eventually to fail might very well agree with their plans. To nip the expedition in the bud would be to see the funds of the French kingdom very little affected, but to let it prosper up to a certain point and then overwhelm it would be to cause such a commotion in the state funds of all Europe that they might well aggregate, with their foreknowledge, fortunes that would stagger the imaginations of mankind.
Thus Madame de Frèjus was in no pleasant frame of mind; indeed her nerves were very much deranged — so much deranged that she said to herself with a sort of distracted vindictiveness that if she was ever going to be unfaithful to her husband, then or thereabouts would be the time. It would give her no particular pleasure and would serve no particular purpose but it would at least avenge the Emperor on the person of a very untrustworthy servant.
So it was with a certain peculiar shock that she realized that the young Feilding was not only setting out on making the most outspoken love to her but that he was beginning by discrediting the person of her husband although she had already reproved him for so doing.
The sensation was very peculiar; it was as if a beast of prey had looked at her with green eyes at a moment when she was perfectly protected. For indeed, by this time, she was really so hurried that there could not be the least little moment of time to devote to the softer emotions. Hitherto she had regarded him as the sort of large gentle water-hound that you might like but need not love. And she had three copies of three several proclamations to write out for his Majesty, her hand being especially suave and legible. And she had to think out some sort of answers to this young man — such as, when he said that he could not sleep for thinking of her charms, she must say that so many men had told her the same that she must needs believe it in his case. That gave him quite a lot to talk of for himself: in his jealous rage he was ready to tear the topmasts off the ships.... Her specially beautiful proclamations were meant for the mayors or governors of Antibes, Toulon, Grenoble or Lyons if no printer could be found for them owing to the rapidity of the Emperor’s march. So her handwriting would go out attached to the signature, “Napoleon, Emperor of the French!”... But of course it might not be impossible to love that boy. His mad rage aged him. His features were drawn taut like those of a hard-bitten rider! That would make a pretty kettle of fish.
She also had to be certain that the stars on his Majesty’s tiresome bottle-green garment were properly brightened by the pantry-maids and his third pair of shorts repassed. Emperors needed such a wilderness of clothes. Blue with embroidery for parades; grey capotes for route-riding in mist; bottle-green with an infinity of gilt-laced olive leaves for audiences to prefects or Academicians. There was not a woman at the court, from Madame Mère and the Princess Pauline to the smallest kitchen maid, that had not her finger-tips needle-pricked....
Well, he was aged! He had fought a very passable duel: that took you out of the cockerels’ pen. Danger! Danger! She knew, from having raised spaniel puppy families, that an age came when the sexes must be separated.... A passable duel! He had been said to have tremendous strength. He had an ingenuous, honest cast of countenance; she had always lately liked to look on it but she had thought he had been Pauline’s. She remembered to have thought that that had seemed a little ridiculous. Then... Danger! Danger!... She must run. The sexes must be separated.... Well, she would be seeing this young man — though she was not going to tell him so! — almost every day for a long time. For as long as it took to get to Paris with the Army. She would have to accompany her husband, who had to accompany the troops. Because there were certain papers that she had to sign. It was one of the few things that she had not liked about Monsieur le Baron — that he juggled with her jointure papers to protect himself from his creditors. Only at times of extreme risks.... Well, this was a time of extreme risk....
What then if the young man were very strong: a perfect Hercules and Orlando Furioso in one? The Baron must risk that. The young man would as like as not ride beside her carriage in the rear of the troops. For who could tell that the peasants might not stone the carriage? Then she would need her Hercules!
She slightly picked up her skirts and ran. She ran away like an antelope without ever troubling to find a repartee for that young man. The Emperor’s old clothes awaited her. Poor dear, he had been very neglected. And her handwriting was to be broadcasted throughout France, married to His!
When she had run fifty yards or so she said: “Oh, poor fellow!” and, dropping her skirts, turned round and raised her gloved hands to her lips. She filled the kid-palm with kisses and then, like a little diskobolos, tossed the kisses in his direction where, by the ship-side, he stood uttering imprecations, both his hands on a level with his shako or higher.
To have thrown those kisses had been no bad way out of the dilemma. It had been infantile, such as sister might offer to brother. Still, kisses were kisses: if they did not imply any promises delivered in that way they need not be considered a deterrent. Not of necessity! They might be regarded as keeping him to heel. Strictly to heel. Until something fortunate occurred. The Baron was a heavy man. She wished him no ill, even if she wished him a thought less well than she had when coming down to the ship an hour ago. But if one is a very heavy man, eating to the further end of copiousness and drinking as sea caverns suck up the sea.... Or these divorces... Madame de Récamier had twice begun to divorce her financier!
So she might consider herself to have done not so badly! If she had not fully persuaded the young man as to the compromising nature of his accompanying that expedition, yet she had him at least firmly tied to her apron-strings so that, without bad luck, she might keep him from making too much of a fool of himself!
The harbour clock struck five. Good heavens, five, and all the forks of the Emperor’s travelling case probably not yet found. She ran faster and faster over the flagstones.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE following days of still ship-gliding in light airs came back to him mostly as memories of ferocious proclamation-writing. He had sat on a camp-stool up to a cask that had its head pierced to hold an inkwell and had written alternately frantic appeals to his Hélène and the grandiose phrases that Napoleon addressed to every class of the population that he hoped to re-capture. He thought he should never see her again — or never till they got to Paris, which was an eternity. And there, as like as not, she would be shut up as in a harem! She had moreover spoken to him with such cruel mockery that his senses seemed numbed.
But everybody copied proclamations, the troops and many of the officers producing, with tongues that followed their pen-points, copies that surely no eye would ever be able to read. Nevertheless France had to be plastered with Napoleon’s proclamations and a thousand or so of souls aboard that flotilla wrote away at them night and day — proclamations addressed to the French, the Walloons, the Germans, the Poles, the Neapolitans. To the effect that the return of the Emperor meant the restoration of liberties and eternal peace! It might be many days before they could get at a printer and, in that era when newspapers were rare and news travelled slowly, a single proclamation stuck on the door of a village church might affect and instruct a whole commune and its neighbours.
There were incidents on the voyage, of course, but they only vaguely came back to him because of the impassioned state in which he was. Once all the troops were sent below and he himself was asked to walk the poop in as visible a way as possible — with the aim of giving the idea that his scarlet uniform might betoken that there were British troops aboard the Inconstant. There was then a cruiser called the Zephyr of the French navy alongside them and a conversation took place between Tailhade, the mate of the Inconstant, and the captain of the other vessel, who appeared to be an old friend, Tailhade inviting his friend the captain aboard to take some refreshment, giving news that the Inconstant was bound for Genoa. The Zephyr was for Livorno.
The dreadful nature of his interview with Madame de Frèjus had deprived the young man almost of the powers of attention, so that he could never be certain of what actually passed — or of all that actually passed — on that expedition until they had got very much farther than they then were. He would hear the captain of the Zephyr exchange a sentence with Tailhade and then his poor mind would wander back to how Madame de Frèjus had said that she owed final gratitude to her husband and as to how he would have answered her if she had given him the chance. So in after years he would find himself amongst men who discussed the escape from Elba and alleged details such as he had never observed and yet he would hardly be in a position to contradict them.
Thus, though he was not unaware of the dreadful excitement and suspense that seemed to make the whole of the Inconstant tremble to her keel, nevertheless it was universally alleged that when the captain of the Zephyr asked how the Emperor was it was the Emperor himself who had answered that his Majesty was in his usual health. The Emperor had been below the steps up to the poop, waiting to rush up and declare himself if the necessity arose; he had indeed been looking up at the young Feilding with an absolutely impassive face, his head a little on one side as if to hear the conversation the better. Thus it was unlikely that Captain Andrieux could have heard the Emperor had he so answered; besides both Andrieux and Tailhade used speaking trumpets and did not hear each other very well, so that it was eminently unlikely that the Emperor, who had none and was boxed in below, could have made his voice carry to the other ship. Nor indeed was the Emperor one likely to indulge himself in such undignified humour — on the other hand he might have said dryly to Count Bertrand who was near him that he was in his usual spirits — which were those of confidence in great enterprises — and the young man might not have heard it.
The Zephyr, however, sailed away and the young man went back to his tub, inkwell and writings. Incessant conferences went on between the Emperor and Bertrand, officer after officer being called to the Emperor’s cabin. Once or twice Feilding himself was invited to go before the Demi-God and give information as to matters that to him seemed curious and obscure. Thus once he was asked as to the uniform of the various branches of the Regiment of Artillery in His Britannic Majesty’s Forces; again as to other details of uniform; again as to the popularity of Caroline, Princess of Wales.
And having reflected on what Madame de Frèjus had said to him, he had very politely refused to give any information as to the details of uniform, though to the best of his information he answered that the Prince Regent’s Consort had had a large and powerful following in England until she had left the country to settle down in Naples. Napoleon, fixing him with his penetrating glance, had asked him: were the adherents of the injured Princess of Wales really so much the adherents of that lady or were they merely obstructors of the government?...
The sole reason that the young man could see for such a question was that Napoleon might entertain the idea of seizing the person of the Princess who was at Naples and coercing her into consenting to leading an expedition into England or at least to signing a proclamation demanding the abdication of the Prince Regent. And that being the sole perceptible reason for such a question, the young man answered — and true enough — that he knew nothing at all about the matter. He added that Madame de Frèjus could undoubtedly have given the Emperor correct information upon that point, the poor fellow having the faintest hope that the Emperor might send for his Hélène, though how she was to be brought there he did not know.
Once he had the honour of dining with the Emperor. It was true, the legend that said that on campaign he had always a new fowl spitted and roasted every half hour so that he might eat at any moment of the night or day. Presumably he was inclined to eat that day at about the usual dinner hour of the young man — half past two — for Feilding found his Majesty seated at table in the little cabin full of red velvet couches and gilding, tearing away at a partridge. For Perducet or Perduca had succeeded in bringing on board a great number of those birds and spitted them alternately with fowls in the hope that the Emperor might consume some of that health-giving game.
For time enough to tear up and devour that food Napoleon sat silent — plunged, you would have said, in a gloomy reverie. But the young man knew enough of the multiplicity of things about which the Emperor must think to be aware that that indefatigable brain was framing some project — as it might be, the means for taking by assault the city of Grenoble, for from time to time he made a mark with a gold pencil on the damask of the table-cloth. His hands were extraordinarily white and waxen. It was a singular thing that the young man could never after remember what was the colour of Napoleon’s eyes — but indeed no man ever remembered the colour of his eyes. That secret has gone to the grave.
They were most likely blue and it was no doubt the blaze of blue eyes in the pallid face with the dark hair that kept mankind from looking into them. At any rate our young man could never support his glance for more than a short glimpse, yet, though he looked down, he was aware when the Emperor was looking at him.
The food finished, Napoleon remained sitting, rather lumpish, his yellow waistcoat with all the lower buttons undone. He was fingering a wine-glass that he had just emptied of Cap Corse wine, twirling it slowly by the stem. Suddenly he said:
“Would you sign a proclamation to your countrymen?” The boy started at the sudden words. But: “No,” he said resolutely, “I will sign no proclamation to my countrymen unless your Majesty should put great pressure on me and then only if it were such as I agreed with in my conscience. You are aware, Sire, that this your enterprise has my humble but ardent support.”
“But you stop it at the bounds of your island. And truly it would harm you in your own country. I am aware of that and shall put no pressure on you.” He said he had been about to ask the boy to sign a statement — a proclamation — to the effect that his conviction was that the Emperor’s return meant peace and well-being to the world — that France, restored to her prosperity, with all the improvements in her agriculture that the Emperor had promoted, would shed the light of these inventions amongst the surrounding populations — and Napoleon finished: “You are aware that there are famine, pestilence and revolt in your own country and most other of the countries that lie around France are in a desperate condition....” The young man coloured; nay, his eyes filled with tears.
“I am aware of the great favours that your Majesty has bestowed on me. I know nothing of the state of my country, having been absent from it for several years....” He could avow what his Majesty said as to his intentions. He could avow it with a full conscience for he fully believed it.... But, in short, this was just such an action — to sign a proclamation! — as Madame de Frèjus warned him against. “And,” he added, “I have, I know not why, an instinctive repugnance for the idea.”
“Well, it would harm your career,” the Emperor said indulgently; “I have too much honour for the cloth that both you and I wear in different colours to press you. Let it then go!”
The Emperor sat, his eyes half-closed, twirling and twirling the stem of his glass; the young man’s cheeks remained flushed and hot with mortification. He hated himself for having refused this Demi-God anything; yet undoubtedly that had been in the spirit of his Hélène’s recommendations and the idea inspired him with great repugnance. Why, he could not himself tell very well. He knew that the Emperor was not at war with England and was convinced that he cherished no designs against that country. But bring himself to it he could not. And he exclaimed:
