The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon

Duroc, when he saw them, placed his hand on Bonaparte’s arm, and the First Consul stopped to look at his aide-de-camp. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“They have their sabers,” said Duroc.

“So?” Bonaparte replied. “They aren’t prisoners.”

“No matter,” said Duroc. “I’ll leave the door open.”

“Indeed, it’s not necessary. They are enemies, but loyal enemies. Do you not recall what our poor comrade Roland said about them?”

Briskly Bonaparte walked into the room where the three Chouans were waiting. He signaled to Rapp and the two other officers who were present that they should station themselves outside.

“Here you are at last!” said Bonaparte, recognizing Cadoudal from the description his former aide-de-camp had given him. “A friend we have in common, whom we had the misfortune to lose at the Battle of Marengo, Colonel Roland de Montrevel, told me very good things about you.”

“I am not surprised,” Cadoudal answered. “During the short time I had the honor of knowing Monsieur Roland de Montrevel, I was able to recognize in him the most gentlemanly feelings. But, although you may know who I am, General, I must introduce to you the two men accompanying me, as they have also been admitted into the honor of your presence.”

Bonaparte bowed slightly, as if to indicate that he was listening.

Cadoudal placed his hand on the older of the two officers. “Taken to the colonies as a young man, Monsieur Sol de Grisolles crossed the sea to return to France. During the crossing, he was shipwrecked and found floating alone on a plank in the middle of the ocean, barely conscious and about to be swallowed up by the waves. Later, a prisoner of the Revolution, he cut through his dungeon walls, escaped, and the next day he was fighting in our ranks. Your soldiers had sworn to take him at all costs, and during discussions about peace, they invaded the house where he had taken refuge. Alone, he defended himself against fifty soldiers. When he’d spent all his cartridges, he could only surrender or else throw himself out a window twenty feet from the ground. Without hesitation, he leaped and, landing among the Republicans, rolled over, got back to his feet, killed two of his enemy, wounded three others, took off running and escaped in spite of the bullets whistling uselessly around him.

“As for this man,” Cadoudal said, pointing to Pierre Guillemot, “he too was surprised in a farmhouse where he was enjoying a few hours of rest. Your men entered his bedroom before he could grab his saber or rifle, so he picked up an axe and split open the head of the first soldier who approached him. The Republicans backed off. Guillemot, still brandishing his axe, reached the door, parried the thrust of a bayonet that barely touched his skin, and escaped across the fields. When he came to a barrier where a soldier stood guard, he killed the guard and leaped over the barrier. And when a Blue in pursuit of him was at his heels, Guillemot turned around and split open the man’s chest with one swing of his axe. Finally he was free to come join my Chouans and me.

“As for me.…” Cadoudal added, bowing modestly.

“As for you,” Bonaparte interrupted, “I know more about you than you yourself would tell me. You picked up where your fathers left off. Instead of the Combat of the Thirty, you were the victor at the Combat of the One Hundred, and some day people will call the war you have been waging the war of the giants.” Then, stepping forward, he said, “Come, George. I’d like to speak to you alone.”

George hesitated a moment, but followed him all the same. He would have preferred that his two officers also hear any words he and the head of the French republic would exchange.

Bonaparte, however, said nothing until they were out of earshot. Then he spoke: “Listen, George,” he said, “I need energetic men to help me to finish the task I’ve undertaken. I used to have near me a heart of bronze on which I could depend as if he were me myself. You met him: Roland de Montrevel. A despondency I could never fully understand led him to suicide, for his death truly was a suicide. Are you willing to join me? I have proposed the rank of colonel for you, but you are worth more than that, I know, and I can offer you the rank of major general.”

“I thank you from the depths of my heart, General,” George responded, “but you would think less of me if I accepted.”

“Why do you say that?” Bonaparte asked quickly.

“Because I swore allegiance to the Bourbons, and to the Bourbons I’d remain faithful even if I’d accept.”

“Come now,” said the First Consul, “is there no way I can get you to join me?”

Cadoudal shook his head.

“You have heard people slandering me,” said Bonaparte.

“General,” answered the Royalist officer, “might I be permitted to repeat the things people have told me?”

“Why not? Do you think I’m not strong enough to hear the bad as well as the good that people speak of me?”

“Please note that I affirm nothing. All I shall do is repeat what people say,” said Cadoudal.

“Go ahead,” said the First Consul, a slightly worried smile on his face.

“They say that you were able to come back to France so successfully, without hindrance by the English fleet, because you had made a treaty with Commodore Sidney Smith. They say the terms of the treaty allowed you to return without threat on the agreed-to condition that you would restore our former kings to the throne.”

“George,” said Bonaparte, “you are one of those men whose esteem I value and whom, consequently, I’d not want to give any cause for slander. Since returning from Egypt I have received two letters from the Comte de Provence. If such a treaty with Sir Sidney Smith had existed, do you think the count would have failed to make reference to it in one of the letters he did me the honor of sending? I shall show you these letters, and you can judge for yourself if the accusation brought against me has any basis.”

In the course of their walking, they’d come to the Louis Quatorze Room’s door. Bonaparte opened it. “Duroc,” he said, “go ask Bourrienne to send me the two letters from the Comte de Provence as well as my response. They are in the middle drawer of my desk, in a leather portfolio.”

While Duroc carried out the assigned task, Bonaparte continued: “How astonished I am to see how much your former kings constitute virtually a religion to you plebeians! Suppose I did restore the throne—something I’m not at all inclined to do, I tell you—what would be in it for you people who have shed your blood to see the throne restored? Not even the confirmation of the rank you have fought to obtain. A miller’s son a colonel? Come now. In the royal armies, was there ever a colonel who was not a nobleman born? Among the ungrateful nobility has ever a man risen so high because of his own worth or even for services rendered? Whereas with me, George, you can rise to any rank or level. For the higher I rise, the higher shall I raise those surrounding me.… Ah, here are the letters. Give them to me, Duroc.”

Duroc handed him three documents. The first one Bonaparte opened bore the date of February 20, 1800, and we have copied the Comte de Provence’s letter from the archives without changing a single word.

Whatever their apparent conduct may be, men such as you, monsieur, never cause concern. You have accepted a high position, and I am grateful to you for that. Better than anyone else, you know what strength and power are necessary for a great country’s happiness. Save France from its own fury, and you will have fulfilled my heart’s deepest wish; give it back its king, and future generations will bless your memory. Your importance to the country will always be too great for me to pay the debt my ancestor and I owe you by some high appointment.

Louis

“Do you see any allusion to a treaty in that letter?” asked Bonaparte.

“General, I admit that I do not,” George answered. “And you didn’t answer the letter?”

“I must say that I thought there was no hurry, and I expected I would receive a second letter before deciding. It was not long in coming. A few months later, this undated letter arrived.” He passed it to Cadoudal.

You have surely known for a long time, General, that my esteem for you is assured. If you were to doubt that I am capable of gratitude, propose your own position and set the destiny of your friends. As for my principles, I am French. Lenient by nature, reason makes me even more so.

No, the victor at Lodi, Castiglione, and Arcole, the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, cannot prefer vain celebrity to true glory. However, you are wasting precious time. We can guarantee France’s glory. I say “we” because to accomplish that, I need Bonaparte, and because Bonaparte cannot do it without me.

General, Europe has its eyes on you, glory awaits you, and I am impatient to bring peace back to my people.

Louis

“As you see, monsieur,” Bonaparte said, “there’s no more reference to a treaty in the second letter than there was in the first.”

“Dare I ask, General, if you answered this one?”

“I was about to have Bourrienne answer the letter and sign it when he pointed out to me that since the letters were penned by the Comte de Provence himself, it would be more appropriate for me to respond in my own handwriting, however bad it may be. Since it was an important matter, I did the best I could, and the letter I wrote was at least readable. Here’s a copy,” said Bonaparte, handing George a copy Bourrienne had made of the letter he himself had written to the Comte de Provence. It contained this refusal:

I received your letter, monsieur; I thank you for your kind words.

You ought not wish to return to France; you would need to tread over one hundred thousand cadavers.

Sacrifice your interests to France’s peace and happiness. History will be grateful.

I am not unfeeling about your family’s misfortunes, and I shall be pleased to learn that you have everything you need for a peaceful retirement.

Bonaparte

“So,” asked George, “was that indeed your final word?”

“My final word.”

“And yet history provided a precedent.…”

“The history of England, not our own history, monsieur,” Bonaparte interrupted. “Me playing the role of Monck? Oh no! If I had to choose and if I wanted to imitate an Englishman, I would prefer Washington. Monck lived in a century when the prejudices that we fought against and overturned in 1789 were still strong. Even if Monck had tried to become king, he would not have been able to. A dictator perhaps, but nothing more. To do more, he would have needed Cromwell’s genius. A quality lacking in Richard, Cromwell’s son, who was not able to retain power—of course he was an idiot, the typical son of a great man. And then, some fine result, the restoration of Charles II! Replacing a puritan court with a libertine court! Following his father’s example, he dissolved three or four parliaments and tried to govern alone, then set up a cabinet of lackeys that attended more to matters of royal debauchery than to the business of the court. He was greedy for pleasure and stopped at nothing when money was at stake. He sold Dunkirk to Louis XIV—Dunkirk, which was England’s key possession in France. And he had Algernon Sidney executed, on the pretext that he was party to some nonexistent conspiracy, when, in fact, Sidney had refused not only to attend the commission that sentenced Charles I to death but also, adamantly, to sign the act ordering the royal execution.

“Cromwell died in 1658, when he was fifty-nine years old. During the ten years he was in power, he had the time to undertake many changes but to complete only a few. In fact, he was trying to accomplish complete reform: political reform by replacing a monarchy with a republican government, and religious reform by abolishing Catholicism in favor of Protestantism. Well, if you assume I shall live as long as Cromwell, to the age of fifty-nine—it’s not very long, is it?—I have about thirty more years: three times as many as Cromwell had. And you see that I’m not trying to change things. I’m content to continue things the way they are. I’m not overthrowing things, but rather raising them back up.”

Cadoudal laughed. “What about the Directory?”

“The Directory was not a government,” replied Bonaparte. “Is it possible to establish power on a rotten foundation like the Directory’s? If I had not returned from Egypt, the Directory would have collapsed under its own corrupt weight. All I had to do was nudge it a little. France wanted nothing to do with the Directory. And for proof of that, look at how France welcomed me back. What had the Directory done with the country in my absence? When I returned I found poor France threatened on every side by an enemy that already had a foothold inside three of its borders. I had left the country in peace; I found it now at war. I had left with victories behind me; I returned to defeats. I had left the country’s coffers with millions from Italy; on my return I found misery and spoliatory laws everywhere. What has become of those one hundred thousand soldiers, my companions in glory, men whom I knew by name? They are dead. While I was taking Malta, Alexandria, Cairo; while I was engraving with the point of our bayonets the name of France on pylons in Thebes and on obelisks in Karnak; while I was avenging the defeat of the last king of Jerusalem at the base of Mount Thabor—what was the Directory doing with my best generals? They allowed Humbert to be taken in Ireland; they arrested and tried to dishonor Championnet in Naples. Schérer retreated, thus obliterating the victorious path I had laid out in Italy. They let the English invade the coast of Holland; they got Raimbault killed in Turin, David at Alkmaar, and Joubert at Novi. And when I asked for reinforcements to keep Egypt, munitions to defend it, wheat to plant for its future, they sent me congratulatory letters and decrees stating that the Army of the Orient was meritorious and the pride of France.”

“They thought you could find all you needed in Acre, General.”

“That is my only failure, George,” said Bonaparte, “and if I had succeeded, I swear, I would have surprised all of Europe! If I had succeeded! I’ll tell you what I would have done then. I would have found the pasha’s treasures in Acre and enough weapons to arm three hundred thousand men. I would have roused and armed all of Syria, where everyone decried Djazzar’s cruelty; I would have marched on Damascus and Aleppo. My army would have grown larger and larger as I advanced, and I would have announced to the people the abolition of all servitude and of the pasha’s tyrannical government. I would have marched to Constantinople and overthrown the Turkish Empire. I would have founded a great new empire in the Orient that would have guaranteed my place in history. And then I would have come back to Paris through Adrianople or Vienna—after wiping out the house of Austria!”

“That’s like Caesar’s plan when he declared war on the Parthians,” Cadoudal answered coldly.

“Ah, I was sure we would come back to Caesar,” said Bonaparte with a laugh, his teeth clenched. “Well, as you see, I’m willing to accept discussion on whatever grounds you choose. Suppose that when he was twenty-nine years old, as I am now, Caesar, instead of leading a patrician life of debauchery in Rome and accumulating the greatest debts known in his time, suppose that he had been instead the Citizen First Consul. Suppose that at twenty-nine his campaign in Gaul had already been finished, his Egyptian campaign completed, and his Spanish campaign successfully ended. Suppose, I repeat, that he was twenty-nine instead of fifty years old—the age at which Victory, who loves only the young, begins to abandon bald brows—do you think he would not then have been both Caesar and Augustus?”

“Yes,” Cadoudal replied brusquely, “unless he had happened first to find Brutus, Cassius, and Casca in his path with their daggers.”

“So,” said Bonaparte with sadness, “my enemies are counting on assassination! In that case, it’ll be easy for them, and especially for you, since you are my enemy. What is preventing you at this very moment, if you have the same convictions as Brutus, from striking me down as he struck Caesar? We are alone, the doors are closed. You have your saber. You could surely be upon me before my guards could stop you.”

“No,” said George. “No, we are not counting on assassination. I believe it would require grave circumstances for one of us to decide to become an assassin. But the chances of war remain. One simple rebellion could cost you all your prestige, a cannonball could take off your head the way it did Marshal Berwick’s, or a bullet could strike you like Joubert and Desaix. And then what will become of France? You have no children, and your brothers.…”

Bonaparte stared hard at Cadoudal, who completed his thoughts with a shrug. Bonaparte clenched his fists. George had found the chink in his armor.

“I admit,” said Bonaparte, “that from that point of view you are right. I risk my life daily, and daily my life could be taken. But even if you do not believe in Providence, I do. I believe that nothing happens by chance. I believe that when Providence, on August 13, 1769, exactly one day after Louis XV had rendered the edict uniting Corsica to France, allowed a child to be born in Ajaccio, a child who would carry out the 13th Vendémiaire and the 18th Brumaire, it had great designs and supreme plans in store for him. I was that child, and Providence has always kept me safe in the midst of great dangers. Since I have a mission, I fear nothing. Because my mission is my armor. If I am mistaken; if, instead of living the twenty-five or thirty years I think are necessary to accomplish my goals, I am struck twenty-two times with a dagger like Caesar, or my head is blown off by a cannonball like Berwick’s, or a bullet hits me in the chest like Joubert or Desaix—then that is because Providence has its own good reasons for allowing such things to happen, and Providence will then provide what France needs. Believe me, George, Providence never fails great nations.

“A moment ago we were talking about Caesar, and you evoked for me the image of him collapsing at the feet of Pompey’s statue after he’d been stabbed by Brutus, Cassius, and Casca. When Rome in mourning attended the dictator’s funeral ceremonies, when the people set fire to his assassins’ homes, when the Eternal City trembled at the thought of a drunken Anthony or the hypocrite Lepidus and wondered where from the four corners of the earth would rise the genius who’d put an end to the civil wars, no one even thought to consider he’d be an Apollonian schoolboy, Caesar’s nephew, young Octavius. A baker’s son from Velletri, coated with the flour of his ancestors. A feeble child afraid of heat, cold, thunder, everything? Who could have seen in him the future master of the world when limping, pale, his eyes blinking like a bird’s in a spotlight, he passed in review Caesar’s old bands of soldiers? Not even Cicero, perspicacious Cicero: ‘Ornandum et tollendum (Cover him with flowers and raise him to the skies),’ he said. Well, the child they should have celebrated and then gotten rid of at the first possible moment tricked all the graybeards in the Senate and reigned almost as long over Rome, the city that had assassinated Caesar because it did not want a king, as did Louis XIV over France.

“George, George, don’t fight the Providence that has created me, for Providence will break you.”

“Well,” George answered with a bow, “at least I shall be broken as I follow the path and religion of my fathers, and God will forgive me my error, the error of a fervent Christian and a pious son.”

Bonaparte placed his hand on the young leader’s shoulder. “So be it,” he said, “but at least remain neutral. Let events take their course, let thrones quake and crowns fall. Usually it’s the spectator who has to pay to follow the game, but I’ll pay you to watch me in action.”

“And how much will you give me to do that, Citizen First Consul?” asked Cadoudal.

“One hundred thousand francs a year, monsieur,” Bonaparte answered.

“If you can give one hundred thousand francs a year to a simple partisan leader, how much will you give the prince he has been fighting for?”

“Nothing, sir,” said Bonaparte disdainfully. “In your case, what I’m paying for is your courage, not the principles that drive you. I would like to prove that for me, a self-made man, men exist by their works alone. Please accept, George. I beg you.”

“And if I refuse?” asked George.

“You’ll be making a mistake.”

“Will I nonetheless be free to journey wherever I want?”

Bonaparte went to the door and opened it.

“Duroc!” he called.

Duroc appeared.

“Please make sure,” he said, “that Monsieur Cadoudal and his two friends can move around Paris as freely as if they were in Muzillac. And if they would like passports for any country in the world, Fouché has been ordered to provide them.”

“Your word is enough for me, Citizen First Consul,” said Cadoudal, bowing once more. “I shall be leaving this evening.”

“Might I ask where you’ll be going?”

“To London, General.”

“So much the better.”

“Why so much the better?”

“Because there you’ll see up close the men you’ve been fighting for, and once you’ve seen them.…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you will compare them to those you’ve been fighting against. However, once you’re out of France, Colonel.…” Bonaparte paused.

“I’m waiting,” said Cadoudal.

“Please don’t come back without letting me know. If you do not let me know, you must not be surprised to be treated as an enemy.”

“That will be an honor for me, General, since by treating me thus you prove that I am a man to be feared.”

George said goodbye to the First Consul and withdrew.

The next day the newspapers read:

Following the meeting George Cadoudal had obtained with the First Consul, he asked permission to withdraw freely to England.

He was granted permission on the condition that he would not return to France without the government’s authorization.

George Cadoudal promised to release his men from their oath. As long as he fought, they were committed to support him; by retreating, he has freed them from their obligations to him.

And indeed, on the very evening of his meeting with the First Consul, George was writing in his own hand a letter to his cohorts in every part of France.

Because a protracted war seems to be a misfortune for France and ruin for my region, I free you from your oath of loyalty to me. I shall never call you back unless the French government should fail to keep the promise it gave to me and that I accepted in your name.

If there should happen to be some treason hidden beneath a hypocritical peace, I would not hesitate to call once more on your fidelity, and your fidelity, I am sure, would respond.

George Cadoudal

IX Two Companions at Arms

WHILE BONAPARTE WAS MEETING with Cadoudal in the Louis Quatorze salon, Josephine, certain that Bourrienne was alone, put on her dressing gown, wiped her reddened eyes, spread a layer of rice powder on her face, slipped her Creole feet into sky-blue Turkish slippers with gold embroidery, and quickly climbed the little stairway connecting her bedroom to Marie de Medicis’s oratory.

When she arrived at the study door, she stopped and, bringing both hands up to her heart, peered guardedly into the room. Determining that Bourrienne was indeed alone—writing, with his back to her—she tiptoed across the room and laid her hand on his shoulder.

Smiling, for he recognized the light touch of her hand, Bourrienne turned around.

“Well,” Josephine asked. “Was he very angry?”

“Yes,” Bourrienne said. “I must admit that it was a major storm, if a storm with no rain. But there was thunder and lightning indeed.”

“In short,” Josephine added, moving directly to the only point that interested her, “will he pay?”