The Bronze Eagle (20 page)

"Tell the Colonel to give the order to fire," is Marchand's peremptory
response.

"Are you coming with me, M. le Comte?" he asks hur
[Pg 156]
riedly. But he does
not wait for a reply. Wrapping his cloak around him, he goes in the wake
of the messenger. M. le Comte de Cambray is close on his heels.

Five minutes later the General is up on the ramparts. He has thrown a
quick, piercing glance round him. There are two thousand men up here,
twenty guns, ammunition in plenty. Out there only peasants and a
heterogeneous band of some fifteen hundred men. One shot from a gun
perhaps would send all that crowd flying, the first fusillade might
scatter "the band of brigands," but Marchand cannot, dare not give the
positive order to fire; he knows that rank insubordination, positive
refusal to obey would follow.

He talks to the men, he harangues, he begs them to defend their city
against this "horde of Corsican pirates."

To every word he says, the men but oppose the one cry: "Vive
l'Empereur!"

The Comte de Cambray turns in despair to M. de St. Genis, who is a
captain of artillery and whose men had hitherto been supposed to be
tried and loyal royalists.

"If the men won't fire, Maurice," asks the Comte in despair, "cannot the
officers at least fire the first shot?"

"M. le Comte," replies St. Genis through set teeth, for his heart was
filled with wrath and shame at the defection of his men, "the gunners
have declared that if the officers shoot, the men will shatter them to
pieces with their own batteries."

The crowds outside the gate itself are swelling visibly. They press in
from every side toward the city loudly demanding the surrender of the
town. "Open the gates! open!" they shout, and their clamour becomes more
insistent every moment. Already they have broken down the palisades
which surround the military zone, they pour down the slopes against the
gate. But the latter is heavy, and massive, studded with iron, stoutly
resisting axe or pick.

[Pg 157]
"Open!" they cry. "Open! in the Emperor's name!"

They are within hailing distance of the soldiers on the ramparts: "What
price your plums?" they shout gaily to the gunners.

"Quite cheap," retort the latter with equal gaiety, "but there's no
danger of the Emperor getting any."

The women sing the old couplet:

and the soldiers on the ramparts take up the refrain:

"What can we do, M. le Comte?" says Général Marchand at last. "We shall
have to give in."

"I'll not stay and see it," replies the Comte. "I should die of shame."

Even while the two men are talking and discussing the possibilities of
an early surrender, Napoleon himself has forced his way through the
tumultuous throng of his supporters, and accompanied by Victor de
Marmont and Colonel de la Bédoyère he advances as far as the gate which
still stands barred defiantly against him.

"I command you to open this gate!" he cries aloud.

Colonel Roussille, who is in command, replies defiantly: "I only take
orders from the General himself."

"He is relieved of his command," retorts Napoleon.

"I know my duty," insists Roussille. "I only take orders from the
General."

Victor de Marmont, intoxicated with his own enthusiasm, maddened with
rage at sight of St. Genis, whose face is just then thrown into vivid
light by the glare of the torches, cries wildly: "Soldiers of the
Emperor, who are being
[Pg 158]
forced to resist him, turn on those treacherous
officers of yours, tear off their epaulettes, I say!"

His shrill and frantic cries seem to precipitate the inevitable climax.
The tumult has become absolutely delirious. The soldiers on the ramparts
tumble over one another in a mad rush for the gate, which they try to
break open with the butt-end of their rifles; but they dare not actually
attack their own officers, and in any case they know that the keys of
the city are still in the hands of Général Marchand, and Général
Marchand has suddenly disappeared.

Feeling the hopelessness and futility of further resistance, he has gone
back to his hotel, and is even now giving orders and making preparations
for leaving Grenoble. Préfet Fourier, hastily summoned, is with him, and
the Comte de Cambray is preparing to return immediately to Brestalou.

"We shall all leave for Paris to-morrow, as early as possible," he says,
as he finally takes leave of the General and the préfet, "and take the
money with us, of course. If the King—which God forbid!—is obliged to
leave Paris, it will be most acceptable to him, until the day when the
allies are once more in the field and ready to crush, irretrievably this
time, this Corsican scourge of Europe."

One or two of the royalist officers have succeeded in massing together
some two or three hundred men out of several regiments who appear to be
determined to remain loyal.

St. Genis is not among these: his men had been among the first to cry
"Vive l'Empereur!" when ordered to fire on the brigand and his hordes.
They had even gone so far as to threaten their officers' lives.

Now, covered with shame, and boiling with wrath at the defection, St.
Genis asks leave of the General to escort M. le Comte de Cambray and his
party to Paris.

"We shall be better off for extra protection," urges M. le Comte de
Cambray in support of St. Genis' plea for leave. "I shall only have the
coachman and two postillions with
[Pg 159]
me. M. de St. Genis would be of
immense assistance in case of footpads."

"The road to Paris is quite safe, I believe," says Général Marchand,
"and at Lyons you will meet the army of M. le Comte d'Artois. But
perhaps M. de St. Genis had better accompany you as far as there, at any
rate. He can then report himself at Lyons. Twenty-five millions is a
large sum, of course, but the purpose of your journey has remained a
secret, has it not?"

"Of course," says M. le Comte unhesitatingly, for he has completely
erased Victor de Marmont from his mind.

"Well then, all you need fear is an attack from footpads—and even that
is unlikely," concludes Général Marchand, who by now is in a great hurry
to go. "But M. de St. Genis has my permission to escort you."

The General entrusts the keys of the Bonne Gate to Colonel Roussille. He
has barely time to execute his hasty flight, having arranged to escape
out of Grenoble by the St. Laurent Gate on the north of the town. In the
meanwhile a carter from the suburb of St. Joseph outside the Bonne Gate
has harnessed a team of horses to one of his wagons and brought along a
huge joist: twenty pairs of willing and stout arms are already
manipulating this powerful engine for the breaking open of the resisting
gate. Already the doors are giving way, the hinges creak; and while
Général Marchand and préfet Fourier with their small body of faithful
soldiers rush precipitately across the deserted streets of the town,
Colonel Roussille makes ready to open the Gate of Bonne to the Emperor
and to his soldiers.

"My regiment was prepared to turn against me," he says to his men, "but
I shall not turn against them."

Then he formally throws open the gate.

Ecstatic delight, joyful enthusiasm, succeeds the frantic cries of a
while ago. Napoleon entering the city of Grenoble was nearly crushed to
death by the frenzy of the crowd.
[Pg 160]
Cheered to the echoes, surrounded by
a delirious populace which hardly allowed him to move, it was hours
before he succeeded in reaching the Hôtel des Trois-Dauphins, where he
was resolved to spend the night, since it was kept by an ex-soldier, one
of his own Old Guard of the Italian campaign.

The enthusiasm was kept up all night. The town was illuminated. Until
dawn men and women paraded the streets singing the "Marseillaise" and
shouting "Vive l'Empereur!"

In a small room, simply furnished but cosy and comfortable, the great
adventurer, who had conquered half the world and lost it and had now set
out to conquer it again, sat with half a dozen of his most faithful
friends: Cambronne and Raoul, Victor de Marmont and Emery.

On the table spread out before him was an ordnance map of the province;
his clenched hand rested upon it; his eyes, those eagle-like, piercing
eyes which had so often called his soldiers to victory, gazed out
straight before him, as if through the bare, white-washed walls of this
humble hotel room he saw the vision of the brilliant halls of the
Tuileries, the imperial throne, the Empress beside him, all her
faithlessness and pusillanimity forgiven, his son whom he worshipped,
his marshals grouped around him; and with a gesture of proud defiance he
threw back his head and said loudly:

"Until to-day I was only an adventurer. To-night I am a prince once
more."

It was the next morning in that same sparsely-furnished and uncarpeted
room of the Hôtel des Trois-Dauphins that Napoleon spoke to Victor de
Marmont, to Emery and Dumoulin about the money which had been stolen
last year
[Pg 161]
from the Empress and which he understood had been deposited
in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville.

"I am not going," he said, "to levy a war tax on my good city of
Grenoble, but my good and faithful soldiers must be paid, and I must
provision my army in case I encounter stronger resistance at Lyons than
I can cope with, and am forced to make a détour. I want the money—the
Empress' money, which that infamous Talleyrand stole from her. So you,
de Marmont, had best go straight away to the Hôtel de Ville and in my
name summon the préfet to appear before me. You can tell him at once
that it is on account of the money."

"I will go at once, Sire," replied de Marmont with a regretful sigh,
"but I fear me that it is too late."

"Too late?" snapped out the Emperor with a frown, "what do you mean by
too late?"

"I mean that Fourier has left Grenoble in the trail of Marchand, and
that two days ago—unless I'm very much mistaken—he disposed of the
money."

"Disposed of the money? You are mad, de Marmont."

"Not altogether, Sire. When I say that Fourier disposed of the Empress'
money I only mean that he deposited it in what he would deem a safe
place."

"The cur!" exclaimed Napoleon with a yet tighter clenching of his hand
and mighty fist, "turning against the hand that fed him and made him
what he is. Well!" he added impatiently, "where is the money now?"

"In the keeping of M. le Comte de Cambray at Brestalou," replied de
Marmont without hesitation.

"Very well," said the Emperor, "take a company of the 7th regiment with
you to Brestalou and requisition the money at once."

"If—as I believe—the Comte no longer has the money by him?——"

"Make him tell you where it is."

[Pg 162]
"I mean, Sire, that it is my belief that M. le Comte's sister and
daughter will undertake to take the money to Paris, hoping by their sex
and general air of innocence to escape suspicion in connection with the
money."

"Don't worry me with all these details, de Marmont," broke in Napoleon
with a frown of impatience. "I told you to take a company with you and
to get me the Empress' money. See to it that this is done and leave me
in peace."

He hated arguing, hated opposition, the very suggestion of any
difficulty. His followers and intimates knew that; already de Marmont
had repented that he had allowed his tongue to ramble on quite so much.
Now he felt that silence must redeem his blunder—silence now and
success in his undertaking.

He bent the knee, for this homage the great Corsican adventurer and
one-time dictator of civilised Europe loved to receive: he kissed the
hand which had once wielded the sceptre of a mighty Empire and was ready
now to grasp it again. Then he rose and gave the military salute.

"It shall be done, Sire," was all that he said.

His heart was full of enthusiasm, and the task allotted to him was a
congenial one: the baffling and discomfiture of those who had insulted
him. If—as he believed—Crystal would be accompanying her aunt on the
journey toward Paris, then indeed would his own longing for some sort of
revenge for the humiliation which he had endured on that memorable
Sunday evening be fully gratified.

It was with a light and swinging step that he ran down the narrow stairs
of the hotel. In the little entrance hall below he met Clyffurde.

In his usual impulsive way, without thought of what had gone before or
was likely to happen in the future, he went up to the Englishman with
outstretched hand.

"My dear Clyffurde," he said with unaffected cordiality,
[Pg 163]
"I am glad to
see you! I have been wondering what had become of you since we parted on
Sunday last. My dear friend," he added ecstatically, "what glorious
events, eh?"

He did not wait for Clyffurde's reply, nor did he appear to notice the
latter's obvious coldness of manner, but went prattling on with great
volubility.

"What a man!" he exclaimed, nodding significantly in the direction
whence he had just come. "A six days' march—mostly on foot and along
steep mountain paths! and to-day as fresh and vigorous as if he had just
spent a month's holiday at some pleasant watering place! What luck to be
serving such a man! And what luck to be able to render him really useful
service! The tables will be turned, eh, my dear Clyffurde?" he added,
giving his taciturn friend a jovial dig in the ribs, "and what lovely
discomfiture for our proud aristocrats, eh? They will be sorry to have
made an enemy of Victor de Marmont, what?"