The Bronze Eagle (39 page)

"There is nothing quite so urgent, Sire, as your safety," retorted the
Prince of Wagram drily.

The Emperor did not—or did not choose to—heed his great Marshal's
marked want of deference. Perhaps he was accustomed to the moods of
these men whom his bounty had fed and loaded with wealth and dignities
and titles in the days of his glory, and who had proved only too ready,
alas!—even last year, even now—to desert him when disaster was in
sight.

Without another word he turned on his heel and pushing open the cottage
door he disappeared into the darkness of the tiny room beyond. With an
impatient shrug of the shoulders Berthier prepared to follow him.
Colonel Bertrand busied himself with tethering the horses, then he too
followed Berthier into the building.

It was deserted, of course, as all isolated cottages and houses had been
in the vicinity of Quatre Bras or Mont Saint Jean. Bertrand struck a
tinder and lighted a tallow candle that stood forlorn on a deal table in
the centre of the room. The flickering light revealed a tiny cottage
kitchen—hastily abandoned but scrupulously clean—white-washed walls, a
red-tiled floor, the iron hearth, the painted dresser decorated with
white crockery, shiny tin pans hung
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in rows against the walls and two
or three rush chairs. Napoleon sat down.

"I again entreat you, Sire—" began Berthier more earnestly than before.

But the Emperor was staring straight out before him, with eyes that
apparently saw something beyond that rough white wall opposite, on which
the flickering candle-light threw such weird gargantuan shadows. The
precious minutes sped on: minutes wherein death or capture strode with
giant steps across the fields of Flanders to this lonely cottage where
the once mightiest ruler in Europe sat dreaming of what might have been.
The silence of the night was broken by the thunder of flying horses'
hoofs, by the cries of "Sauve qui peut!" and distant volleys of
artillery proclaiming from far away that Death had not finished all his
work yet.

Bertrand and Berthier stood by, with heads uncovered: silent, moody and
anxious.

Suddenly the dreamer roused himself for a moment and spoke abruptly and
with his usual peremptory impatience: "De Marmont," he said. "Has either
of you seen him?"

"Not lately, Sire," replied Colonel Bertrand, "not since five o'clock at
any rate."

"What was he doing then?"

"He was riding furiously in the direction of Nivelles. I shouted to him.
He told me that he was making for Brussels by a circuitous way."

"Ah! that is right! Well done, my brave de Marmont! Braver than your
treacherous kinsman ever was! So you saw him, did you, Bertrand? Did he
tell you that he had just come from Genappe?"

"Yes, Sire, he did," replied Bertrand moodily. "He told me that by your
orders he had sent a messenger from there to Paris with news of your
victory: and that by to-morrow
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morning the capital would be ringing
with enthusiasm and with cheers."

"And by the time de Marmont came back from Genappe," interposed the
Prince of Wagram with a sneer, "the plains of Waterloo were ringing with
the Grand Army's '
Sauve qui peut!
'"

"An episode, Prince, only an episode!" said Napoleon with an angry frown
of impatience. "To hear you now one would imagine that Essling had never
been. We have been beaten back, of course, but for the moment the world
does not know that. Paris to-morrow will be be-flagged and the bells of
Notre Dame will send forth their joyous peals to cheer the hearts of my
people. And in Brussels this afternoon thousands of our
enemies—Belgians, Dutch, Hanoverians, Brunswickers—were rushing
helter-skelter into the town—demoralised and disorganised after that
brilliant charge of our cuirassiers against the Allied left."

"Would to God the British had been among them too," murmured old Colonel
Bertrand. "But for their stand . . ."

"And a splendid stand it was. Ah! but for that. . . . To think that if
Grouchy had kept the Prussians away, in only another hour we . . ."

The dreamer paused in his dream of the might have been: then he
continued more calmly:

"But I was not thinking of that just now. I was thinking of those who
fled to Brussels this afternoon with the news of our victory and of
Wellington's defeat."

"Even then the truth is known in Brussels by now," protested Berthier.

"Yes! but not before de Marmont has had the time and the pluck to save
us and our Empire! . . . Berthier," he continued more vehemently, "don't
stand there so gloomy, man . . . and you, too, my old Bertrand. . . .
Surely, surely you have realised that at this terrible juncture we must
utilise every circumstance which is in our favour.
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. . . That early
news of our victory . . . we can make use of that. . . . A big throw in
this mighty game, but we can do it . . . Berthier, do you see how we can
do it . . . ?"

"No, Sire, I confess that I do not," replied the Marshal gloomily.

"You do not see?" retorted the Emperor with a frown of angry impatience.
"De Marmont did—at once—but he is young—and enthusiastic, whereas
you. . . . But don't you see that the news of Wellington's defeat must
have enormous consequences on the money markets of the world—if only
for a few hours? . . . It must send the prices on the foreign Bourses
tumbling about people's ears and create an absolute panic on the London
Stock Exchange. Only for a few hours of course . . . but do you not see
that if any man is wise enough to buy stock in London during that panic
he can make a fortune by re-selling the moment the truth is known?"

"Even then, Sire," stammered Berthier, a little confused by this
avalanche of seemingly irrelevant facts hurled at him at a moment when
the whole map of Europe was being changed by destiny and her future
trembled in the hands of God.

"Ah, de Marmont saw it all . . . at once . . ." continued the Emperor
earnestly, "he saw eye to eye with me. He knows that money—a great deal
of money—is just what I want now . . . money to reorganise my army, to
re-equip and reform it. The Chamber and my Ministers will never give me
what I want. . . . My God! they are such cowards! and some of them would
rather see the foreign troops again in Paris than Napoleon Emperor at
the Tuileries. You should know that, Maréchal, and you, too, my good
Bertrand. De Marmont knows it . . . that is why he rode to Brussels at
the hour when I alone knew that all was lost at Waterloo, but when half
Europe still thought that the Corsican ogre had conquered again
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. . . .
De Marmont is in Brussels now . . . to-night he crosses over to
England—to-morrow morning he and his broker will be in the Stock
Exchange in London—calm, silent, watchful. An operation on the Bourse,
what? like hundreds that have been done before . . . but in this case
the object will be to turn one million into fifty so that with it I
might rebuild my Empire again."

He spoke with absolute conviction, and with indomitable fervour, sitting
here quietly, he—the architect of the mightiest empire of modern
days—just as he used to do in the camps at Austerlitz and Jena and
Wagram and Friedland—with one clenched hand resting upon the rough deal
table, the flickering light of the tallow candle illuminating the wide
brow, the heavy jaw, those piercing eyes that still gazed—in this hour
of supreme catastrophe—into a glorious future destined never to
be—scheming, planning, scheming still, even while his Grand Army was
melting into nothingness all around him, and distant volleys of musketry
were busy consummating the final annihilation of the Empire which he had
created and still hoped to rebuild.

Berthier gave a quick sign of impatience.

Rebuild an Empire, ye gods!—an Empire!—when the flower of its manhood
lies pale and stark like the windrows of corn after the harvester has
done his work. Thoughts of a dreamer! Schemes of a visionary! How will
the quaking lips which throughout the length and breadth of this vast
hecatomb now cry, "Sauve qui peut!" how will they ever intone again the
old "Vive l'Empereur!"

The conqueror of Wagram gave a bitter sigh and faithful Bertrand hung
his head gloomily; but de Marmont had neither sighed nor doubted: but
then de Marmont was young—he too was a dreamer, and an enthusiast and a
visionary. His idol in his eyes had never had feet of clay. For him the
stricken man was his Emperor still—the architect, the creator, the
invincible conqueror—checked for a
[Pg 311]
moment in his glorious work, but
able at his will to rebuild the Empire of France again on the very ruins
that smouldered now on the fields of Waterloo.

"I can do it, Sire," he had cried exultantly, when his Emperor first
expounded his great, new scheme to him. "I can be in Brussels in an
hour, and catch the midnight packet for England at Ostend. At dawn I
shall be in London, and by ten o'clock at my post. I know a financier—a
Jew, and a mightily clever one—he will operate for me. I have a million
or two francs invested in England, we'll use these for our operations!
Money, Sire! You shall have millions! Our differences on the Stock
Exchange will equip the finest army that even you have ever had! Fifty
millions? I'll bring you a hundred! God has not yet decreed the downfall
of the Empire of France!"

So de Marmont had spoken this afternoon in the enthusiasm of his youth
and of his hero-worship: and since then the great dreamer had continued
to weave his dreams! Nothing was lost, nothing could be lost whilst
enthusiasm such as that survived in the hearts of the young.

And still wrapped in his dream he sat on, while danger and death and
disgrace threatened him on every side. Berthier and Bertrand entreated
in vain, in vain tried to drag him away from this solitary place, where
any moment a party of Prussians might find and capture him.

Unceremoniously the Prince of Wagram had blown out the flickering light
that might have attracted the attention of the pursuers. It was a very
elementary precaution, the only one he or Bertrand was able to take. The
horses were out in the yard for anyone to see, and the greatest spoil of
victory might at any moment fall into the hands of the meanest Prussian
soldier out for loot.

But the dreamer still sat on in the gloom, with the pale light of the
moon streaming in through the narrow casement window and illumining that
marble-like face, rigid
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and set, that seemed only to live by the
glowing eyes—the eyes that looked into the future and the past and
heeded not the awful present.

Close on a quarter of an hour went by until at last he jumped to his
feet, with the sudden cry of "To Genappe!"

Berthier heaved a sigh of relief and Bertrand hurried out to unfasten
the horses.

"You are impatient, Prince," said the Emperor almost gaily, as he strode
with a firm step to the door. "You are afraid those cursed Prussians
will put the Corsican ogre into a cage and send him at once to His
Victorious Bourbon Majesty King Louis XVIII. Not so, my good Berthier,
not so. The Star of my Destiny has not yet declined. I've done all the
thinking I wanted to do. Now we'll to Genappe, where we'll rally the
remnants of our army and then quietly await de Marmont's return with the
millions which we want. After that we'll boldly on to Paris and defy my
enemies there . . . En avant, Maréchal! the Corsican ogre is not in the
iron cage yet!"

Outside Bertrand was holding his stirrup for him. He swung himself
lightly in the saddle and turned out of the farmyard gate into the open,
throwing back his head and sniffing the storm-laden air as if he was
about to lead his army to one of his victorious charges. Not waiting to
see how close the other two men followed him, he put his horse at once
at a gallop.

He rode on—never pausing—never looking round even on that gigantic
desolation which the cold light of the moon weirdly and fitfully
revealed—his mind was fixed upon a fresh throw on the gaming table of
the world.

Overhead the storm-driven clouds chased one another with unflagging fury
across the moonlit sky, now obscuring, now revealing that gigantic
dissolution of the Grand Army, so like the melting of ice and frost
under the fierce kiss of the sun.

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More than men in an attack, less than women in a retreat, the finest
cavalry Europe had ever seen was flying like sand before the wind: but
the somnambulist rode on in his sleep, forgetting that on these vast and
billowing fields twenty-six thousand gallant French heroes had died for
the sake of his dreams.

Bertrand and the Prince of Wagram followed—gloomy and silent—they knew
that all suggestions would be useless, all saner advice remain unheeded.
Besides, de Marmont had gone, and after all, what did it all matter?
What did anything matter, now that Empire, glory, hope, everything were
irretrievably lost?

And in faithful Bertrand's deep-set eyes there came a strange, far-off
look, almost of premonition, as if in his mind he could already see that
lonely island rock in the Atlantic, and the great gambler there, eating
out his heart with vain and bitter regrets.

But de Marmont had never had any doubts, never any forebodings: he only
had boundless faith in his hero and boundless enthusiasm for his cause.
Accustomed to handle money since early manhood, owner of a vast fortune
which he had administered himself with no mean skill, he had no doubt
that the Emperor's scheme for manufacturing a few millions in a wild
gamble on the Stock Exchange was not only feasible but certain of
success.

Undoubtedly the false news of Wellington's defeat would reach London
to-morrow, as it had already reached Paris and Brussels. The panic in
the money market was a foregone conclusion: the quick rise in prices
when the truth became known was equally certain. It only meant
forestalling the arrival of Wellington's despatches in London by four
and twenty hours, and one million would make fifty during that time.