Читать книгу The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon - Александр Дюма, Alexandre Dumas - Страница 6

WHEN BOURRIENNE RETURNED to the study, the First Consul was reading the morning mail that the secretary had laid out for him on his desk. He was wearing the uniform of a Republican division general, a frock coat without epaulettes with a simple gold laurel branch, buckskin pants, a red vest with wide lapels, and boots with their tops turned down. At the sound of his secretary’s footsteps, Bonaparte turned his head.

“Oh, it’s you, Bourrienne,” he said. “I was just ringing Landoire to have him call you.”

“I had gone down to Madame Bonaparte’s room, thinking I would find you there, General.”

“No, I slept in the large bedroom.”

“Ah,” said Bourrienne. “In the bed that belonged to the Bourbons!”

“Well, yes.”

“And how did you sleep?”

“Poorly. And the proof is that I’m already here and you did not have to awaken me. It’s all too comfortable for me.”

“Have you read the three letters I set aside for you, General?”

“Yes, the wife of a sergeant-major in the consular guard who was killed at Marengo is asking me to be the godfather of her child.”

“How should I answer her?”

“Tell her I accept. Duroc can stand in for me. The child’s name will be Napoleon. The mother will receive an annuity of five hundred francs that will revert to her son. Answer her in those terms.”

“And how about the woman who, believing in your good luck, asks you for three lottery numbers?”

“She’s crazy. But since the woman believes in my star and is sure she’ll win if I send her three numbers, though she has never won before, tell her that you can only win the lottery on those days you don’t bet anything. As proof tell her that she has never won anything when she has bought tickets, but on the day that she has not bought a ticket she has won three hundred francs.”

“So, I am to send her three hundred francs?”

“Yes.”

“And the last letter, General?”

“I was just beginning to read it when you came in.”

“Keep reading; you will find it interesting.”

“Read it to me. The writing is scribbly and difficult to read.”

With a smile, Bourrienne picked up the letter. “I know why you’re smiling,” said Bonaparte.

“Ah, I don’t think you do, General,” replied Bourrienne.

“You’re no doubt thinking that someone with handwriting like mine should be able to read anyone’s, even the scribbling of cats and public prosecutors.”

“Well, you’re right.”

Bourrienne began to read:

“‘Jersey, February 26, 1801

“‘I believe, General, that since you are back from your extensive voyages, I can now, without being indiscreet, interrupt your daily occupations by reminding you who I am. However, you may be surprised that such a feeble excuse is the subject of the letter I have the honor of addressing you. You will remember, General, that when your father was forced to take your brothers out of the school in Autun and came to see you in Brienne, he found himself penniless. He asked me to lend him twenty-five louis, which I was pleased to do. Since his return, he has not had the opportunity to pay me back, and when I left Ajaccio, your good mother offered to give up some of her silver to reimburse me. I rejected her offer and told her that I would leave the promissory note signed by your father with Monsieur Souires and that she should pay it when she was able and it convenient. I judge that she had not yet found the appropriate time to do so when the Revolution took place.

“‘You may find it strange, General, that for such a modest sum I am willing to trouble your occupations. But my situation is very difficult just now, and even such a small amount seems large to me. Exiled from my country, forced to find refuge on this island I abhor, where everything is so expensive that one has to be rich to live even simply, I would deem it a great kindness on your part if you would enable me to have that tiny sum which in earlier days would have been meaningless to me.’”

Bonaparte nodded. Bourrienne noticed his reaction.

“Do you remember this good man, General?” he asked.

“Perfectly well,” said Bonaparte. “As if it were yesterday. The sum was counted out in Brienne before my very eyes. His name must be Durosel.”

Bourrienne looked down at the signature. “That’s right,” he said. “But there’s another name, one more illustrious than the first.”

“What is his full name, then?”

“Durosel Beaumanoir.”

“We must find out if he’s from the Beaumanoir family in Brittany. That’s a good name to have.”

“Shall I keep reading?”

“Go ahead.”

Bourrienne continued:

“‘You will understand, General, that when a man is eighty-six years old and has served his country for more than sixty years without the slightest interruption, it is difficult to be sent away and forced to find refuge on Jersey, where I try to subsist on the government’s feeble attempts to help French émigrés.

“‘I use the word “émigrés” because that is what I was forced to become. Leaving France had never been in my plans, and I had committed no crime except for being the most senior general in the canton and being decorated with the great cross of Saint-Louis.

“‘One evening they came to kill me. They broke down my door. I was alerted by my neighbors’ shouts and barely had the time to escape with nothing but the clothes I had on my back. Seeing that I risked death in France, I abandoned all that I owned, real estate and furniture, and since I had no place to put my feet in my own country, I joined one of my older brothers here. He had been deported and was senile, and now I wouldn’t leave him for anything in the world. My mother-in-law is eighty years old, and they have refused to give her a portion of my estate, on the pretext that everything I owned had been confiscated. Thus, if things don’t change, I shall die bankrupt, and that saddens me greatly.

“‘I admit, General, that I have not adapted to the new style, but according to former customs,

“‘I am your humble servant.

“‘Durosel Beaumanoir’”

“Well, General, what do you say?”

“I say,” the First Consul replied with a slight catch in his voice, “that I am profoundly moved to hear such things. This is a sacred debt, Bourrienne. Write to General Durosel, and I shall sign the letter. Send him ten thousand francs and say that he can expect more, for I would like to do more for this man who helped my father. I shall take care of him. But, speaking of debts, Bourrienne, I have some serious business to talk about with you.” Bonaparte sat down with a frown.

Bourrienne remained standing near his chair. Bonaparte said, “I want to talk to you about Josephine’s debts.”

Bourrienne gave a start. “Very well,” he said. “And where do you get your information?”

“From what I hear in public.”

Like a man who has not fully understood but who dares ask no questions, Bourrienne leaned forward.

“Just imagine, my friend”—Bonaparte sometimes forgot himself and dropped formal address—“that I went out with Duroc to find out for myself what people are saying.”

“And are they saying many negative things about the First Consul?”

“Well,” Bonaparte answered with a laugh, “I nearly got myself killed when I said something bad about him. Without Duroc, who used his club, I believe we might have been arrested and taken to the Château-d’Eau guardhouse.”

“Still, that fails to explain how, in the midst of all the praise for the First Consul, the question of Madame Bonaparte’s debts came up.”

“In fact, in the midst of all that praise for the First Consul, people were saying horrible things about his wife. They’re saying that Madame Bonaparte is ruining her husband with all the clothes she’s buying; they’re saying she has debts everywhere, that her cheapest dress cost one hundred louis and her least expensive hat two hundred francs. I don’t believe a word of that, Bourrienne, you understand. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Last year I paid debts of three hundred thousand francs; she reminded me that I had not sent her any money from Egypt. All well and good. But now things are different; I’m giving Josephine six thousand francs a month for clothes. That should be enough. People used the same kinds of words against Marie-Antoinette. You must check with Josephine, Bourrienne, and set things straight.”

“You’ll never know,” Bourrienne answered, “how happy I am that you yourself have brought up this subject. This morning, as you were impatiently waiting for me to appear, Madame Bonaparte asked me to talk to you about the difficult position in which she finds herself.”

“Difficult position, Bourrienne! What do you mean by that, monsieur?” Bonaparte asked, suddenly reverting back to more formal speech.

“I mean that she is being harassed.”

“By whom?”

“By her creditors.”

“Her creditors! I thought I had got rid of her creditors.”

“A year ago, yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, in the past year, things have totally changed. One year ago she was the wife of General Bonaparte. Today she is the wife of the First Consul.”

“Bourrienne, that’s enough. My ears have heard enough of prattle.”

“That’s my opinion, General.”

“It is up to you to take care of paying everything.”

“I would be happy to. Give me the necessary sum, and I shall quickly take care of it, I guarantee.”

“How much do you need?”

“How much do I need? Well, yes.…”

“Well?”

“Well, Madame Bonaparte doesn’t dare tell you.”

“What? She doesn’t dare tell me? And how about you?”

“Nor do I, General.”

“Nor do you! Then it must be a colossal amount!”

Bourrienne sighed.

“Let’s see now,” Bonaparte continued. “If I pay for this year like last year, and give you three hundred thousand francs.…”

Bourrienne didn’t say a word. Bonaparte looked at him worriedly. “Say something, you imbecile!”

“Well, if you give me three hundred thousand francs, General, you would be giving me only half of the debt.”

“Half!” shouted Bonaparte, getting to his feet. “Six hundred thousand francs! … She owes … six hundred thousand francs?”

Bourrienne nodded.

“She admitted she owed that amount?”

“Yes, General.”

“And where does she expect me to get the money to pay these six hundred thousand francs? From my five-hundred-thousand-franc salary as consul?”

“Oh, she assumes you have several thousand franc bills hid somewhere in reserve.”

“Six hundred thousand francs!” Bonaparte repeated. “And at the same time my wife is spending six hundred thousand francs on clothing, I’m giving one hundred francs as pension to the widow and children of brave soldiers killed at the Pyramids or Marengo! And I can’t even give money to all of them! And they have to live the whole year on those one hundred francs, while Madame Bonaparte wears dresses worth one hundred louis and hats worth twenty-five. You must have heard incorrectly, Bourrienne, it surely cannot be six hundred thousand francs.”

“I heard perfectly well, General, and Madame Bonaparte realized what her situation was only yesterday when she saw a bill for gloves that came to forty thousand francs.”

“What are you saying?” shouted Bonaparte.

“I’m saying forty thousand francs for gloves, General. What do you expect? That is how things are. Yesterday she went over her accounts with Madame Hulot. She spent the night in tears, and she was still weeping this morning when I saw her.”

“Well, let her cry! Let her cry with shame, or even out of remorse! Forty thousand francs for gloves! Over how many months?”

“Over one year,” Bourrienne answered.

“One year! That’s enough food for forty families! Bourrienne, I want to see all those bills.”

“When?”

“Immediately. It’s eight o’clock, and I don’t see Cadoudal until nine, so I have the time. Immediately, Bourrienne. Immediately!”

“You’re quite right, General. Now that we have started, let’s get to the end of this business.”

“Go get all the bills, all of them, you understand. We shall go through them together.”

“I’m on my way, General.” And Bourrienne ran down the stairway leading to Madame Bonaparte’s apartment.

Left alone, the First Consul began to pace up and down, his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulder and mouth twitching. He started mumbling to himself: “I ought to have remembered what Junot told me at the fountains in Messoudia. I ought to have listened to my brothers Joseph and Lucien who told me not to see her when I got back. But how could I have resisted seeing my dear children Hortense and Eugene? The children brought me back to her! Divorce! I shall keep divorce legal in France, if only so I can leave that woman. That woman who gives me no children, and she’s ruining me!”

“Well,” said Bourrienne as he reentered the study, “six hundred thousand francs won’t ruin you, and Madame Bonaparte is still young enough to give you a son who in another forty years will succeed you as consul for life!”

“You have always taken her side, Bourrienne!” said Bonaparte, pinching his ear so hard the secretary cried out.

“What do you expect, General? I’m for everything that is beautiful, good, and feeble.”

In a rage, Bonaparte grabbed up the handful of papers from Bourrienne and twisted them back and forth in his hands. Then, randomly, he picked up a bill and read: “‘Thirty-eight hats’ … in one month! What’s she doing, wearing two hats a day? And eighteen hundred francs worth of feathers! And eight hundred more for ribbons!” Angrily, he threw down the bill and picked up another. “Mademoiselle Martin’s perfume shop. Three thousand three hundred and six francs for rouge. One thousand seven hundred forty-nine francs during the month of June alone. Rouge at one hundred francs a jar! Remember that name, Bourrienne. She’s a hussy who should be sent to prison in Saint-Lazare. Mademoiselle Martin, do you hear?”

“Yes, General.”

“Oh, now we come to the dresses. Monsieur Leroy. Back in the old days there were seamstresses, now we have tailors for women—it’s more moral. One hundred fifty dresses in one year. Four hundred thousand francs worth of dresses! If things keep going like this, it won’t be six hundred thousand francs, it’ll be a million. Twelve hundred thousand francs at the least that we’ll have to deal with.”

“Oh, General,” Bourrienne hastily said, “there have been some down payments made.”

“Three dresses at five thousand francs apiece!”

“Yes,” said Bourrienne. “But there are six at only five hundred each.”

“Are you making fun of me?” said Bonaparte with a frown.

“No, General, I’m not making fun of you. All I’m saying is that it’s beneath you to get so upset for nothing.”

“How about Louis XVI? He was a king, and he got upset. And he had a guaranteed income of twenty-five million francs.”

“You are—or at least when you want to be, you will be—more of a king than Louis XVI ever was, General. Furthermore, Louis XVI was an unfortunate man, you’ll have to admit.”

“A good man, monsieur.”

“I wonder what the First Consul would say if people said he was a good man.”

“For five thousand francs at least they could give us one of those beautiful gowns from Louis XVI’s days, with hoops and swirls and panniers, gowns that needed fifty meters of cloth. That I could understand. But with these new, simple frocks—women look like umbrellas in a case.”

“They have to follow the styles, General.”

“Exactly, and that is what makes me so angry. We’re not paying for cloth. At least if we were paying for the cloth, it would mean business for our factories. But no, it’s the way Leroy cuts the dress. Five hundred francs for cloth and four thousand five hundred francs for Leroy. Style! … So now we have to find six hundred thousand francs to pay for style.”

“Do we not have four million?”

“Four million? Where?”

“The money the Hamburg senate has just paid us for allowing the extradition of those two Irishmen whose lives you saved.”

“Oh, yes. Napper – Tandy and Blackwell.”

“I believe there may in fact be four and half million francs, not just four million, that the senate sent to you directly through Monsieur Chapeau-Rouge.”

“Well,” said Bonaparte with a laugh, delighted by the trick he had played on the free city of Hamburg, “I don’t know if I really had the right to do what I did, but I had just come back from Egypt, and that was one of the little tricks I’d taught the pashas.”

Just then the clock struck nine. The door opened, and Rapp, who was on duty, announced that Cadoudal and his two aides-de-camp were waiting in the official meeting room.

“Well, then, that’s what we’ll do,” said Bonaparte to Bourrienne. “That’s where you can get your six hundred thousand francs, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.” And Bonaparte went out to receive the Breton general.

Scarcely had the door closed than Bourrienne rang the bell. Landoire rushed in. “Go tell Madame Bonaparte that I have some good news for her, but since I don’t dare leave my office, where I am alone—you understand, Landoire; where I am alone—I would like to ask her to come see me here.”

When he realized it was good news, Landoire hurried to the staircase.

Everyone, from Bonaparte on down, adored Josephine.