A Jester’s Fortune

CHAPTER 1

The general was happy, nigh to Seventh Heaven.

The very day of his return to conquered Milan, his centre of operations-laden with the paintings, the statuary, the silver and gilt masterpieces of the southern kingdoms, bedecked with glory, new fame to fuel his dreams and with forty million francs of solid specie to support the patrie-Josephine had come, at last.

Nigh to a second, blissful honeymoon, her presence seemed, after such a long wait. So fortuitously timed, too, in that glorious hiatus between the first arduous conquests and the near-bloodless but brutal | marches to the south. Even the Austrians conspired to spare the young general, to give him this joyous rencontre with his beloved bride, and peace enough in which to enjoy it, for the new Austrian commander General Wurmser had yet to arrive from the Rhine with his fresh armies.

"A terrible risk, but I tweaked their noses," General Bonaparte boasted, "I got my way, thank God."

"A terrible risk, indeed." Josephine frowned. "You know Paul and the rest of the Directory can be so arbitrary. Really, my dear…"

"There could not be two generals in charge here in Italy, sweet one." Bonaparte chuckled. "I could not serve under Kellermann, though he's the hero of Valmy. He's so old, so set in his hidebound old ways. It i would have been two dancing-masters doing a minuet with each other, Kellerman and Wurmser, and I relegated to the southern campaign, robbed of troops and unable to cow Tuscany, much less Rome."

"Promise me you will never threaten to resign, again, mon cher," Josephine admonished him, as the brilliant salon and its hundreds of guests-willing or unwilling-swirled about them. "Heroes, even a successful hero, are expendable. To play at politics so far removed from the latest gossip, your supporters…"

"The lifeblood of politics," the elegant young aide, Lieutenant Hyppolyte Charles, simpered from the offhand side.

"The army would have been divided into threes," Bonaparte said, regarding Lt. Hyppolyte Charles with a wary eye. "Part to besiege Mantua, part under Kellermann to dance the old way against the Austrians… and I, the smallest part, sent off on errands, too far removed to aid Kellermann when the Austrians attacked him. And attacked him they very well would have. Wurmser, Beaulieu, they would have understood General Kellermann and his methods. He would have offered nothing novel. He'd not frighten them… as I do."

"But before you defeated the south and won their tribute, mon cher, your threat was empty. And far too brash," Josephine belaboured, fanning herself as if faint with dread at her husband's daring. And sharing a look of puzzlement with her escort, Lt. Hyppolyte Charles.

"No matter, ma cherie. It worked. I alone command in Italy," Bonaparte bragged. "Anything else would have spelled disaster, and I alone prevented it. And will present the good Paul de Barras and the Directory even more victories. Within a week, I believe. Do you fear for me, ma cherie? Ma biche?"

"Husband…" Josephine all but writhed in mortification to be so addressed in public, to be called "his little doe," for she was not that affectionate a woman. "Of course I fear. The able man is envied, the hero must be cut down to size by paper-shufflers and intriguers-"

"Ah, but I will not be cut down to size, ma cherie," Bonaparte confided, leaning close to her, to infuse himself with her womanly aromas. After so many months…! "At Lodi, I realised something about myself. By the bridge, with battalion after battalion surging forward beside me… I am not a run-of-the-mill being. Not a lesser being at all. I will rise above all the rest. I will make history."

And the sureness in his voice, the strange, fey brilliance in his eyes, which blazed with such certitude, almost frightened her. What sort of fellow had she married, then? Josephine wondered, not for the first time. So passionate, so ardent, so intent and cocksure over everything he did, so capable of trampling roughshod over anyone and anything that stood in the way of what he wanted. So impressive, so confident, he'd seemed, though he wasn't amusing in the slightest, had no easy personal charms… no savoir faire. What a folly their marriage was, a patriotic gushing over a bull-calf of a schoolboy turned soldier. No matter how successful, how slim and attractive… he smothered her. She'd written a friend, Madame Theresia Tallien, "My husband doesn't love me, he adores me! I think he'll go mad."

She shared another covert glance over the top of her fan with the dashing young Lieutenant Charles, a glance to which Bonaparte was oblivious. He was far too happy, this day.

Months and months he'd written her, almost daily. She wrote in reply every fourth day at best, when his passionate, adoring heart craved two a day from her. Short, curt, gossipy inconsquentials were those few letters, too. Why, she'd even addressed him formally, called him "vous"!

Once Piedmont had been beaten, he'd sent for her, written the army to allow her to come down to Turin or Milan, and they'd acceded. He'd sent the dashing young cavalry genius Joachim Murat from his own staff of aide-de-camps to fetch her. Yet, when Murat had gotten to Paris, he'd had to report that she'd been ill, retired to the country… and very possibly pregnant. Of course, with his child, Bonaparte was certain. Weeks, months more of chilly correspondence, then she'd finally come! With Murat as her escort. And with the rakishly handsome Lt. Hyppolyte Charles of the First Hussars on her other arm.

And no child.

Lieutenant Charles was slim, courteous, so elegant in his red Hussar uniform with the pelisse slung by silver chains over his left shoulder, silver-trimmed and edged with fox fur. He wore red leather tasseled boots and spurs. Ah, well, he made her laugh, Bonaparte thought resignedly.

"Manners of a hairdresser's assistant," Massena said with a sneer, from his side of the room. "God, what a pig's arse she turned out to be."

"Our 'incomparable' Josephine." Augereau snickered in kind. "I don't suppose anyone should actually tell him what those two have been up to? As if he doesn't know?"

"Do you actually think he'd listen?" Massena snorted. "Christ, you'd think… does a woman wish a lover, she'd go for a real man, not that primping mannequin. Cavalry! Shit!"

"At least a real cavalryman… like Murat, then," Augereau opined. "Or do you think.'…?" He leered like a starving fox.

"Too fair," Massena countered, snagging them two fresh glasses of wine from a passing server. "Note how she goes for the short and the dark. Lieutenant Charles… that other willowy fop, that artist Antoine Gros, she fetched along. They're more her type. Poor little bastard. I don't think he does know. Yet. God, it makes me want to spew! We finally get ourselves a great general, and he's saddled with a whore like her. Makes him look like a turnip. Once he finds out, he'll be destroyed, I tell you! And then where'll we be?"

"Take a turn on her, open his eyes so to speak. Or make sure Lt. Hyp-polyte Charles goes back to his goddamned First Hussars. With a Davids writ… like Uriah, the Hittite," Augereau suggested. "A hero's death… nose to nose with the foe."

"That could be arranged," Massena calculated, rubbing his chin in thought. "Won't matter, though. Once we're back in the field, it's certain she'd just find herself another. As for the other idea…?"

"Mmm?" Augereau asked softly.

"Frankly, I wouldn't stick your dick in it," Massena said with a laugh.

"It's narrow, but vital," General Bonaparte expounded over one of his many maps to several officers. Murat was there, along with Lieutenant Charles. Josephine was foisted off on some Italian ladies, bored beyond tears by how provincial even royal Italians could be, by how crude was their command of French, the only elegant and civilised tongue!

"Come right down and relieve Mantua." Murat frowned.

"Never," Napoleon said, chuckling. "We move forward to Brescia, use that as our new base of operations. Wurmser must advance against it, down the Brenner Pass. Lake Garda sits between, to divide his forces. Does he use the Adige Valley, to the east, there is still Lake Garda. I command the square between-Lonato, Castiglione, Brescia, free to move against his every advance. Either way, he must muffle himself in one of the river valleys-Adige, Chiesa, Mincia or Po-to get down to Mantua. Wurmser will try to relieve the siege, not destroy me. I know how he thinks. The old way. Lift the siege, drive us back. Not destroy us. Mantua I use as bait for him. Let him come."

"I see, sir." Murat beamed.

"Ah, yes," Lieutenant Charles sighed, stifling a yawn and turning to look over his shoulder for a brief second, to exchange sympathetic and intriguing looks with the "incomparable Josephine," for both were bored rigid by their separate company.

"Most especially do I wish General Wurmser to consider Rivoli as an easy approach-march route," Bonaparte said, tapping the map with his pencil. "I've seen the ground, and it's heavenly. Easy-rolling, flat and even, and fairly open, where I could really manoeuvre. Where our guns could be positioned to best effect. Massed batteries, hein, cher Murat? All our guns, and the ones we've captured, massed into three or four gigantic, death-dealing batteries. Then let him send an avalanche against me, a tidal wave of Austrians, and I'll break him like coastal cliffs break even the mightiest waves. And with massed batteries for bulwarks, like miniature fortresses, I use the rest of the infantry as foot-cavalry. Quick, and fast, and smash his nose, no matter where he sticks it in. Blunt his every move, and confound him. Out. Out, this could happen."

"He supposedly has fifty thousand sir," General Berthier reminded him from across the map-table. "We, but forty-five thousand. And ten thousand of ours tied up in the siege at Mantua."

"Then 111 bludgeon every thrust he makes, from every mouse-hole pass in the Alps. He cannot march his entire army through merely one. He will divide, sure that he can regroup once he's below Lake Garda." Napoleon snorted. "But I'll not let him. Ever, Berthier. Ah, then. You will excuse me, but I must go rescue Josephine. She has so little Italian, I'm sure she's uneasy with the Milanese ladies."

"Allow me to accompany you, sir," Lieutenant Charles offered.

"Yes, do, Lieutenant." Bonaparte nodded. "Do. We must do our best to amuse my darling. Camp life can be so stultifying."

Berthier helped the general s secretary, Junot, roll up the map, to be returned to a better-guarded study: Berthier sighed with resignation, knowing by now that there would never be any purely social times for the Army of Italy or its commanding officers. On a whim, the spur of the moment, right in the midst of pleasurable, lighthearted salons… out would come the maps as General Bonaparte's ever-active imagination got the better of him; as if he schemed and pondered martial musings every waking moment. Dreamed in his sleep the solutions to guarantee a victory! And then, sometimes upon a brilliantly inspired flash of genius, simply had to withdraw to his map-table, his reports. And wake up the rest, of course. Or draw them from their amusements.

Such as Berthier's own, who waited for him across the salon, now amused by Massena and Augereau, by the gallant young Murat-the aristocratic and lovely younger Giuseppina Visconti. She flashed him a smile as he began to cross to them-quite eagerly, for Berthier was leery of those two raffish rogues and their intentions, though they'd made their own personal conquests of Italian ladies.

Massena cast him a glance-looking furtive and caught-out? the older Berthier could imagine. Was he feeling guilty, did he have something to feel guilty about? Berthier wondered, feeling a surge of anger?

But, no. Massena lifted an expressive brow and darted a significant look towards the settee beyond, on which Josephine sat, surrounded by her slim, dark sycophants, Lt. Hyppolyte Charles and the artist Gros. Their general stood by, like a servant waiting for orders, mute and clumsily inarticulate in the face of such glittering company, such easy and droll repartee.

Berthier cocked a weary brow himself, made a sad moue.

So clever, the general, he thought; in everything but Life. So observant towards all but his vexing wife!

Massena openly frowned, like an ill-tempered eagle who had just spotted a rabbit far below. A sardonic shrug, a theatrical lift of two gloved hands in despair was Augereau's comment.

"Not even a handsome whore," Berthier whispered to himself, and tried to put himself in a better frame of mind to rejoin his entrancing new mistress, to have her all to himself, apart from those "hot rabbits," Massena and Augereau, who'd couple with a snake could they find hips. "The poor little bastard."

"… winter, I am certain," that "poor little bastard" was now saying, a firmly fixed expression of unwavering certainty on his face, as he made his prediction; not a boast, but a prediction. "By winter, my army will be on the Austrian frontiers. We'll own all of Italy and even Venice, perhaps. And Austria will be beaten. I will beat them."

Berthier shook his head again. What could one say to something like that?