The Hundred Days

I

The sun emerged from the clouds, bloody-red, tiny, and irritable, but was quickly swallowed up again into the cold gray of the morning. A sullen day was breaking. It was March 20, a mere day before the start of spring. One could see no sign of this. It rained and stormed across the whole land, and the people shivered.

The weather in Paris had been stormy since the previous night. The birds fell silent after a quick morning greeting. Cold and spiteful wisps of mist rose insidiously from the cracks between the cobbles, moistening anew the stones that had just been blown dry by the morning wind. The mist lingered about the willows and chestnuts in the parks and hovered along the edges of the avenues, causing the nascent tree buds to tremble, chasing clearly visible shivers along the damp backs of the patient livery horses and forcing down to ground level the industrious morning smoke that was here and there attempting to rise from chimneys. The streets smelled of fire, mist, and rain, of damp clothes, of lurking snow clouds and temporarily averted hail, of unfriendly winds, soaked leather, and foul sewers.

Despite this, the citizens of Paris did not remain in their homes. They began to gather in the streets at an early hour. They assembled themselves before the walls onto which broadsides had been affixed. These papers carried the farewell message of the King of France. Barely legible, they looked tear-soaked, for the night’s rain had smeared the freshly inked letters and in places also dissolved the glue with which they were adhered to the stone. From time to time, a stormy gust of wind would blow a sheet completely off the wall and deposit it into the black mud of the street. These farewell words of the King of France met an ignoble fate, being ground into the muck of the road under the wheels of wagons, under the hooves of horses, and under the indifferent feet of pedestrians.

Many of the loyalists regarded these sheets with a wistful devotion. The heavens themselves seemed unfavorably disposed to him. Gales and rains zealously endeavored to obliterate his farewell message. Amid wind and rain, he had departed his palace and residence on the previous evening. “Do not make my heart heavy, my children!” he had said when they got on their knees and begged him to stay. He could not stay; the heavens were against him. . everyone could see this.

He was a good king. Few loved him, but many in the country liked him. He did not have a kind heart, but he was royal. He was old, portly, slow, peaceable, and proud. He had known the misfortune of homelessness, for he had grown old in exile. Like every unfortunate, he did not trust anyone. He loved moderation, peace, and quiet. He was lonely and aloof — for true kings are all lonely and aloof. He was poor and old, portly and slow, dignified, deliberate, and unhappy. Few loved him, but there were many in the land who liked him.

The old King was fleeing a menacing shadow — the shadow of the mighty Emperor Napoleon, who had for the last twenty days been on the march toward the capital. The Emperor cast his shadow before him, and it was a ponderous one. He cast it over France and over practically the entire world. He was known throughout France and the entire earth. His majesty was not derived through birth. Power was his majesty. His crown was a conquest and a capture, not an inheritance. He came from an unknown family. He even brought glory to his nameless ancestors. He had conferred splendor upon them instead of gaining it through them, as was the case for those who were born emperors and kings. Thus he was equally related to all the nameless masses as he was to old-fashioned majesty. By exalting himself he ennobled, crowned, and exalted each and every one of the nameless masses, and they loved him for that. For many years he had terrorized, besieged, and reined in the great ones of this earth, and that was the reason the commoners saw him as their avenger and accepted him as their lord. They loved him because he seemed to be one of them — and because he was nonetheless greater than them. He was an encouraging example to them.

The Emperor’s name was known across the world — but few actually knew anything about him. For, like a true king, he was also lonely. He was loved and hated, feared and venerated, but seldom understood. People could only hate him or love him; fear him or worship him as a god. He was human.

He knew hate, love, fear, and veneration. He was strong and weak, daring and despondent, loyal and treacherous, passionate and cold, arrogant and simple, proud and humble, powerful and pitiable, trusting and suspicious.

He promised the people liberty and dignity — but whoever entered into his service surrendered their freedom and gave themselves completely to him. He held the people and the nations in low regard, yet nonetheless he courted their favor. He despised those who were born kings but desired their friendship and recognition. He believed in God yet did not fear Him. He was familiar with death but did not want to die. He placed little value upon life yet wished to enjoy it. He had no use for love but wanted to have women. He did not believe in loyalty and friendship yet searched tirelessly for friends. He scorned the world but wanted to conquer it anyway. He placed no trust in men until they were prepared to die for him — thus he made them into soldiers. So that he might be certain of their affection, he taught them to obey him. In order for him to be certain of them, they had to die. He wished to bring happiness to the world, and he became its plague. Yet he was loved even for his weak ways. For when he showed himself to be weak, the people realized he was one of their own kind, and they loved him because they felt a connection to him. And when he showed himself to be strong, they also loved him for that very reason, because he seemed not to be one of them. Those who did not love him hated him or feared him. He was both firm and fickle, true and treacherous, bold and shy, exalted and modest.

And now he was standing at the gates of Paris.

The orders that the King had introduced were discarded, in some instances out of fear and in others out of elation.

The colors of the King and his royal house had been white. Those who had acknowledged him wore white bows on their jackets.

But, as if by accident, hundreds had suddenly lost their white bows. Now they lay, rejected and disgraced butterflies, in the black muck of the streets.

The flower of the King and his royal house had been the virginally pure lily. Now, hundreds of lilies, of silk and cloth, lay discarded, disowned, and disgraced in the black muck of the streets.

The colors of the approaching Emperor, however, were blue, white, and red; blue as the sky and the distant future; white as the snow and death; and red as blood and freedom.

Suddenly, thousands of people appeared in the streets of the city wearing blue-white-red bows in their buttonholes and on their hats.

And instead of the proud, virginal lily, they wore the most unassuming of all flowers, the violet.

The violet is a humble and sturdy flower. It embodies the virtues of the anonymous masses. Nearly unrecognized, it blooms in the shadows of imposing trees, and with a modest yet dignified precocity it is the first of all the flowers to greet the spring. And its dark-blue sheen is equally reminiscent of the morning mist before daybreak and the evening mist before nightfall. It was the Emperor’s flower. He was known as the “Father of the Violet.”

Thousands of people could be seen streaming from the outskirts of Paris toward the center of the city, toward the palace, all of them adorned with violets. It was one day before the start of spring, an unfriendly day, a sullen welcome for spring. The violet, however, the bravest of all flowers, was already blooming in the woods outside the gates of Paris. It was as though these people from the suburbs were carrying the spirit of spring into the city of stone, toward the palace of stone. The freshly plucked bouquets of violets shone a radiant blue at the ends of the sticks held aloft by the men, between the warm and swelling breasts of the women, on the hats and caps that were being waved high in the air, in the joyful hands of the workers and craftsmen, on the swords of the officers, on the drums of the old percussionists and the silver cornets of the old trumpeters. At the front of some of the groups marched the drummers of the old Imperial Army. They rapped out old battle melodies on their old calfskin drums, let their drumsticks fly through the air and caught them again, like slender homing pigeons, in fatherly hands held open in welcome. Heading up other groups, or contained within their midst, marched the ancient trumpeters of the old army, who from time to time set their instruments upon their lips and blew the old battle calls of the Emperor, the simple, melancholy calls to death and triumph, each of which reminded a soldier of his own pledge to die for the Emperor and also of the last sigh of a beloved wife before he left her to lay down for the Emperor. In the midst of all the people, raised upon shoulders, were the Emperor’s old officers. They swayed, or rather were swayed, above the surging heads of the crowd like living, human banners. They had their swords drawn. On the sword tips fluttered their hats, like little black flags decorated with the tricolored cockades of the Emperor and the people of France. And from time to time, as if compelled to release the oppressive longing that had quickly built up in their hearts once again, the men and women cried out: “Long live France! Long live the Emperor! Long live the people! Long live the Father of the Violet! Long live liberty! Long live the Emperor!” And once more: “Long live the Emperor!” Often, some enthusiast from within the center of the crowd would begin to sing. He sang the old songs of the old soldiers, from battles of days past, the songs that celebrate man’s farewell to life, his prayer before death, the sung confession of the soldier lacking the time for final exoneration. They were songs proclaiming love of both life and death. They were tunes in which one could hear undertones of marching regiments and clattering muskets. Suddenly someone struck up a song that had not been heard for a long time, the “Marseillaise” — and all the many thousands joined in singing it. It was the song of the French people. It was the song of liberty and duty. It was the song of the motherland and of the whole world. It was the song of the Emperor just as the violet was his flower, as the eagle was his bird, as white, blue, and red were his colors. It glorified victory and even cast its sheen upon lost battles. It gave voice to the spirit of triumph and its brother death. Within it was both despair and reassurance. Anyone who sang the “Marseillaise” to himself joined the powerful community and fellowship of the many whose song it was. And anyone who sang it in the company of many others could feel his own loneliness in spite of the crowd. For the “Marseillaise” proclaimed both victory and defeat, communion with the world and the isolation of spirit, man’s deceptive might and actual powerlessness. It was the song of life and the song of death. It was the song of the French people.

They sang it on the day that the Emperor Napoleon returned home.

II

Many of his old friends hurried to meet him even as he was still on his way home. Others prepared to greet him in the city. The King’s white banners had been hastily removed from the tower of the city hall, already replaced by the fluttering blue, white, and red of the Emperor. On the walls, which even that same morning had still carried the King’s farewell message, there were now posted new broadsides, no longer rain-soaked and tear-stained, but clear, legible, clean, and dry. At their tops, mighty and steadfast, soared the Imperial eagle, spreading its strong, black wings in protection of the neat black type, as if he himself had dropped them, letter by letter, from his threatening yet eloquent beak. It was the Emperor’s manifesto. Once again the Parisians gathered at these same walls, and in each group read, in a loud voice, the Emperor’s words. They had a different tone from the King’s wistful farewell. The Emperor’s words were polished and powerful and carried the roll of drums, the clarion call of trumpets, and the stormy melody of the “Marseillaise.” And it seemed as if the voice of each reader of the Emperor’s words was transformed into the voice of the Emperor himself. Yes, he who had not yet arrived was already speaking to the people of Paris through ten thousand heralds sent on ahead. Soon, the very broadsides themselves seemed to be speaking from the walls. The printed words had voices, the letters trumpeted their message, and above them the mighty yet peacefully hovering eagle, seemed to stir his wings. The Emperor was coming. His voice was already speaking from all the walls.

His old friends, the old dignitaries and their wives, hurried to the palace. The generals and ministers put on their old uniforms, pinned on their Imperial decorations, and viewed themselves in the mirror before leaving their homes, feeling that they had only recently been revived. Even more elated were the ladies of the Imperial court, as they once more donned their old clothes. They were accustomed to viewing their youth as a thing of the past, their beauty as faded, their glory as lost. Now, however, as they put on their clothes, the symbols of their youth and their triumphant glory, they could actually believe that time had stood still since the Emperor’s departure. Time, woman’s enemy, had been halted in its track; the rolling hours, the creeping weeks, the murderously slow and boring months, had been only a bad dream. Their mirrors lied no more. Once again, they revealed the true images of youth. And with victorious steps, on feet more joyously winged than those of youth — for their feet were revived and had awakened to a second youth — the ladies entered their carriages and headed toward the palace amid cheers from the thronging, waiting crowds.

They waited in the gardens before the palace, clamoring at the gates. In every arriving minister and general they saw another of the Emperor’s emissaries. Besides these exalted persons, there came also the lesser staff of the Emperor — the old cooks and coachmen and bakers and laundresses, grooms and riding-masters, tailors and cobblers, masons and upholsterers, lackeys and maids. And they began to prepare the palace for the Emperor so he would find it just as he had left it, with no reminders of the King who had fled. The exalted ladies and gentlemen joined the lowly servants in this work. In fact, the ladies of the Imperial court worked even more zealously than the servants. Disregarding their dignity and the damage to their delicate clothing or their carefully cultivated fingernails, they scratched, clawed, and peeled from the walls the tapestries and the white lilies of the King with vindictiveness, fury, impatience, and enthusiasm. Under the King’s tapestries were the old and familiar symbols of the Emperor — countless golden bees with widespread, glassy, and delicately veined little wings and black-striped hind ends, Imperial insects, industrious manufacturers of sweetness. Soldiers carried in the Imperial eagles of shiny, golden brass and placed them in every corner, so that at the very moment of his arrival, the Emperor would know that his soldiers were awaiting him — even those who had not been able to be at his side upon his entrance.

In the meantime, night was falling, and the Emperor had still not arrived. The lanterns in front of the palace were lit. Streetlamps at every corner flared. They battled against fog, dampness, and the wind.

The people waited and waited. Finally, they heard the orderly trot of military horses’ hooves. They knew it was the Thirteenth Dragoons. At the head of the squadron rode the Colonel, sabre shining a narrow flash in the gloom of the night. The Colonel cried: “Make way for the Emperor!” As he sat high upon his chestnut steed, which was barely visible in the darkness, his wide, pale face with its great black mustache over the heads of the thronging crowd, unsheathed weapon in his raised hand, repeating from time to time his cry “Make way for the Emperor!” and occasionally lit by the yellowish glint of the flickering streetlamps, he reminded the crowd of the militant and supposedly cruel guardian angel that was alleged to personally accompany the Emperor, for it seemed to the people that the Emperor, at this hour, was issuing orders even to his own guardian angel. .

Soon his dragoon-escorted coach came into view, the rumble of its hurried wheels inaudible over the trampling of the horses’ hooves.

It stopped at the palace.

As the Emperor left the carriage, many pale, open hands reached for him. At that moment, entranced by the imploring hands, he lost his will and consciousness. These loving white hands that stretched toward him seemed to him more terrible than if they had belonged to armed enemies. Each hand was like a loving, yearning pale face. The love that streamed toward the Emperor from these bright, outstretched hands was like an intense and dangerous plea. What were the hands demanding? What did they want from him? These hands were praying, demanding, and compelling all at once; hands raised as if to the gods.

He shut his eyes and could feel the hands lifting him and carrying him along on unsteady shoulders up the palace steps. He heard the familiar voice of his friend General Lavalette: “It is you! It’s you! It’s you — my Emperor!” From the voice and the breath on his face he realized that his friend was in front of him, climbing the steps backward. The Emperor opened his eyes — and saw the open arms of his friend Lavalette and the white silhouette of his face.

This startled him, so he closed his eyes again. As if sleeping or unconscious, he was carried, led and supported along to his old room. Both frightened and happy, he seated himself at his writing table with a fearful joy in his heart.

He saw some of his old friends in the room as if through a fog. From the direction of the street, on the other side of the shut windows, he heard the boisterous shouts of the people, the whinnying of horses, the clinking of weapons, the high-pitched ring of spurs, and, from the hall behind the high white door opposite his seat, the murmuring and whispering of many voices; from time to time he seemed to recognize one of them. He was aware of everything that was going on; it seemed clear and immediate yet vague and distant, and all of it instilled in him both happiness and a feeling of awe. He felt that he was finally home and was at the same time being rescued from some kind of storm. Slowly he forced himself to pay attention; he commanded his eyes to notice and his ears to listen. He sat, perfectly still, at the writing table. The cries from just outside the windows were intended for him alone. It was for his sake that so many voices were murmuring and whispering in the hall beyond the closed door. Suddenly it seemed to him that he was looking at all of his countless thousands of friends throughout the entire great land of France, who were standing and waiting for him. Throughout the whole country millions cried, as hundreds were doing here: “Long live the Emperor!” In all the rooms of the palace they were whispering, chattering, and talking about him. He would have enjoyed allowing himself some leisure to think about himself from a stranger’s perspective. But, behind his back, he could hear the ruthlessly steady ticking of the clock on the mantel. Time was passing; the clock began to strike the hour in a thin and sorrowful tone. It was eleven, one hour before midnight. The Emperor stood up.

He approached the window. From all the towers of the city the bells chimed the eleventh hour. He loved the bells. He had loved them since childhood. He had little regard for churches and stood at a loss and sometimes even timidly before the Cross, but he loved the bells. They stirred his heart. Their chiming voices made him solemn. They seemed to be announcing more than just the hour and celebration of worship. They were the tongues of Heaven. What inhabitant of earth could comprehend their golden language? Every hour they rang out devoutly, and they alone knew which was the decisive hour. He remained at the window and listened eagerly to the fading echoes. Then he turned abruptly. He went to the door and yanked it open. He stood at the threshold and allowed his gaze to sweep across the faces of those who had assembled. They were all present; he recognized every last one, never having forgotten, since he himself created them. There were Régis de Cambacérès, Duke of Parma; the Dukes of Bassano, Rovigno and Gaeta, Thibaudeau, Decrès, Daru, and Davout. He glanced back into the room — there were his friends Caulaincourt and Exelmans and the naive young Fleury de Chaboulon. Yes, he still had friends. Some had betrayed him on occasion. Was he a god, who should scorn and punish? He was but a man. They, however, took him for a god. As from a god they demanded anger and revenge; as from a god they also expected forgiveness. But he had no time left to act like a god and become angry, punish, and forgive. He had no time. More clearly than the shouts of the crowd outside his windows and the racket made by his dragoons in the gardens and house, he could hear the soft but ruthless ticking of the clock on the mantel behind him. He had no time left to punish. He only had time to forgive and allow himself to be loved, to bestow and to give: favors, titles, and posts, all the pathetic presents an Emperor may give. Generosity requires less time than ire. He was generous.

III

The bells struck midnight. Time was flying, time was running out. The cabinet! The government! The Emperor needed a government! Can one govern without ministers and without friends? The ministers whom one appoints to oversee others must themselves be overseen! The friends one trusts, they themselves become distrustful and awaken distrust! Those who today cheer before the windows and turn night into day are fickle! The God in whom one puts one’s trust is unknown and unseen. The Emperor has now assembled his cabinet. Names! Names! Decrès will be in charge of the Navy and Caulaincourt the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Mollieu in charge of the Treasury and Gaudin overseeing Finances; Carnot will, he hopes, be the Minister of the Interior; Cambacérès the Lord Chancellor. Names! Names! From the towers strikes one, then two, and before long it will be daybreak. . Who will oversee the police?

The Emperor needed police and not just a guardian angel. The Emperor remembered his old Police Minister. His name was Fouché. The Emperor could easily order the arrest of this hated man, even his death. Fouché had betrayed him. He knew all the secrets in the land and all the Emperor’s friends and enemies. He could betray and protect — and both at the same time. Yes, all of the Emperor’s trusted friends had mentioned this man’s name. He was clever, they said, and loyal to the powerful. Was the Emperor not mighty? Could anyone dare doubt his power or be allowed to see his anxiety? Was there a man in the country whom the Emperor should fear?

“Get me Fouché!” ordered the Emperor. “And leave me alone!”

IV

He looked around the room for the first time since he had entered. He stood before the mirror. He observed the reflection of his upper body. He furrowed his brows, tried to smile, pursed his lips, opened his mouth, and regarded his healthy white teeth. He smoothed his black hair down onto his forehead with his finger and smiled at his reflection, the great Emperor grinning at the great Emperor. He was pleased with himself. He took a few steps back and examined himself anew. He was alone but he was strong, young, and vibrant. He feared no treachery.

He walked about the room, looked at the tattered lilies of the recently ripped-down tapestries, smirked, lifted one of the brass eagles that stood in the corner, and finally stopped before a small altar. It was a smooth piece made of black wood. A forlorn, faint odor of incense escaped from the closed drawer, and on the altar stood, spectral white, a small ivory crucifix. The bony, angular, and bearded face of the Crucified One stood out, unmoving, unchanging, and eternal, in the room lit only by flickering candlelight. They had forgotten to dismantle the altar, thought the Emperor. Here had the King kneeled every morning. But Christ had not heard him! “I don’t need it!” the Emperor suddenly cried out. “Away with it!” He raised his hand. And it was at that moment that he felt he should kneel. But at the very same instant he brushed the cross to the ground with the back of his hand, which he had opened as if to smack someone across the head. It fell with a hard, dull thud to the narrow swath of uncarpeted flooring. The Emperor bent down. The cross was broken. The Savior lay on the narrow strip of pale, bare floor, His thin ivory arms outstretched, no longer torturously constrained by the Cross. His white beard and narrow nose faced the ceiling, with only His crossed legs and feet still attached to what was left of the little crucifix.

At that moment someone knocked on the door and announced the Minister of Police.

V

The Emperor remained where he was standing. His left boot covered the whitish crucifix fragments. He folded his arms, as was his custom when he was waiting, when he was pondering or when he wished to create the impression he was thinking. He held himself such that he could feel his body and count and regulate his heartbeat with his right hand. People knew and loved this stance of his. He had rehearsed it hundreds of times before the mirror. He had been painted and drawn in this pose thousands of times. These pictures hung in thousands of rooms in France and all over the world, even in Russia and Egypt. Yes, he knew his Police Minister — dangerous, skeptical, old, and unchanging, a man who had never been young and had never believed in anything. A scrawny, brilliant spider who had woven webs and destroyed them; tenacious, patient, and without passion. This most doubtful of men, this faithless priest, was received by the Emperor in the stance in which millions of his followers were used to seeing him. As he stood there, arms crossed, he not only felt it himself but also made this hated man feel the faith of the millions of followers who revered and loved the Emperor with his folded arms. The Emperor waited for the Minister like a statue of himself.

The Minister was now standing before him in the room, head bowed. The Emperor did not move. It was as if the Minister had not bowed his head as one does before the great ones but rather as one does when one is hiding one’s face or searching for something on the ground. The Emperor thought of the broken crucifix, which he was covering with his left boot and would certainly have hidden from anyone, not only the glare of this policeman. It seemed to the Emperor undignified to move from his place yet also undignified to be concealing something.

“Look at me!” he ordered, injecting his voice with its old, victorious ring. The Minister lifted his head. He had a wizened face and eyes of indeterminable color, somewhere between pale and dark, which endeavored in vain to stay wide open, to counter the compulsion of the eyelids, which kept drooping on their own, although he seemed constantly to be trying to keep them up. His Imperial uniform was immaculate and proper, but, as though to indicate the unusual hour of night at which its wearer found himself requested, it was not completely closed. As if by accident, a button on his vest had been left undone. The Emperor was to notice this defect, and he did. “Finish dressing!” he said. The Minister smiled and closed the button.

“Your Majesty,” began the Minister, “I am your servant!”

“A faithful servant!” said the Emperor.

“One of your truest!” replied the Minister.

“That has not been particularly noticeable,” said the Emperor softly, “in the last ten months.”

“But in the last two,” answered the Minister, “I have been preparing myself for the joy of seeing Your Majesty here now. For the last two months.”

The Minister spoke slowly and faintly. He neither raised nor lowered his voice. The words crept out of his small mouth like plump, well-fed shadows, robust enough to be audible but mindful not to seem as vigorous as the Emperor’s words. He kept his long, slightly bent hands calmly and respectfully at his sides. It was as if he were also paying homage with his hands.

“I’ve decided,” said the Emperor, “to bury the past. Do you hear, Fouché? The past! It is not very pleasant.”

“It is not pleasant, Your Majesty.”

He grows trusting, thought the Emperor.

“There will be much to do, Fouché,” he said. “These people mustn’t be given time. We must anticipate them. Incidentally, is there any news from Vienna?”

“Bad news, Majesty,” said the Minister. “The Imperial Minister for Foreign Affairs, Monsieur Talleyrand, has spoiled everything. He serves the enemies of Your Majesty better than he has ever served Your Majesty. I have never — as Your Majesty will recall — taken him for sincere. There will be much to do, truly! A steady hand will be required to carry out all the tasks. .”

Fouché kept his hands at his sides, half closed, as if hiding something in them. The rather lengthy gold-embroidered palms on his sleeves seemed to purposely conceal his wrists. Only the long, eager fingers were visible. Traitor’s fingers, thought the Emperor. Fingers made for spinning malicious little tales at a writing-table. These hands have no muscles. I will not make him my Foreign Minister!

While he was pondering, the Emperor had unintentionally lifted his foot off the crucifix fragments. He wanted to go to the window. He thought he saw Fouché stealing a glimpse at the cross from under his sagging eyelids, and he felt embarrassed. He took a quick step forward, lifted his chin and said in a loud and commanding voice, so as to bring the meeting to a rapid end: “I appoint you my Minister!”

The Minister did not budge. Only the lid of his right eye rose a bit above the pupil, as though he were just waking. It seemed his eye was listening but not his ear.

In a voice that seemed to the Minister rather casually unceremonious, the Emperor continued: “You will head the Ministry of Police, which you have previously overseen in such a meritorious fashion.”

At that moment, the interested eyelid fell back over the pupil. It veiled a slight green gleam.

The Minister did not move. He is pondering, thought the Emperor, and he is pondering too long.

Finally Fouché bowed. From a rather dry throat came his words: “It gives me sincere pleasure to be permitted to serve Your Majesty once again.”

“Au revoir, Duke of Otranto,” said the Emperor.

Fouché rose up from his bow. He stood rigidly for a little while, gazing wide-eyed with astonishment in the direction of the Emperor’s boots, between which lay the shimmering bits of the crucifix.

Then he left.

He strode through the hall, occasionally offering a half-hearted greeting to an acquaintance without lifting his head. His steps were silent. He walked gently in light shoes, as though in stockinged feet, down the stone steps, past the crouching, lying, and snoring dragoons, into the garden, past the whinnying and pawing horses, past the half-lit rooms and not yet fully closed doors. He moved carefully among the strewn harnesses and leather gear. When he stood before the gate he whistled softly. His secretary appeared. “Good morning, Gaillard,” he said. “We’re policemen again. He can only make war and not politics! In three months I will be more than him!” He indicated with his finger backward over his shoulder toward the palace.

“It already looks like an army camp,” said Gaillard.

“It already looks like war,” replied the Minister.

“Yes,” said Gaillard. “But a lost one.”

Side by side, like brothers, they went down the street into the late-night mist, completely at home in it, and soon completely enveloped by it.

VI

Time was inexorable, appearing to the Emperor to pass more rapidly than ever before in his life. Sometimes he had the humiliating feeling that it no longer obeyed him as it had years ago. Years ago! he said to himself and started to calculate, then caught himself at it, thinking and counting like an old man. Previously he alone had ordained and directed the course of the hours. It was he who shaped and filled them, it was his might and name that they proclaimed in many corners of the world. These days, perhaps the people still obeyed him, but time was fleeing from him, melting away and vanishing whenever he attempted to grasp it. Or maybe the people no longer obeyed him either! To think, he had only left them on their own for a brief while. For a few short months they had ceased to feel his taming, alluring glance, the firm yet flattering touch of his hand, the threatening and tender, the harsh and seductive tones of his voice. No, they certainly had not forgotten him — could anyone forget a man of his kind? — but they had lost touch with him. They had lived without him, many of them even turning against him and falling into league with his royal enemies. They had grown accustomed to living without him.

He sat there, alone amid a frequently changing selection of acquaintances and friends. Soon his brothers, sisters, and mother came. Time passed. It grew brighter and warmer, and the spring of Paris became vigorous and magnificent. It seemed practically like summer. The blackbirds warbled in the Tuileries gardens, and the lilacs had already begun to emit their deliberate, strong fragrance. On many an evening the Emperor could hear the nightingale’s song as he walked alone through the garden, hands behind his back, gaze lowered toward the gravel pathway. Spring had arrived. At such times he realized that all his life he had been aware of the ever-changing seasons in the same way that he had been used to taking notice of favorable or unfavorable opportunities, of precisely followed or completely misunderstood orders, of agreeable or objectionable situations, of Nature’s benevolent or malevolent moods. The earth was a terrain, the sky a friend or enemy, the hill an observation point, the valley a trap, the brook an obstacle, the mountain a shelter, the forest an ambush, the night a respite, the morning an offensive, daytime a battle, and evening a victory or a defeat. It had been that simple. Years ago! thought the Emperor.

He returned home. He wanted to see the painting of his son. In gloomy times he longed for his child more than his own mother. Abnormal as he was, the product of a caprice of Nature, it was as if he had perverted its laws, and he was no longer the child of his race, but had in truth become the father of his forefathers. His ancestors lived through his name. And Nature was vengeful — he knew that! Since it had allowed him to endow his forefathers with glory, it was bound to keep him apart from his own offspring. My child! thought the Emperor. He thought of his son with the tenderness of a father, of a mother, and also that of a child. My unhappy child! he thought. He is my son — is he also my heir? Is Nature so benevolent that she will bring forth my mirror image? I have fathered him; he was born to me. I want to see him.

He looked upon the picture, at the chubby-cheeked face of the King of Rome. He was a good, round child, like thousands of others, healthy and innocent. His soft eyes gazed out with devotion into the still unknown, terrible, beautiful, and dangerous world. He is my blood! thought the Emperor. There will be nothing left to conquer, but he will be able to preserve what he has. I have good advice for him. . yet I cannot see him!

The Emperor took a couple of steps back. It was late afternoon, and the twilight seeped through the open window and crept slowly up the walls. The dark clothes of the Imperial son merged with it imperceptibly. Only his sweet and distant face continued to shine with a pale luminosity.

VII

On the table was an hourglass of polished beryl. Through its narrow neck, filling the bottom bulb, flowed a relentless stream of soft yellowish sand. It seemed only to be a slow trickle, yet the bottom appeared to fill quickly. Thus the Emperor had his enemy, Time, constantly before his eyes. He often amused himself with the childish game of tipping the glass before the sand had finished its journey. He believed in the mysterious significance of dates, days, and hours. He had returned on March 20. His son had been born on March 20. And it was on March 20 that he had one of his guileless enemies executed — the Duke of Enghien. The Emperor had an excellent memory — but so did the dead. How long until the dead took their revenge?

The Emperor heard the hours passing even when speaking to his ministers, friends, or advisors, and also when outside, before the windows, the frenzied crowd was issuing its shouts. The patient, measured, uniform voice of the clock was stronger than the roaring of the masses. And he loved it more than the voice of the people. The people were fickle friends, but Time was a loyal enemy. Those hateful cries still rang in his ears, the ones he had heard when he departed the country ten months earlier, vanquished and powerless. Every jubilant shout from this crowd was a painful reminder of each of the hateful cries of the other crowd.

Oh! He still had to rally those who were unsteady in their faith, to make the liars believe they were not lying to him and to show love to those he did not love. He envied his enemy, the lethargic old king who had fled with his arrival. The King had ruled in God’s name and through the strength of his ancestors alone had kept the peace. He, however, the Emperor, had to make war. He was only the general of his soldiers.

VIII

It was a mild morning in April. The Emperor left the palace. He rode through the city on his white horse, wrapped in his gray military cloak, wearing his martial yet delicate boots of soft kid leather on which his gallant silver spurs shimmered menacingly, black hat on lowered head, which from time to time he unexpectedly lifted as though he were suddenly coming out of deep meditation. He paced his animal. It drummed with its hooves softly and evenly upon the stones. As those who watched the Emperor ride by heard the patter of the horse’s hooves, they had the feeling they were listening to the hypnotic, measured call of threatening war drums. They remained still, removed their hats, and shouted “Long live the Emperor!” — moved, unsettled, and also certainly shocked at the sight of him. They knew this image from the thousands of portraits that hung in their rooms and the rooms of their friends, decorated the edges of the plates from which they ate each day, the cups from which they drank, and the metallic handles of the knives with which they sliced their bread. It was an intimate, familiar, yes, quite familiar picture of the great Emperor in his gray cloak and his black hat on his white horse. That was the reason they were often startled when they saw it come to life — the living Emperor, the living horse, the genuine cloak, the actual hat.

He rode considerably ahead of his retinue; the magnificently uniformed generals and ministers followed at a respectful distance.

The cheery early sunlight was filtering through the fresh, light-green crowns of the trees along the edges of the avenues and in the gardens of Paris. The people did not wish to believe the sinister rumors that came from many corners of the country. For days now there had been talk of revolts against the Emperor by those still loyal to the King. It was also said that the powerful ones of the world had decided to destroy the Emperor and France along with him. Fortified and terrible, the enemy waited at all the borders of the land. The Empress was in Vienna at the house of her father, the Austrian Emperor. She did not come home; they would not let her return to France. The Emperor’s son was also being held captive in Vienna. Death was lying in wait at all the French frontiers. Yet on this bright day the people were willing to forget about the sinister rumors, the war waiting at the frontiers and lurking death. They preferred to believe the happy news that the papers printed. And when they saw the Emperor riding through the city, looking just as they had always imagined him, mighty and serene, clever and great and bold, the Lord of Battles, riding in the young spring of the Parisian streets, it seemed obvious to them that the heavens were on their side, the Emperor’s side, and they released themselves to the comforting melody of this joyous day and their joyful hearts.

The Emperor was riding to Saint-Germain, as it was Parade Day. The Emperor halted. He removed his hat. He saluted the assembled people of Saint-Germain, the workers and soldiers. He knew that the simple folk liked his smooth black hair and the smooth curl that fell over his forehead of its own will and yet obediently. He looked perfectly poor and simple to those poor and simple people when he appeared before them bareheaded. The sun was nearing its zenith and beat hotly upon his uncovered head. He did not move. He forced his horse and himself to uphold that statuesque stillness, the powerful effects of which he had known for years. From the midst of the crowd, in which flamed hundreds of women’s red scarves, came the familiar sour and greasy odor of sweat, the unpleasant smell of the poor on holiday, the scent of their jubilant excitement. Emotion gripped the Emperor. He sat, hat in hand. He did not love the people. He distrusted their enthusiasm and their smell. But he smiled anyway from his white horse, the rigid sweetheart of the crowd, an Emperor and a monument.

In rigid squares stood the soldiers, his old soldiers. How alike they looked, the sergeants, the corporals, and the privates, all of whom death had spared and who had been reabsorbed into the harsh poverty of peasant life. One name after another occurred to the Emperor. There were some whom he remembered well and whom he could have called out. His heart was silent. He was ashamed. They loved him, and he was ashamed that they loved him because he could feel only sympathy for them. He sat on his sunlit and doubly luminous white horse, his head uncovered, hemmed and pressed by the jubilation. Inside the squares the old soldiers now began to beat their drums. How well they drummed! Now he waved his hat, and loosening the reins a bit and easing the pressure of his knees so that the horse understood and started to frisk, the Emperor began to speak — and it seemed to the people in the crowd as if the drums that they had just heard at this point were bestowed with a human voice, an Imperial voice. “My comrades,” began the Emperor, “connoisseurs of my battles and my victories, witnesses to my fortunes and misfortunes. .”

The white horse perked its ears and gently pawed with its front hoof in time with the Emperor’s words.

The sun stood at its zenith and glowed, youthful and mild.

The Emperor put on his hat and dismounted.

IX

He approached the crowd. Their adoration hit him with their every breath, it shone from their faces as brightly as the sun from the heavens, and he suddenly felt that he had always been one of them. At that moment the Emperor saw himself as his devotees saw him, on thousands of pictures on plates, knives, and walls; already a legend, yet still living.

During his long months in exile, he had missed these people. They were the people of France; he knew them. They were ready to love or hate in an instant. They were solemn and derisive, easily inspired but difficult to persuade, proud in squalor, generous in good fortune, devout and thoughtless in victory, bitter and vengeful in defeat, playful and childlike in peace, merciless and irresistible in battle, easily disappointed, trusting and distrusting at the same time, forgetful and quickly appeased by the right word, always ready for thrills, yet ever loving of moderation. These were the people of Gaul, the French people, and the Emperor liked them.

He no longer felt mistrust. They surrounded him. They shouted at him “Long live the Emperor!” as he stood in their midst, and it was as if they wished to prove to him that even when he stood among them, they could not forget he was their Emperor. He was their child and their Emperor.

He embraced one of the older non-commissioned officers. The man had a somber, sallow, bold, and bony face, a long, flowing, thick, and neatly combed graying mustache, and he towered a full head above the Emperor. During their embrace it looked as though the Emperor was under the protection of the thin, bony soldier. The man leaned forward clumsily, a bit comically, hindered by his own awkward height and the corpulent shortness of His Majesty, and allowed himself to receive a kiss on the right cheek. The Emperor tasted the smell of his sallow skin, the sharp vinegar that the man had rubbed on his freshly shaved cheeks, the tiny beads of sweat that dripped from his forehead, and also the tobacco on his breath. There was an intimate familiarity to the entire crowd. Yes, this was the odor of the people from whom the soldiers had sprung, the wonderful soldiers of the country of France; this was the very scent of loyalty, the loyalty of the soldiers — sweat, tobacco, blood, and vinegar. When he embraced one of them, he embraced all of them, the whole of his great army, all its dead and all its living descendants. And the people who saw the short, chubby Emperor in the protective arms of the tall, thin soldier felt as if they too were being embraced by the Emperor, as if they themselves held him. Tears filled the spectators’ eyes, and with hoarse voices they cried out: “Long live the Emperor!” but the lustful desire to cry stifled their cheering throats. The Emperor relaxed his arms. The man took three steps backward. The old soldier stiffened. Under his bushy, bristling eyebrows his small black eyes lit up with the dangerous yet obedient fire of loyalty.

“Where have you fought?” asked the Emperor.

“At Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, and Moscow, my Emperor!” replied the sergeant.

“What is your name?”

“Lavernoile, Pierre Antoine!” thundered the soldier.

“I thank you,” cried the Emperor loudly enough so that all could hear him. “I thank you, Lieutenant Pierre Antoine Lavernoile!”

The newly minted lieutenant stiffened again. He took another step backward, raised his lean brown hand, waved it like a flag, and cried in a choked-up voice: “Long live the Emperor!” He stepped back into the ranks of his comrades from which the Emperor had summoned him and said softly to all those who gathered around him: “Just think, he recognized me instantly! ‘You were,’ he said, ‘at Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, and Moscow, my dear Lavernoile! You have no decorations. You will. I promote you to lieutenant.’”

“He knows us all,” said one of the non-commissioned officers.

“He hasn’t forgotten any of us!” said another.

“He recognized him,” whispered dozens. “He knew his name. He even knew both his first and middle names. ‘Pierre Antoine Lavernoile,’ he said, ‘I know you.’”

Meanwhile, the Emperor mounted his horse again. Lavernoile, he thought, poor gangly Lavernoile! Happy Lavernoile! He raised his hat, stood erect in his stirrups, visible to all, and called out with a voice accustomed to being heard and understood over the noise of cannon: “People of Paris!” he shouted “Long live France!”

He turned his horse. Everyone swarmed him, separating him, his radiant animal and his gray cloak from his retinue. There were hundreds of people around him, men in uniform and civilian clothes and women whose red scarves glinted in the youthful sunshine.

X

He headed home, weary, sad, and ashamed. He was always embracing unknown poor people, giving them titles and orders, buying their support and winning them over. They loved him. Yet he was indifferent to them. He was ashamed. If he had to embrace one more Lavernoile. .! Was that the name? Lavernoile? There were thousands of non-commissioned officers in the Emperor’s great army, hundreds of thousands of soldiers. He was ashamed, the great Emperor of the little Lavernoiles. .

XI

The Emperor ordered that in each city in the land one hundred cannon rounds be fired. This was his language. This was how he proclaimed to the people that he had beaten his rebellious enemies, the friends of the King.

The cannon resounded throughout the land, sending their mighty echoes far and wide. The people had not heard the thunder of cannon for some time. They were startled when the sound came to them again. They recognized once more the mighty voice of the returning Emperor. Even peace was proclaimed with artillery.

The Emperor’s brother said: “Why did you fire cannon? It would have been better to ring bells.”

“Yes,” replied the Emperor. “I love the bells, you know that! I would have liked to hear them. But the bells can wait. I’ll let them ring once I’ve defeated my powerful enemies, my true enemies.”

“To whom are you referring?” asked his brother.

The Emperor said slowly and solemnly: “The whole world!”

His brother stood. At that moment he was afraid of the entire world, which was the Emperor’s enemy, but he was also afraid of this brother who had the whole world as an enemy. Outside, at the door, before he had entered, he felt pity and anxiety for the Emperor but had decided not to reveal it to his face. But now, as he stood before him, he gave in, as usual, to the Imperial gaze and the Imperial voice. The brother felt as though he were one of the mighty Emperor’s anonymous grenadiers.

“Sit down,” said the Emperor. “I have something very important to tell you. Only you, and to you alone can I say it. I would have liked to have had the bells rung, but I ordered the cannon to be fired because the bells would have been a lie — a lie — as well as a promise I cannot keep. There is yet no peace, my brother! I must make the people familiar with cannon fire. I want peace, but I am forced toward war. If my postmaster had not deprived them of horses, all the ambassadors of the various countries would have left Paris long ago. They were accredited by the King. They are not guests of the French people or the Emperor. They delay my couriers at the frontiers. The Empress receives none of my letters. Oh, my brother! If one comes from our family, he knows nothing about this great world. That’s our mistake, my brother, a peasant mistake. I have humbled the kings, but to be humbled by me, by people like me, by people like us, doesn’t make them small. It only makes them more vengeful than they already were. The lowest of my grenadiers is nobler than they. It was an easy matter to defeat the poor rebels in the country. That doesn’t merit any bell ringing. There are still more enemies, even in France — the representatives of the people. They are not the people — they are the chosen of the people. The Parliament! I am subservient to them. But I alone can will freedom, I alone, because I am powerful enough to preserve it. I am the Emperor of the French because I am their General.”

“So you will wage war,” his brother said softly.

“War,” answered the Emperor.

XII

He needed three hundred thousand new guns. He ordered them. And so there began, in all the factories of the land, a mighty hammering and forging and casting and soldering and welding. He also needed men for the three hundred thousand guns. And so, throughout the country, young men left their sweethearts, their wives, their mothers, and their children. He needed provisions. So all the bakers in the land began with triple zeal to bake loaves that would keep fresh; all the butchers in the land began to salt their meats in order to make them last longer; all the distillers brewed ten times more liquor than usual — liquor, the drink of warriors, making cowards brave and brave men still braver.

He ordered and ordered. The submission of his people filled him with lustful delight, and this lust for power made him place still more new orders.

XIII

It was pouring rain when the Emperor moved into the other palace, the Elysée, outside the city. Nothing could be heard except the powerful, uniform drubbing of the rain on the dense treetops in the park. One could no longer hear the voices of the city or the loyal, dogged cheers of the people: “Long live the Emperor!” It was a good, warm early summer’s rain. The fields needed it, the peasants blessed it, and the earth absorbed it willingly, greedily. The Emperor, however, was thinking of rain’s negative effects. Rain softens the ground, so that soldiers cannot easily march, and soaks a soldier’s uniform. The rain could also make the enemy practically invisible under certain conditions. Rain makes a soldier weak and sick. One needs the sun to plan a campaign. The sun fosters acceptance and serenity. The sun makes soldiers drunk and generals sober. Rain is not useful to the enemy who is attacking, but rather to the one waiting to be attacked. Rain turns day practically into night. When it rains the peasant-soldiers think about their fields back home, then about their children, and then about their wives. Rain was an enemy of the Emperor.

For an hour he stood at the open window and listened to the unrelenting downpour with devoted and weary concentration. He saw the whole land, the entire country, whose Emperor and supreme lord he was, divided into fields, gardens and forests, into villages and towns. He saw thousands of ploughs, heard the deliberate swishing of scythes and the more rapid shorter strokes of whirring sickles. He saw the men in the barns, in the stables, among the sheaves, in the mills, each one devoting himself to a peaceful love of industry, anticipating the evening soup after a full day and then to a night of lustful sleep in his wife’s arms. Sun and rain, wind and daylight, night and fog, warm and cold, these were things familiar to the peasant, the pleasant or unpleasant gifts of the heavens. At times an old longing rose up from deep within the Emperor’s soul, one that he had not felt during the confused years of his victories and defeats — nostalgia for the earth. Alas! His ancestors had also been peasants!

The Emperor, his face turned to the window, remained alone in the dusk. The bitter fragrance of the earth and the leaves mixed with the sweetness of the chestnut flowers and lilacs, the moist breath of the rain which smelled of decay and faraway seaweed wafted into the room. The rain, the evening, and the trees in the park conversed peacefully with an intimate rustling in the pleasant dusk.

So, as he was, bareheaded, the Emperor left the room. He wanted to go to the park, to feel the soft rain. All around the house, lights were already burning. The Emperor walked quickly, almost angrily. He strode through the harsh brightness of the halls, head lowered as he passed the guards. He entered the park, walked up and down, hands behind his back, to and fro along the same short and wide avenue, listening to the busy conversation between the rain and the leaves.

Suddenly, to his right, from amid the dense darkness of the trees, he heard a strange and suspicious sound. He knew that there were men who wished to kill him. The thought flashed through his mind that it would be a ridiculous end for an Emperor such as he — in a peaceful park, in the midst of this ridiculous rain, a wretched assassination, a wretched death. He walked between the trees across the soaked ground and headed in the direction from which the noise seemed to have come, when to his consternation and amusement he spotted a woman a few steps ahead. Her white bonnet shimmered. “Over here!” called the Emperor. “Over here!” he called again when the woman did not move. Now she approached. She stood face to face with the Emperor, hardly two strides away from him. She was without doubt a servant woman. Probably, thought the Emperor, she has just left a man’s company. The same old story! They amused him, these everyday common stories.

“Why are you crying?” asked the Emperor. “And what are you doing here?”

The woman did not reply. She lowered her head.

“Answer!” ordered the Emperor. “Come closer!” The woman stepped close to him. Now he could see her. She was certainly one of his serving maids.

The woman fell to her knees, onto the damp earth. She kept her head lowered. Her hair nearly touched the tops of his bootlegs. He bent down toward her. Finally, she spoke.

“The Emperor,” she said. And a few moments later: “Napoleon! My Emperor!”

“Stand up!” ordered the Emperor. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She must have detected impatience and menace in his voice. She rose. “Tell me!” ordered the Emperor. He grabbed her arm and led her into the avenue. He stopped, let go of her, and ordered once more: “Tell me!”

Now he saw from the reflection that fell upon the windows along the avenue that the woman was young.

“I’ll have you punished!” said the Emperor, at the same time caressing her wet face with his hand. “Who are you?”

“Angelina Pietri,” said the woman.

“From Corsica?” asked the Emperor — the name was familiar.

“Ajaccio,” whispered the woman.

“Run! Quickly!” ordered the Emperor.

The woman turned, lifted her skirts with both hands, ran across the stones, and vanished around the corner.

He continued onward, slowly. Ajaccio, he thought. Angelina Pietri from Ajaccio.

He changed his clothes. He was going to the opera. He arrived in the middle of the second act. He stood upright in the box, hat on his head. A brilliant strip of his dazzling snow-white riding breeches shimmered above the deep-red velvet of the balustrade. The audience stood and stared at the box where he sat, as the orchestra played the “Marseillaise.”

“Long live the Emperor!” called one of the actors from the stage. The whole house echoed this.

He waved and left the box. On the staircase he turned to his adjutant and said: “Note this: Angelina Pietri from Ajaccio.”

He forgot the name again instantly. He thought only of Ajaccio.

XIV

He needed weapons, soldiers, and a grand parade.

For the benefit of the representatives of the people, whom he disdained, for his soldiers, whom he loved, for the priests of the faith (in which he did not believe) and for the people of Paris, whose love he feared, he intended to show himself as the protector of the country and of freedom. For a few hours on this day all the workshops in which preparations were being made were idle. The forges and ironworks were shut. However, the millers, bakers, butchers, and distillers were busy preparing for the celebration. For this day the soldiers were to don the new uniforms that had been made for the war.

The master of ceremonies developed a plan for a grandiose and drawn-out display.

The celebration took place on June 1. The day was one of the warmest since the Emperor’s return. It was a hot and ripe summer’s day. It was a strange heat, unknown this time of year. The year seemed hasty to reach maturity. The lilacs were already past their peak. The cockchafers had quickly disappeared. The great chestnut leaves had reached their full size and achieved their deep-green color. In the woods the strawberries had long since been ripening. Thunderstorms occurred frequently and with midsummer’s intensity. The sun blazed; its brilliance was savage. Even on calm, cloudless days the swallows dived very low, practically touching the cobbles in the streets, as they did in other years only before impending rain. Here and there could be heard whispers, both open and hushed, of coming disaster. The newspapers of the land promised peace, but in all the villages and all the towns new recruits were drafted and old soldiers were recalled into the army. And not without dread did the people hear the armorers hammering away busily. They listened with horror as the butchers told of the magnitude of the government’s order, and they watched the menacing zeal of the soldiers drilling on the parade ground. And on this festive day they were curious, indeed, but also distrustful.

Soon the celebration began on the great festival ground. Representing each regiment there were officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, and privates. Two hundred men bore the shining Imperial eagles of brass and gold; here stood the dignitaries of the Légion d’Honneur and the Councillors of State, there the university professors, the city judges, members of the city council, the cardinals, the bishops, the Imperial Guard, and the Garde Nationale. The sabres and bayonets of forty-five thousand troops glinted. Hundreds of cannon thundered. In every direction there were people, a solid wall of people, a vast and anonymous mass, curious, pitiable, and full of zeal. The sun burned ever stronger over the wide, shadeless plaza. From time to time a harsh word of command was heard, a short drum roll, the blare of a trumpet, the clanging rattle of arms, the dull thud of guns on the ground. The people waited. And ever more fierce burned the sun.

Then they heard the Emperor coming. He arrived in a gilded carriage drawn by eight horses, the white plumes on their heads swaying arrogantly, proud silver flames; on both sides rode his marshals. His pages were dressed in green, red, and gold. Dragoons and mounted grenadiers followed behind. The Emperor arrived. He was hardly recognizable in his mother-of-pearl-colored cloak, breeches of white satin, and white-feathered black velour hat. He was barely recognized in the presence of his white-clad brother. He mounted the tribune, a massive, high throne. On either side of him stood his brothers and below him were chancellors, ministers, and marshals. So magnificent were they all that they too were hardly recognizable.

He felt as lonely as ever. Had anyone recognized him? He stood there, alone on his raised throne, under a blue sky, under a hot sun, high above the people and soldiers, between the wide, blue, calm, and enigmatic heavens and his audience, which was equally vast and mysterious.

He began to speak. He was confident of the power of his voice. But today even his own voice seemed strange to him. “We do not want the King,” he cried, “as our enemies do. Faced with the choice between war and humiliation, we choose war. .”

A few days earlier, when he had jotted down these words, they had seemed to him very simple and natural. He knew the French. Honor was their god, disgrace their devil. They were the best soldiers in the world, for they served the Goddess of Honor, the warrior’s most unrelenting mistress. But as for the Emperor himself, what god did he obey?

This question began to gnaw at him while he recited his manifesto with his alien voice. For the first time he was speaking to his Frenchmen from a great high platform; for the first time he wore a silken mother-of-pearl-colored cloak and on his head a strange hat with strange feathers. For the first time he felt the relentless, desolate emptiness of physical solitude. Alas! It was not the same familiar solitude that he had always known. It was not the loneliness of the mighty, nor the betrayed, nor the exiled, nor the humiliated. Here, upon this great, elevated platform, ruled the solitude of the physically alone. The great Emperor was filled with a sense of hollow prominence. Not a single one of the thousands of faces could he distinguish. He only saw over their heads; over the caps and hats, and far in the background were the unrecognizable faces of the crowd called “the people.” And his words seemed to him as hollow as his solitude. There, upon the tribune, he felt as if he were on some bizarre and absurd apparatus, on a throne and stilts at the same time. His cloak was just a disguise, the crowd was an audience, and he and the officials were actors. He was accustomed to speaking in the midst of his soldiers, dressed in his customary uniform, feeling the exhalation of those around him, detecting the beloved smell of sweat and tobacco, of pungent leather and caustic boot polish. But now he stood high above these odors, poor and great, empty and disguised, alone under the blazing sun. Even the weightless plumes on his head were a heavy burden, feeling like useless and ridiculous massive lead feathers. He suddenly removed his hat, practically yanking it off his head. Now, from all directions, the people could see his familiar dark, shiny hair. With a powerful thrust of his shoulders, he shed his cloak. It seemed that his shoulders themselves had done the work of his hands in casting it away. Now everyone could see him in his familiar uniform, just as it was depicted on a hundred thousand walls, on plates, on knives, in all rooms, in all the cottages of many lands. And with a different voice, that is to say, with his old familiar tone, he cried: “And you, soldiers, my brothers in life and in the face of death, comrades of my victories!” It was completely still. The Emperor’s voice echoed through the stifling air. The deputies and officials were no longer attentive; they were desperate for some shade. The people and the soldiers, however, were too far from the Emperor. They understood only every third word. But they now saw him as they loved him. And thus they cried: “Long live the Emperor!”

The Emperor quickly ended his speech. He hurried down the steps toward the cheers of the crowd. Ceremony dictated that he descend the steps with a deliberate slowness. But he was overcome with the impatience of a homecomer. He had lingered up there for too long, ungrounded. Ever quicker were his steps. More like a soldier than an Emperor, he practically leaped from the bottom step to the earth.

One could see on the abandoned platform his mother-of-pearl-colored cloak, limp and pitiful, a sorry and gorgeous mistake of the Emperor’s. His white-feathered hat had been retrieved by one of the dignitaries. The man held it helplessly, yet solemnly, with both hands. The people and soldiers gathered at the sutlers’ tents. Spirits, pudding, and bread were being given away.

Midday had long since passed, but the sun burned, splendid, torrid, insatiable, and very cruel.

XV

This was how the Emperor solemnly swore to protect the liberty of the French. It thus seemed that he was no longer the brutish Emperor of old. Yet the people throughout the land heard only the clinking of weapons and the singing of soldiers: both the old soldiers, who were returning to their barracks after long months, and the fresh young recruits. The Emperor was gathering an army, there was no doubt. The people no longer believed the newspapers, which wrote that all the powers of the world were eager to make peace with the Emperor as quickly as possible. Lies fluttered over the towns and villages on false, colorful little magic wings, rising in droves from the newspapers, coming from the mouths of the hypocrites, the eavesdroppers, the gossips, and the omniscient. They even circled above the heads of the soldiers marching toward the capital from all directions and were marching out of the capital further to the north-west. So there would be war, and the colorfully winged news stories were lies. Alas, the people of France knew all the signs that war was coming. A great terror gripped them overnight, in all corners of the land. The motley little doves, the lies of peace no longer swarmed through the air; they had fallen, defeated by the great fear, by the brutal silence that foretold the truth — the truth about the impending war. The signal fires of the soldiers marching to the north-west were visible from their mighty encampments. Their drums rumbled throughout the land every morning. The troops marched along the hot, dry roads, cultivated fields on either side; they saw the grain ripening and asked themselves whether they would one day be able to eat it. Perhaps they would be dead before the corn was even ground; perhaps they would by then have become part of the earth, manure for the fields — and who even knew which foreign fields? The older among the soldiers, those who had already waged many battles for the Emperor, thought of their comrades who lay in foreign dirt. The older soldiers all knew one another. And one could distinguish them from the others because they conversed in their own special language, a language that all soldiers only learn in the face of death. They shared a hundred thousand common memories, and they saw heat and storms, evening and full moon, morning and midday, a saint’s picture and a well, a haystack and a herd of cattle, with different eyes than the younger men.

“Do you remember,” one of them might say to another, “that time in Saxony? That was the well where we from Third Company had to wait for two damned, long, stupid days.”

“Yes, yes,” the other would reply. “The well, I remember; it was three miles from Dresden.”

“And how those sausages at Eylau tasted!” said one.

And the other answered: “Sure, sure — that sausage came from a worthy steed!”

“It was the horse of a colonel!”

“This time it’s only a captain’s.”

“Any idea where that dumb little Desgranges wound up?”

“In the Berezina, I think. An old carp swallowed him, he was so small.”

“And Corporal Dupuis?”

“Died at Austerlitz in a thunderstorm. What happened to your memory? Have you forgotten good old Dupuis as well?”

The young recruits understood nothing of this talk. They only knew that they too were heading to their deaths. Perhaps, they mused, it was easy for these old soldiers to go to their deaths, since they did, after all, know the Emperor. To them, however, the Emperor was distant and life was immediate. Why did he want a war? Where were they marching to? What was the point?

Nevertheless, they had to march, and so they marched. And when they marched through Paris they went past the palace where the Emperor lived, and they shouted: “Long live the Emperor!”

But he, the Emperor, was alone. With increasing solitude he sat before his maps, huge, colored, and complicated, his beloved maps. They showed the entire great world. And the entire great world consisted of nothing but battlefields! Oh, how simple it was to conquer the world if one just studied the maps upon which it was represented! Here each river was a hindrance, every mill a stronghold, every forest a blind, every church a target, every stream an ally, and every field, meadow, and steppe across the world a spectacular setting for spectacular battles! Maps were beautiful! They showed the world even more beautifully than paintings! The earth seemed very small if one only examined it properly on maps. It could be traversed very quickly, as quickly as time required it, the relentlessly ticking clock, the incessantly running sand. .

The Emperor thoughtfully drew crosses, stars, and lines on the maps, as thoughtfully as if he were playing a game of chess. In this and that spot he jotted down numbers. Here were the dead, there the living, here the cannon and there the cavalry; there the supply train and here the field hospital. Nothing but horses, flour sacks, barrels of spirits, enemies, men, horses, brandy, sheep, oxen — and men, men, men; men all over the place.

Once in a while he arose, left the table and maps, threw open the window, and looked at the plaza below, the great open square on which once, as a young unknown officer, he had drilled many an unknown soldier. Now, thousands of young soldiers were marching to the north-west. He listened to their songs. He heard their drums. They were still the old drummers. He could hear their quick and steady step. Yes, it was the wonderful, nimble, victorious step of the French, the rhythm of their swift and courageous feet, the feet that had traversed the highways of half the world; brave feet, the feet of the Imperial soldiers, more useful and vital than their hands.

At such moments he listened lustfully and greedily to their cries: “Long live the Emperor!” Cheerfully, he sat down once again at the table before his maps and wrote numbers here and there in red, blood-red ink. They represented brandy, horses, oxen, wagons, cannons, and soldiers — the very same soldiers who had just marched past the palace shouting: “Long live the Emperor!”

XVI

The Emperor had not seen his mother in a long time. He had given very little thought to the old woman. Now he came to bid her farewell before going off to war. Custom demanded it, as did his heart.

She sat clumsily, ordinary yet dignified, in a wide armchair in a darkened room. She loved the cool dusk, the thick burgundy curtains that hung over the shut windows, and the mild protective stillness of the sealed house with its thick walls. She was old; she could not handle the blinding summer sun.

It was late morning when her son arrived. He seemed to bring along something of the overpowering, stifling heat that ruled the city. Amid the soft, dark-red, sun-dampening shade that filled the room, his skin-tight, snow-white breeches shimmered all too loudly; they practically blared. He had come on horseback, and his spurs issued a delicate, but in this room inappropriate and embarrassing, jingle. He bent forward, kissed his mother’s hand, and received a kiss upon his hair, on the very top of his bowed head. He stayed like that a while, bent over in a highly uncomfortable position. The large, soft, and very pale hand of his mother stroked his hair a few times. They were both silent.

“Sit, child!” said the old woman finally. He straightened himself, remaining standing close to his mother. She was not sure whether it was out of respect or impatience. She knew him. He was just as reverent as he was impatient. “Sit, my child!” she repeated. And he obeyed.

He sat to the right of his mother, just opposite the window, so that the reflection of the burgundy, sun-lit curtain fell upon his face.

His mother turned to him. She examined him for some time. The Emperor kept his eyes focused on her while she studied him. He studied her too, looking upon her old face, her large, pretty mouth, her smooth forehead (which was still free of wrinkles), her strong chin and her beautiful straight nose. Yes, there was no doubt: much had he inherited from her. She looked like the mother of the great Emperor that he was. In studying her face, he saw his own likeness and practically his very destiny. Now, however, he had no patience or time for scrutiny. He shifted his foot forward gently. His mother noticed it.

“I know,” she said, her head quivering a bit, her voice soft and melancholy. “I know,” she continued, “that you have no time. You never had time, my son. You became great through impatience. Beware that impatience does not lead to your destruction. You returned out of impatience. You should have stayed!”

“I could not,” said the Emperor. “They hate me too much, my enemies. They would have exiled me to a remote desert island. I had to be quicker than them. I had to surprise them.”

“Yes, surprise!” said his mother. “That is your way. But waiting is also a way.”

“I’ve waited long enough!” the Emperor said loudly. He stood. He was speaking now quite forcefully. His voice sounded as if he were shouting blasphemies. “I can wait no more!” he cried. “They will invade while I wait!”

“Now it is too late for waiting,” his mother said gently. “Stay seated, my child. I might have more to say to you.”

The Emperor sat down again.

“I am seeing you perhaps for the last time, my poor son,” she said. “I pray that you may outlive me. I have never, or at least rarely, worried for your life. But now I am anxious. And I can do nothing to help you, for you are the powerful one. I cannot advise you, for you yourself are so wise. All I can do is pray for you.”

Now the Emperor lowered his head. He stared at the dark-red carpet then propped his elbow on his brilliant white breeches and his chin on his closed fist. “Yes, pray for me, Mother!” he said.

“If your father were still living,” she went on, “he would certainly know a way out.”

“My father would not have understood me!” said the Emperor.

“Silence!” she cried, almost shrieked, her pretty, dark, metallic voice ringing out. “Your father was great, wise, brave, and modest. You have him to thank for everything. You have inherited all his qualities — except modesty. He, he had patience, your father!”

“I have a different destiny, Mother!” answered the Emperor.

“Yes, yes,” said the old lady. “You certainly have a different destiny.”

They were quiet for a while. Then his mother began again. “You seem to have aged, my son. How do you feel?”

“I sometimes grow tired, Mother,” said the Emperor. “I’m sometimes suddenly tired.”

“What ails you?”

“I don’t consult doctors. If I were to send for them, they would tell me I’m deathly ill.”

“Can you bear it?”

“I must, Mother, I must. I will return greater than ever. I will flatten them.”

He lifted his head. He looked straight ahead, past his mother, toward a goal that he alone could see. . toward a victorious

return.

“God bless you!” said his mother. “I will pray for you.”

The Emperor stood. He went to the old woman and bowed. She made the sign of the cross over him and offered her large, old, soft, white hand. He kissed it. She embraced his neck with her left arm. He felt the soft motherly warmth of her thick arm through the black silk of her sleeve. At that moment he was struck with a woeful feeling. I wish I could embrace my own son like this, he thought. Happy is she, my mother. She can embrace her son!

A warm teardrop, then a second and a third fell upon his lowered head. He dared not look up, nor could he, as he was held down by the gentle restraint of the motherly arm. When she finally loosened her grip and he was able to straighten, he saw the tears running furiously down his mother’s face. She cried with an unmoving face, without changing a feature. Only the tears flowed freely from her large, wide-open eyes.

“Don’t weep, Mother,” said the Emperor softly and helplessly.

“I weep with pride,” said the old woman in a quite ordinary voice, as if she were not actually crying. Her throat, mouth, and voice were unaffected by her tears.

Once more she made the sign of the cross in the air before the Emperor and murmured something inaudible. Then she said: “Go, my child! God bless you, my child. God bless you, my Emperor!”

He bowed again. Then he left quickly. His spurs jingled, his black boots gleamed in the dark-red room despite the dusk, and his snow-white breeches were loud in their dazzling brightness.

XVII

Half an hour later he was inspecting the troops of the Paris garrison one last time before they marched off to war. Although he could still feel his mother’s kisses and tears on his head, it seemed to him that a very long time had elapsed since the moment he had departed from the dark-red room. The soldiers of the Paris garrison were more carefully outfitted for this new campaign than all the other soldiers in the country. Even the recruits had sturdy and well-nourished faces. He gazed happily into the brave, young, obedient eyes of these new recruits and into the experienced, loyal, devoted ones of his hardened old soldiers. Sound were the knapsacks, cloaks, and boots. He examined their boots with extra attention, almost with love. In the campaigns that he typically led, much hinged upon the feet and boots of the troops, nearly as much as on their hands and guns — perhaps more. He was even pleased with the weapons. Their barrels had been freshly greased, and they shimmered gently yet dangerously, dull-blue and reliable. The well-sharpened bayonet points twinkled. The Emperor walked more slowly than usual, almost deliberately, amid the stiffly immobile ranks, here and there tugging at a button to check if it was firmly attached, or pulling on a strap, belt, or cord. He visited the great field kitchen and asked what meat they were preparing. When he was told that they were boiling mutton, he requested a taste. He had not eaten boiled mutton and beans since his last unsuccessful campaign. Borrowing a pewter spoon from a sergeant, putting a bread crust in his mouth with his left hand and a filled spoon with his right, he stood with legs wide apart in full view of his soldiers, who watched with jubilant hearts as he ate. Their eyes gleamed with pride and also with tripled appetite. They were filled with a steadfast veneration of an intensity they had never felt at a field mass or in a church, and a solemn, childlike, and at the same time fatherly affection for their great Emperor. He was mighty but also moving. He had them form a square around him and spoke to them as usual, using once again the same old words that he had so often before put to the test — about the enemies of their country, the allies of the shameful King, about the victories of old, about the eagles and the dead and, lastly, about honor, honor, and more honor. And once again the officers drew their swords. Once again the regiments roared: “Long live the Emperor! Long live freedom! Long live the Emperor!” And once again he held his hat aloft and cried “Long live France!” in a choked-up voice, more sincerely moved than he had been in his mother’s dark salon. He wanted to embrace someone before he left his regiments, so he searched for a suitable candidate. How often he had embraced generals, colonels, sergeants, and even ordinary soldiers. Then he noticed a little drummer boy, one of the adolescent lads of whom there were many in his great army, the sturdy children of his regiments, begotten perhaps from many a father just before a battle, born perhaps in a vendor woman’s trailer in Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, or Egypt. “Come, little one!” said the Emperor. The boy stepped forward with his drum, hardly having a chance to place both sticks into their loops, and stood motionless before the Emperor, even stiffer than an old soldier. The Emperor lifted both boy and drum. He held the boy up for a few moments, swung him in the air for all to see, then kissed him on both cheeks.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Pascal Pietri,” said the boy with a ringing voice, as a pupil might answer his teacher at school. The Emperor remembered that he had heard this name some days earlier, but could not recall on which occasion.

“Your father lives?”

“Yes sir, Your Majesty,” said the boy. “He’s a sergeant-major in the Thirteenth Dragoons.”

“Make a note,” said the Emperor to his adjutant. “Sergeant-Major Pietri.”

“Pardon me, Your Majesty!” said the boy. “My father’s name is Levadour, Sergeant-Major Levadour!”

The Emperor smiled, and all the nearby officers and soldiers smiled as well.

“Do you know your mother?”

“My mother, Your Majesty, is a washerwoman at court.”

The Emperor suddenly remembered. “Is her name Angelina?”

“Yes sir, Angelina, Your Majesty!”

With that, all the nearby officers and soldiers smiled once again, but quickly grew serious.

“Make a note,” said the Emperor to his adjutant. “The laundress Angelina Pietri.”

His review had lasted a long time. He had purposely drawn it out, for he had not wished to return home with the memory of his mother’s dark room still fresh in his mind. By the time he returned to the palace it was late afternoon and the light was fading; it would be evening in an hour. He was satisfied with the day. It felt to him as if he had seen his mother not that very morning but quite a long time ago. He remembered Angelina Pietri, the little housemaid whom he had seen in the darkness of the park. The memory cheered him, and the name Angelina, her little son who beat the drum in his army, and the brave freshness with which the boy had corrected him about his father’s name nearly moved him. Yes, these were his people, these were his soldiers! More confidently than he had in days, he bent over the maps on his table. He had them, his enemies; he had them just where he wanted them. This time, as so often before. Surely, Parliament and the Police Minister were potentially dangerous, but he could conquer generals and armies. It was a good day.

What day of the week was it today? His old superstitious nature overtook him. He went to the door, thrust it open, and called into the anteroom: “What day is it today?”

“Your Majesty, it is Friday,” answered Marchand, his servant.

He was frightened for a brief second. He did not like Fridays. One had to compensate for Friday, so to speak, and he knew an infallible method. His wife Josephine had often spoken of it. And he even remembered the name of this infallible woman who had so often before foretold the future for the Empress and him. “Is Véronique Casimir still here?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, Your Majesty,” said the servant.

“Get her!” ordered the Emperor.

It seemed to be a good sign that she was in the house. The dead Empress Josephine had brought her. Like everything else associated with Josephine, Véronique Casimir was good. He well remembered the portly old woman. He waited with confidence.

XVIII

Véronique Casimir remembered Her Majesty the late Empress Josephine, who often appeared in her dreams, gratefully and with reverence. She had once been a mere washerwoman, but since her early youth she had shown an unusual talent for card-reading. When the great Emperor was still consul, Véronique had read in the cards that he was destined to wear a crown. Since then she had received many honors, greater ones (in her mind at least) than had been bestowed upon any of the officials, ministers, or marshals. On occasion, she was permitted to fortune-tell for the Emperor. She was the First Laundress of the Imperial court. Her duty had been to tend to the blue silk blouses and lace handkerchiefs of the first Empress, and the more sturdy white silk blouses and cambric handkerchiefs of the second. She read the future of the Imperial house in the cards and sometimes even in the laundry that was given to her every evening. Thirty-six laundresses and bath attendants were under her strict orders. She loved to enforce military-style discipline, and during the long years of her service she had learned to be taciturn and secretive despite being talkative, even loquacious, by nature.

Before heading to bed every evening, and after parceling out the laundry to the men and women under her, she would seat herself at the large table that was at the time standing, solemn and secluded, in the quiet communal dining room, for she required much space for the several packs of cards with which she worked according to a complex system. Sometimes the servants would gather around her at even that late hour. The long and narrow black ebony table, with its highly polished surface, was somber, eerie, practically a catafalque. Here Véronique Casimir sat and laid out cards. Eventually, midnight struck from various towers. At that point she would stop and wait until the bells were finished ringing. Finally she would sweep all her various packs of cards together, tie them up with a greasy old string, and get up without uttering a word. Nobody ever asked her questions. She rarely discussed the secrets of the supernatural world with which she was so closely familiar.

Since the Emperor’s return, she had been waiting for him to call on her. Now she was no longer consulting the cards about the Emperor’s fate, but about her own, that is to say, whether he had forgotten her during his absence. “No!” said the cards.

Nevertheless, she was surprised and practically in a fright when he did send for her. She was standing in the expansive washroom, surrounded by her staff, at the time when she normally gathered her workers around her, awaiting the servants with the laundry baskets, and she held in her hand the list upon which her various commissions, orders, reprimands, and warnings were noted. She left immediately and headed for her room. She had a half-staircase to ascend. Her short, fat legs bounded up two steps at a time. She hurried into her room, to her little oval mirror between the two candlesticks on the table, lit the candles, donned a freshly starched cap, sat down, and began with her strong little fingers to powder her sallow and very fleshy face. She sprinkled a few droplets of lavender upon her breast, from the sacred flask that the first Empress, her lady Josephine, had given her, and rose, content and fragrant and quite splendid, in a delicate white cloud of powder. From her case she removed her card packs with a determined, abrupt, practically warlike grip, like a soldier retrieving his weapon when called to sudden conflict. Now she was ready.

After many long months she stood before her Emperor. He sat at his table with his colorfully dizzying maps, which she had already seen a few times previously, immediately before his great campaigns, when she enjoyed the favor of being summoned and consulted. She attempted to perform a curtsy as ladies did in the presence of the Emperor. Spreading her skirts with both hands, she placed one foot back, stretched the other in front, attempted to glide a step forward in this difficult position, and then bend one knee slightly. After she believed she had accomplished all of this gracefully, she remained still, fat and stiff, eyes lowered modestly. The windows were open. The late summer evening’s gold-green dusk filtered into the room and competed with the restless little deep-yellow flames of the three candles. One could hear both the soft breath of the wind and the loud, industrious chirping of the crickets.

“Come here!” the Emperor ordered. She hurried over, waddling quickly to his table, fat, dignified, and servile. How she had longed for this moment! She tingled with reverence in the presence of the Emperor and at the sight of the confusing maps that were scattered across his writing table. She also felt her own importance, a shiver for herself and for the ennobled and exalted significance of her tool, the cards. She trembled at the thought that her cards were no less important, perhaps even more important, than the Emperor’s maps. It was satisfying to think that the greatest emperor in the world had as little power to grasp the secret of her cards as she, Véronique, had to read his geographical secrets. At this hour she was called upon perhaps to determine the fate of the world, which was normally the Emperor’s domain. And thus she stood there, as much in awe of herself as of the Emperor. She kept her gaze lowered. It fell upon her ample bosom and could not go any lower, although she wished to look at the floor in humble pride, but also embarrassment. Through her sunken eyelids she felt the mocking, smiling stare of the Emperor. She held her arms straight down like a soldier, but her hands could reach no lower than her wide hips. She liked, but also required, smooth tables, with nothing upon them, and she wanted to ask the Emperor to clear off his distracting maps, but she dared not.

“So, let’s begin,” said the Emperor.

It was noticeably darker in the room. A macabre kind of illumination emanated from the sparse candles and strengthened old Véronique’s courage and faith in her prophetic abilities. She now ventured to lift her eyes. Her gaze was met with the waxen face of the Emperor, a frozen smile on his mouth — a ghastly smile. Then she began confidently to lay out her greasy playing cards, disregarding the fact that she was placing them atop the Emperor’s maps. She tried to forget that she stood before the mightiest Emperor of all and told herself that she was in the service of the otherworld. She whispered: “Take three please, Your Majesty.” The Emperor took three cards. The smooth, dark blue card backs reflected the unsteady candle flames.

“What lies before me,” she murmured, “what flies before me; what gives me concern, what things I spurn; what makes me glad, what makes me sad.” She shuffled quickly with her short but nimble fingers, the speed of which had often astounded the Emperor. “Take six cards, Your Majesty,” she said. And the Emperor took six cards. He thought of his first wife, the dead Josephine, and those evenings when, although she knew little of this art, Josephine had attempted to read her own fate and that of the Emperor, the fate of the country and the world, as she laid out Véronique Casimir’s greasy cards with her long and slender, beloved fingers. He thought no more of the cards. He was lost in sweet memories of his dead wife. He smiled. He did not hear as Véronique murmured: “Spades to the right will cause a fright; clubs to the left, of power bereft; diamonds are near, danger is here; hearts are away, love won’t stay; the queen of clubs is above, she’s past, she’s past; eight of clubs, eight of clubs. .” She broke off suddenly. She quickly gathered the cards together. She glanced at the Emperor. He bore a distant look, one that seemed to pierce her massive body and see out into the world beyond, perhaps even into the grave where the body of his Josephine was now withering and decaying. Véronique remained silent, her left hand pressing the cards fervently against her bosom.

The Emperor locked his eyes on her, a mocking smile on his lips. “Well, Véronique,” he inquired, “good or bad?”

“Good, good, Your Majesty!” she said hurriedly. “There are many years ahead for Your Majesty, many years!”

The Emperor opened a drawer. Inside were little pillars of gold pieces, neat, shimmering columns of gold. From one of these columns he removed ten coins. They were genuine napoleons. “Here, as a keepsake,” said the Emperor.

The door was opened. Madame Véronique left hurriedly, walking backward, frantically trying to restrain her panting. When she sensed the open door at her back, her escape, she again performed her clumsy and comical curtsy. Then she was outside and facing the closed door. She curtsied a third time before the closed door, then she waddled, dignified yet hurriedly, down the stairs. On the penultimate step she had to stop. She felt faint for the first time in her life. The banister that she thought would save her seemed to be receding. She fell down suddenly and heavily with a clumsy thud. Two guards picked her up. They carried her into the park. When she awoke and saw the soldiers, she righted herself and said: “God help us all. . and him especially!”

Then she hurried past them and into the great servants’ dining hall. It was late. Dinner was already being served.

XIX

The night that the Emperor left Paris to head for battle, the sky over the city was deep blue and star filled. In the street in front of the park were the curious and enthusiastic. The servants had gathered at a respectful distance from the Imperial carriage. The Emperor emerged swiftly from the palace door, earlier than had been planned. His staff was still in the midst of packing papers, maps, and field-glasses into the coach. A lackey sprinted up, burning torch in hand. The night was clear enough, offering a gentle, silvery-blue light, so the smoky, reddish flame of the torch seemed unnecessary, even a bit terrifying. It was only the product of a very strict household routine, a harmless device. At this moment, however, it seemed to be trying to harshly interrupt the night’s starry tranquility. The trees whispered amicably. A few bats flitted silently above the people’s heads, through the rays of light coming from the windows. It was rather still, despite the bustling of the servants, who spoke in low voices, and the restlessness of the horses. The still of the night was mightier than these noises. But the torch was a loud, even improper, incursion; one could clearly hear the crackle of its flame and smell the burning resin, which was like the scent of danger itself. The Emperor seemed tired. He had been working right up until the very moment of departure. The assembled servants were still as he approached. All turned their eyes to him. In the silvery-blue sheen of the night his face looked rather pale to them. They were also thinking about the collapse of the card-reader Véronique.

The Emperor remained standing for a while on the last step. He cast a lingering glance up at the sky, as if searching among the countless stars for his own. His white breeches shone with a ghastly luminescence. His black hat was reminiscent of a little cloud, the only one visible amid the clear sky. He stood still, as in one of his many portraits, alone in the vast, calm summer’s night, although the gentlemen of his retinue were following closely behind him on the steps. He was alone and lonely, and he was searching for his star.

He turned, gestured to his adjutant, and spoke a few words. Then he descended the final step. He walked quickly the few paces to his carriage. The servants cried: “Long live the Emperor!” They waved to him with their hands, their empty hands. The cry surprised him. He turned even as he was about to enter the coach. He took a step forward. The women servants fell to their knees. The men followed hesitantly. This was their routine whenever the King departed! thought the Emperor. They must have kneeled like this when he fled from me.

“Stand up,” he ordered, and they all rose. He felt compelled to say something more, to obey the theatrical law that commanded just as he commanded his army. What had he to say to lackeys, servants, and slaves? “Long live Freedom!” he cried. And they all answered: “Long live the Emperor! Victory! Victory!”

He turned away quickly. He got inside the carriage with haste, and the carriage door closed with an unusually loud shudder. The torch flickered at the coachman’s side. A soft, practically caressing crack of the whip, and they were racing, flying away from the park, sending a few bluish sparks from under the horses’ hooves.

Another carriage rolled up. The Emperor’s attendants climbed in. It was all done quickly and with a cool precision.

Once they were all inside, but before the carriage set off on its way, the lackey turned his torch upside down and practically bored the flame into the cold, damp night ground. Then he stamped his foot upon the last smoldering remains of the torch. To all who saw him, it seemed he had extinguished an entirely different flame.

Among the servant women in the park was also the maid-servant Angelina Pietri.