of it.” He looked stern. “The British are about to be conquered. You would do well to ponder which side you want to be on when the tricolor flies over London.”
CHAPTER 9
The unveiling of Napoleonic pomp and glory came with the smell of sawdust. Adjacent to the gigantic Invalides—the Bourbon hospital for wounded soldiers that was also a church, then a “Temple of Mars” under the revolution, and now a marble stage for national pageantry—was a new, makeshift shipyard for boats being built for the invasion of England.
While larger craft were under construction on the Channel, the Seine was being used to build the péniche, sixty feet long and ten wide, which was capable of carrying sixty-six soldiers and two howitzers. The completed vessels would be floated down the river to Le Havre, then up to Channel ports to join the armada being assembled for attack. On July 15, 1804, when Napoleon’s Legion of Honor was ceremonially inaugurated, many of the boats were still half planked, ribs jutting like combs and guards posted to prevent thievery of firewood. Royal woodlands were being cut to build an invasion fleet of at least two thousand landing craft, fifty of them here.
The line of cradled péniche was a fist of war made visible. War’s glory was a bombastic parade of flags, military bands, saluting cannon, church hymn, and tramping boots on a scale Paris had never seen. As first consul, Napoleon had taken care to appear as a modestly uniformed democrat, a Gallic Thomas Jefferson. But France was not Virginia, and French passion isn’t ignited by modesty. So while it was still half a year before Bonaparte’s papal coronation would give the general a crown, the newly elected emperor put on a show.
“Vive l’empereur!” came the answering roar.
Napoleon rode across the Seine in an open golden carriage, Josephine in a white coach behind. Plumed and helmeted cuirassiers rode escort while infantry lined the route with bayonet and banners. Cavalry breastplates shone like mirrors. Sabers were blades of light. Pennants bobbed as chargers trotted. A hundred drummers thundered welcome. Field gun salutes covered the river in a fog of smoke.
No would-be assassin could come near the elevated warlord. I watched Napoleon approach our crowd of dignitaries at the Invalides with wonder and envy, mystified that Astiza and I had been invited at all. The policeman Pasques was our towering escort. Catherine had reluctantly agreed to watch Harry in return for my bargaining to spare her from torture and prison. “I’ll take you to the next one,” I promised.
“They put me in a cell and peered at me as if I were an animal,” she recounted. “They treated me as if I were common.”
“But now they want something, and our fortunes have turned,” I said, secretly doubting my own optimism. When authorities notice, trouble sticks like tar.
“You see how France loves our new emperor?” Pasques now asked. “Conspirators fear his genius, and the people adore his ambition. If you can persuade the British of his popularity, they’ll give up on the Bourbons and avoid a lot of killing. It’s a noble cause you’ve enlisted in, Monsieur Gage.”
I avoided responding. “It looks damn costly to have a king back,” I said instead. Napoleon was already reputed to have 250 servants, including 64 footmen. “Jefferson is cheaper.”
“On the contrary, Bonaparte saves money by preventing chaos.”
“He provides spectacle like the pharaohs and Caesars he hopes to emulate,” Astiza assessed. “Bread, circuses, and a new trinket for his soldiers.”
Pasques frowned. He trusted my wife even less than he trusted me.
When I told Astiza of my uncomfortable interview with Réal, she’d been sober and realistic, advising me to play along until “fate shows a way.” While Comtesse Marceau had been given the taste of a cell, Astiza and Harry had been detained in an office. Far from threatening Harry with hot tongs, a police recruit gave my boy a top to play with and let him keep it. I realized that Réal’s threats had probably been exaggerated.
Astiza said our invitation to the Legion of Honor was as intriguing as it was unavoidable. “I’m as curious as anyone.”
So how was I to regard the godlike Napoleon, who’d once chatted with me on an Egyptian beach and given me my future wife after bombarding her house? He seemed as remote as a deity now. His Mameluke bodyguard Roustan Raza, a gift from Egypt, was proud as a centaur as he trotted behind the carriage in turban, Greek costume, and curved scimitar. An