corner and watch beauty circulate around the statuary. They’re as exquisite as the pieces idealizing them. It’s a respite from negotiating the fate of nations.”
“Then we have something in common, Grand Chamberlain.”
The papal procession of coaches rolled through the square below and Pius VII emerged to walk the gallery to the waiting Cardinal Belloy. The pope looked small from this height, slightly bent, plain dressed, and yet dignified. His spiritual realm required him to deal with temporal and temperamental royals, and I suspect he saw the day’s ironies more clearly than anyone. His humility made me feel guilty about our subterfuge.
Then cheers rolled toward us like waves to a shore. In the far distance there was a glint of gold from the slowly approaching coaches of the imperial family. The hedge of infantry on each side of the parade route was a silver ribbon of bayonets, quivering as the men snapped to attention. The preceding dragoons and lancers had plumed golden helmets and bobbing spears with tricolor banners. Every home on the route seemed to have hung celebratory decoration, from tapestries to evergreen boughs. From the crowds, little flags waved like leaves in a tree.
“This is power made manifest, is it not?” Talleyrand’s habitual tone was cynical, but even he sounded impressed.
“This many people never turn out to see me.”
“And yet you’ve attained a curious importance, consorting with the mighty and conferring with their ministers. Do you ever wonder at the oddness of life?”
“All the time.”
Then there was a lull in the conversation, dragging on forever, which I finally broke. Silence is a weapon, and Talleyrand used it to control dialogue. “I’m flattered by your company, Grand Chamberlain, but puzzled as well. Surely you should be in the procession. Or have more significant guests than me to attend to.”
“Grander, but none more important.” Talleyrand could caress with flattery or bite with harsh insight. “I’ve no interest in being displayed for public spectacle like a guillotine victim in a rolling tumbrel. I accomplish more by waiting here. I’ll talk to many important men this morning. All are rascals, highborn and low, and all potentially useful through banal self-interest.”
He did not exempt me from this assessment.
“My goal is to retire.”
“Yet once again you’ve been recruited to a mission for Bonaparte.”
“I wasn’t given any choice.” I felt vastly outnumbered, on the wrong side of history. “He uses us all.”
“Yes. Even his wife, to keep his own rapacious family at bay. Do you know the two were hurriedly remarried last night to satisfy the pope before blessings could be given at the coronation? Only a civil ceremony united them before. Josephine, the scheming widow, who by all accounts participated in orgies before fixing her talons on the rising Corsican. And Bonaparte, inexplicably in love, even while keeping a chain of mistresses he mounts like a relay of horses during his inspections of France. And simple Pius to sanction it all! No wonder a million have come to this comedy. Life is far more droll than the theater.”
“We’re all trying to reform.” I followed the line of the river. Though I couldn’t see it, I could judge where Fulton’s steamboat floated half a mile away. My Jaeger rifle was hidden there.
“I’d be mystified why the police tolerate you, Monsieur Gage, if I didn’t know it was on the orders of Bonaparte. Just what is your assignment again?”
“Ask him yourself.”
He looked annoyed. “But of course I have, and of course he’s not completely answered. He trusts no one, not me; not Fouché; not Réal; not Savary, who commands the city’s military guard; nor Moncey with the gendarmerie; nor Dubois, chief of police. A dozen people spy on you, Gage, but a dozen spy on each of them as well. In a modern state, all are watched, all are rewarded, and all can fall at any moment; birth is no longer a protection, and achievement buys reward only until tomorrow. Bonaparte has made manifest what has always been unstated: daily existence is a struggle for the high as well as the low.”
“Napoleon just finds me useful at times.”
“Yes.” He stared out over the crowds. “Suffice to say, Ethan, that I believe the mission you’ve been given is extraordinarily significant, and I thought I could help you.”
“Grand Chamberlain, despite your rank, you know I’m not at liberty to discuss my assignments from the emperor. Again, should you not ask him yourself?”
Talleyrand ignored this. “Men like you are dangerous to political stability, unless expertly guided. Bonaparte is brilliant but