The Barbed Crown

Chapter 11





What Astiza calls fate I call luck, and Napoleon has bad luck with the sea. He lost an entire fleet to Nelson at the Battle of the Nile. He’d turned his back on Fulton’s nautical ingenuity. And I reunited with him on a day that was stormy in more ways than one.

It was July 20, 1804, the kind of sullen summer day that promises thunder. Our audience with the emperor had yet to be scheduled, but General Duhèsme sent word that Napoleon had ordered an invasion exercise in Boulogne’s harbor and suggested we might enjoy viewing the rehearsal.

My relationship with the leader of France was complicated. Other English spies had been summarily shot, and yet our family of agents, Harry and Catherine included, was invited to review invasion preparations! I knew enough to be insulted. Napoleon judged me liable to seduction and meant to win me over by a combination of flattery, reward, and demonstration of France’s inevitable victory.

Why he cared about us at all I still didn’t understand, but would shortly.

First, though, we witnessed disaster that provided opportunity.

Bonaparte had gone on his daily inspection ride and would return to Boulogne in time for the review in a galloping column of aides, bodyguards, and couriers. We waited for him at a harbor overlook amid a cluster of generals and admirals. The officers kept peeking at my lovely wife and governess while Harry crawled between their boots, impish mischief that they found amusing and I found embarrassing. “Harry, stay with Papa,” I’d commanded.

“He has his father’s restlessness,” Duhèsme observed.

“And willfulness,” Catherine said.

The day was humid, pregnant with storm. Word came that Admiral Etienne Eustache Bruix had canceled the maneuver. Bruix was a quietly self-possessed officer as popular with the navy as Napoleon was with the army, and he had a seaman’s caution. Black clouds were building to the northeast. We were about to return to our lodging to stay dry when Duhèsme put his hand on my arm.

“Don’t leave yet. Napoleon is approaching, and Bruix is as stubborn as the emperor is adamant.”

“They don’t get along?” Another possible note for my spy book.

“On the contrary, the emperor respects the admiral. But Bonaparte is as impetuous as Bruix is judicious. Napoleon loves to leap aboard boats and be recklessly rowed around the harbor flotilla. In a recent skirmish with the British navy he insisted that he round a point to see the action. Bruix countermanded the order. You can imagine the plight of the sailors, their emperor pointing one direction and their admiral the other. They finally obeyed their own officer, to Bonaparte’s fury, and he became even angrier when a boat that ventured where he’d proposed was blown to pieces by English gunnery. There’s nothing worse than being proved wrong in front on your entire navy and army. Rather than thank the admiral for saving his life, the Corsican stalked away, seething with anger, and then challenged a gun crew to shoot the bowsprit off a British ship to divert attention from his folly. They actually did so, skipping a cannonball across the water to clip the spar like a twig. The emperor gave the crew some gold pieces. Now he’s given a naval order again, and once again Bruix has countermanded it. Let’s see what happens.”

As he spoke, Napoleon’s column rode into town in a blue serpentine line and reined to a halt at our overlook, hooves clacking on cobble. Seated on his gray mare, face flushed from the exertion of riding, the newly elected emperor looked more the hero of the Pyramids and Alps than he’d seemed at the sumptuous ceremony in Paris. His bicorn hat was set to emphasize the width of his shoulders, and under a dusty overcoat a plain green chasseur uniform with two medals again stood out for its martial plainness. He swung off his horse without help, the turbaned Mameluke sentry Roustan keeping a protective eye. Then the emperor strode to a low parapet to survey the harbor.

He’d already achieved a miraculous transformation. Boulogne, formerly a muddy estuary home to a few fishermen, now had a gigantic stone harbor filled with hundreds of boats that were crammed with thousands of soldiers.

Nothing was moving.

Thunder growled, dirt swirled in the wind, and the tails of his officers’ coats lifted like bird wings poised for flight.

“Where’s my review?” Napoleon held a riding crop in his hand.

“I’m very sorry, sire, but the review can’t be held today,” Admiral Bruix replied. The two men looked somewhat alike, but while Napoleon was fiery and brittle, Bruix was stolid and calm.

“What?”

“The review cannot be held. We sailors are captives of the weather, and the weather is threatening indeed.” He pointed to the thunderheads sweeping down from Belgium. The afternoon sun lit them to imposing blackness, and trees rustled warning.

Napoleon’s face also clouded. This was the second time the admiral had publicly countermanded him, and the emperor had become accustomed to sycophantic obedience. His voice rose, pale eyes as cold as a glacier. “You won’t carry out my orders?”

“A terrible storm is preparing. Your Majesty must see this as well as I do. Surely you’ll not risk the lives of so many brave men unnecessarily?”

The Napoleon I’d met six years before might have yielded at that point. He’d learned from a hasty and stormy landing at Alexandria. But power gave him omnipotence at a time he felt threatened by conspiracies and coups. “Sir, I gave my orders. Again, I ask, why do you not obey them? Their consequence is my affair, and mine only. Obey at once!”

“Sire, I cannot obey.”

The rest of us had frozen. Watching a quarrel is never pleasant. Napoleon had rank and temper, but Bruix had experience and pride. The emperor stepped toward the admiral and raised his riding crop.

Bruix stepped back and put his hand on his sword hilt. “Sire, take care!”

Their eyes locked, Bruix firm, Bonaparte volcanic, and then at last the emperor realized the embarrassment a fight would cause and turned away, hurling his crop to the ground. Bruix turned his back, too, trembling, while Napoleon was rigid and fuming. Then Napoleon wheeled and snapped an order to Admiral Charles René Magon de Médine, who jumped at the crack of his voice. “Magon, get the review of boats under way!”

This junior admiral had neither the rank of Bruix nor his respect. He glanced at his naval superior, but the senior wouldn’t look at him. Magon had no choice but to obey. “At once, Your Majesty.”

Bruix stalked away, shaking with anger.

Signal guns fired. Bugles called. Flags ran up, shuddering in the rising wind. Drums rolled. With shouts, cheers, and soldierly curses, the French invasion boats and barges lumbered away from quay and mooring and began to maneuver claustrophobically between the shore and the line of protective French ships at the harbor mouth, like a nautical ballet in a bathtub. Then with a hard pull of their oars, a line of boats crawled into the Channel proper, like rodents poking out of their hole.

The wind grew chill, and people slipped on cloaks and coats, their hems dancing. The black clouds mounded higher, a dark awning pulled across the sky. Napoleon ignored the approaching gale as if he could will it away by not looking. The sea turned choppy, the blockading British ships were lost in haze, and the rising gusts pushed patterns of gray and silver across the water like spilled paint.

“Ethan, this is madness,” Astiza whispered. “How can he be so obstinate?”

“The less sure you are of your authority, the more you try to exercise it. He’s emperor now but remembers, even when everyone else forgets, that he was too poor to buy a new uniform little more than a decade ago. In 1792 he pawned his watch to the broker Fauvelet.”

“So he proves triumph with idiocy?”

“It isn’t the first time great men have done so. When the Persian emperor Xerxes was thwarted by a storm when crossing the Dardanelles, he lashed the waves with whips.”

For one last moment the review played out as intended. Boat flags stuttered spritely in the wind. Oars dipped with synchronized precision, the splashes confirming months of practice. Troops sat with muskets erect, fixed bayonets shining. A hundred cannons fired blank salutes.

Then the gale fully struck.

We snatched at our hats. The wind hit like a wall, buffeting the high command, and dust and leaves whirled. There was a boom of cacophonous thunder and lightning blazed overhead, lifting strands of hair from Astiza’s and Catherine’s necks. Bonaparte cursed like a corporal. Then rain shot sideways, and the harbor was lost to view.

We could faintly hear shouts and cries of alarm over the roar of wind and rain. Most of the army generals ran for nearby houses, but the admirals and captains dashed toward the water to help. Napoleon, to his credit, ran with them.

“Take Harry to our rooms,” I told the women. “I’m going to lend a hand.”

The harbor had turned white with foam. Scores of invasion boats scudded before the wind with infantrymen shouting in terror. The furthermost were pushed parallel to the Channel beaches. Napoleon ran along the shore after them, his aides and bodyguards strung behind. I ran, too, matching the bodyguard Roustan pace for pace, and both of us caught up with France’s ruler at the same time. We’d passed the quays and were on a sand and shale beach where surf boiled, the men at sea pulling frantically for land.

As the boats reached the breakers the invasion craft began to flip, spilling hundreds of men into cold water.

Other sailors were dragging down skiffs that could be used as lifeboats. Napoleon ran for one. Was he mad?

Roustan, turban soaked and mustache streaming, tried to restrain the emperor, who shook him off. “We must get them out of that!” With surprising agility he leaped into a lifeboat like a hurdler clearing a fence, stunning the sailors with his sudden appearance and famous hat. “Row, row, to rescue those soldiers!” I leaped aboard, too, not thinking of anything but to try to save lives. I’m a better swimmer than most. Roustan stood helplessly on shore. He couldn’t swim at all.

We made perhaps twenty yards before a huge comber crashed down on our lifeboat, filling it with water. We foundered. The water was just as freezing as when Catherine and I landed near Biville, and I felt the familiar sting of salt in my nostrils as our craft went under. As we sank we were buffeted by surf. I reached to grab Bonaparte’s coat collar.

I could have had revenge in that instant. Hold Napoleon under the sea, punch his gut to make him suck in water, and an emperor’s death would be blamed on his own folly and obstinacy, with no risk to my family or me. I might even wrangle a medal by pretending I’d attempted a rescue instead.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it, which suggests I would make a poor assassin. Murder wasn’t my style. When lightning turned the sea surface into a golden mirror and showed which way was up, I hauled the ruler of France with me. Napoleon had the swimming skills of a Corsican boy. We broke for air, gasping.

“The damned coat,” he choked. We sank with its weight. I helped pull his arms free of the sleeves and it fell away. Then I seized his uniform jacket and kicked upward again, breaking to the surface. The surf, fortunately, pounded us toward land.

One moment we were alone, struggling against drowning, and the next twenty pairs of arms reached to drag Napoleon onto shore. I was left to my own devices, which was just as well since the rescuers were half trampling their emperor in their zeal to save him. I staggered out of the water and numbly fell upon the beach to spit and gasp. Hundreds of other capsized men were also crawling from the waves, while scores of drowned bodies floated like driftwood logs.

It was the disastrous landing at Alexandria all over again.

For several minutes Napoleon stood bent, with his hands on his knees, sucking great shuddering breaths as chaos continued around him. A blanket was thrown across his shoulders. Someone handed him a flask of brandy. He took a swig, coughed, and straightened. His hat had disappeared, the sea pasting his thinning hair to his forehead. He looked out at the Channel with grim fury. Then he snapped an order. “Fires for the survivors.”

Any normal ruler would have retreated to his bedroom at that point. Bonaparte did not. He began striding up and down the sand, shouting commands, and erected order in his wake. A more systematic rescue was organized. Some of the hundreds of dead, their faces bleached of color and eyes wide from the drowning, were dragged out of sight. Beach fires flared and shivering survivors huddled around them. As night fell the bonfires helped orient the helmsmen, and most of the boats eventually made it back to shore intact. Twenty did not, however. The waves pounded them to fragments.

Bonaparte spotted me, gave a nod of acknowledgment, and offered me his flask. The brandy was welcome heat.

“Go to your wife, American. You’ve witnessed enough catastrophe for one evening.”

“And Your Majesty?”

“A soaking for my body. A worse pounding for my pride. Go.”

So I did, but then he called after me.

“Gage? Thank you for saving my life. The ledger of accounts between us is getting complicated, is it not?”

“More than you know.”

“And more to come. We’ll talk soon.”

I learned later that Napoleon didn’t leave the beach until dawn, his clothes crusted with sand, salt, and bonfire smoke. Sunrise revealed horror. The smashed remains of the capsized boats and drowned corpses marked the high-tide line.

By official French count, fifty men needlessly drowned. Duhèsme told me privately the toll was actually two hundred, and the British would publish accounts claiming twice that. And this had been a summer storm in a harbor! What would happen to these elite legions when they tried to row across the entire Channel?

Two final things washed ashore.

One was a half-frozen drummer boy, kept afloat by his drum. He lived.

Another was Napoleon’s bicorn hat.

Every soldier in Boulogne applauded the emperor’s courage. And every soldier muttered that the disaster was a bad omen for an invasion.

For me, the event had a different outcome. “It is even more imperative that I see you and your wife,” Napoleon wrote two days later. “My pavilion, at ten o’clock tomorrow, very precisely.”

I decided not to be late.