The Barbed Crown

Chapter 13





Three weeks after his disastrous swamping of boats in the summer storm, Napoleon restored morale with a gigantic Presentation of the Crosses, a larger repeat of the ceremony I’d witnessed in Paris. This time expansion of the Legion of Honor would occur outdoors so that England could watch as well as France.

The rest of my household had already returned to Paris. Astiza left with letters of recommendation to begin researching in earnest. Catherine departed to excitedly consult on the coronation even while protesting that she did so under duress, “to protect little Horus.” My son said good-bye with tears in his eyes. He cried not so much from leaving me as for having to trade the excitement of tramping soldiers for the company of women. I presented him with a miniature drum, and he rattled it mournfully as Pasques boarded the coach to escort my family out of camp. Harry had the instincts of an adventurer, and I was pleased and appalled that at age four he was taking after his father.

Lingering in the Boulogne camp, I consulted with Duhèsme on skirmish tactics and had fun with an antique crossbow he conjured, “So you can play Red Indian.” I decided it could theoretically work from ambush to slay an enemy scout silently, but was otherwise too cumbersome, slow, and short-ranged. David’s sling could still slay Goliath, too, but I wouldn’t equip a regiment with that weapon.

I also toured the shipyards. Napoleon said crossing the Channel was but a jump, and yet without naval superiority the task was impossible. Even if the French controlled the water for a week or two, they had to transport not only a huge army, but all its powder, shot, food, and horses. England’s beaches were fronted by shoals, fringed by cliffs, and pounded by waves, and reports came back that its government had enlisted tens of thousands of militia to defend its shores. British authorities were constructing a string of Martello towers to give warning, and laid plans to drive away all the livestock and burn all grain.

French generals were confident of the outcome of any battle, but skeptical of the chances of getting one. La Manche might be tantalizingly narrow, but it was still a tide-wracked, stormy moat.

The soldiers were drilled incessantly to avoid boredom, and found the usual ways of amusing themselves between marches. Besides making visits to tent brothels and gambling dens, they scavenged for food, forcing Bonaparte to distribute a steady stream of gold to complaining farmers. His troops also did their best to seduce farmers’ daughters, dueled illegally in copses of trees, and had rowdy rowing competitions in which the chief object was hurling buckets of water at one another.

The troops were frequently entertained by troupes of actors imported from the Comédie-Francaise. The men also put on their own productions, playing female parts as well as male. At frequent dances, the soldiers took turns in the woman’s role, a handkerchief tied to their heads identifying them as “ladies.”

Their most popular game was loto, a simple contest of matching announced numbers on a card that even near illiterates could play. Bouts were made more competitive by giving each number a colorful name such as “the little chicken” for number two and “the gallows” for number seven, all the way up to eighty-nine. Players with faulty memory who called out the wrong name were penalized with great hilarity.

Regiments formed choirs and bands that sang and played in noisy competition. The faithful marched to the local fisherman’s chapels on Sunday. While some soldiers plagued civilians, others repaired churches, schools, and roads. England’s small army was a criminal depository kept in line with the lash. France’s conscripted force boasted educated men of the middle class. Officers had chess clubs, philosophic societies, and astronomy lectures. There is always more song and laughter in French camps than English or Prussian ones.

I enjoy this masculine company but periodically sought solitude. I was flattered one day while out on a picnic and saw a young redheaded woman on a horse picking her way toward me on a bluff trail overlooking the Channel. I was seated with bread and cheese and guessed even at a quarter mile that the approaching rider was pretty.

She rode to me and reined up: a Norman fille with hair like flame, a dusting of freckles, and a saucy look. She wore riding boots, gloves, and had a small pistol tucked in her waistband.

I stood. “Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

“Good King Louis,” she replied in English.

I was startled, accustomed as I was to speaking French. Then I remembered the password on the beach where we landed. “By the grace of God may he reign.” An English spy?

She slid from her horse and reverted to French. “My name is Rose, monsieur, and I’ve deliberately followed you here.”

“Mademoiselle, it’s dangerous to talk to me.”

“Yes, the famed Ethan Gage, collaborator with generals and emperors. I’ve been admiring your ability to insert yourself into high places. No one understands how you do it.”

“It would be more correct to say I’m inserted, sometimes against my will. They think me useful.” Sometimes modesty works with women, not that I had anything to work, being married and all. “And you are . . .”

“A rare survivor in a conspiracy gone to ruin. I provide help for agents traveling between Paris and the coast, and socialize with the officers here. Sometimes men tell a woman things they’d withhold from a man.”

“I can see why.”

“I’ve taken the risk to tell you two things, Ethan Gage.”

“Would you share some wine first?”

She shook her head. “First, you may encounter an opportunity to affect history more than you think possible. Many people are watching you.”

Was this a trap or test? For all I knew, this woman was Réal’s agent, not Smith’s. “That’s rather vague.”

“Second, your mission may someday require you to escape from Paris and France in a hurry. If you do so, go to the Inn of the Three Boars in Argenteuil and ask for the cook. Without anyone seeing, present him with a rose. A dried one will do. I will come, and I will help.”

“But how do I know to trust you?”

“When desperate, you have no choice. Don’t worry, monsieur, I’ve helped many travelers before you. Play along with the Bonapartists, but strike for Louis.” She clicked her tongue to beckon her horse and swung back into the saddle.

“Wait, please. Have some cheese. Let’s start a friendship, at least.”

“Friends are dangerous, and lovers can be deadly. You’ll not see me again until you have great need. But I was told to tell you one more thing in case you doubted my sincerity.”

“What’s that?”

“The Chiswicks have filed suit against your money.” And with that, this “Rose” gave a little kick and trotted off.

Damnation. Which side was I on, again?



Napoleon understood that men are led by example and inspiration, and so the ceremony of August 16 was designed to restore the mantle of invincibility that had been dented by the drownings. The day picked was the anniversary of the repulsion of British Admiral Horatio Nelson from Boulogne three years before. The place was a natural amphitheater, a swale near the town that swooped down to low bluffs and the sea. At cliff’s edge, a stage was built to hold throne and banners, the emperor facing France but so near the precipice that British captains could watch from spyglasses offshore.

Streamers bearing the names of French victories fluttered, flags flapped, and new regimental standards topped by polished brass eagles shone like torches. A loose phalanx of several hundred opulently uniformed officers surrounded Napoleon. His Imperial Guard in imposing bearskin hats was drawn up around this assembly, the ranks taut as a bowstring and their bayonets a silver picket fence. To one side regimental bands combined to create blaring music, banging away at anthems such as “La Victoire Est à Nous,” and “Veillons au Salut de l’Empire.” On the other, two thousand drums provided a thunderous roll. How little Harry would have loved this show! From his perch Napoleon could turn right to see the neat avenues of his vast camps and Boulogne harbor. To his left he could look up the coast and across the Channel to England.

One hundred thousand infantry in full dress uniform jammed the amphitheater’s bowl, with tens of thousands of cavalry poised in the wings to clop by on cue. Field guns were parked hub to hub, barrels gleaming. Uphill of the soldiers were tens of thousands of civilian spectators like myself. The men smoked, drank, and played amateur general from camp chairs. Ladies sipped cider in shady white tents or strolled the perimeter with parasols.

I looked for flame-haired Rose but didn’t see her.

The ceremony began at midday with a thunderous salute from the coastal batteries. As the shots echoed away the Corsican was lent celestial help by the skies parting to let down beams of light, as if God were stage lighting the army. The Channel wind rose to make banners snap and whitecaps dance. “Napoleon weather,” men whispered, forgetting the storm of a few weeks before. A choreographed review of regiments began.

All of us gasped and murmured; even I, the jaded Ethan, understood again the dangerous allure of war. It gives men an excuse to dress up, to carouse as boys, and to make friends through shared hardship. The brilliant splendor gives pathos to the inevitable destruction and turns the plod of life to poignant tragedy. Men will kill and be killed to escape boredom. War is also a way to arrest the tendency of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer; the looting redistributes wealth to the ruffians of the infantry. Gambling does the same, both more efficiently than taxes.

Napoleon stood, two thousand drums beat a charge, and the columns marched and reformed with mechanical precision. I didn’t detect a single misstep. Then the noise and marching stopped, noise grumbling away, and Bonaparte began speaking. I couldn’t hear his words but was told the emperor was reciting the oath of the Legion. When he finished, there was a roar of “Vive l’empereur!” so volcanic that it hurt my ears.

Next, thousands of new medals with Napoleon’s image were carried out for presentation. They were heaped on the medieval shields and helmets of French heroes like shoals of Spanish doubloons. The recipients filed forward, hundreds and hundreds of them, to receive the honor individually from his hand. I was told he greeted each by name and achievement in a procession that took hours.

How easily are we seduced by pomp and glory! Women wept, civilians lifted their hats, and soldiers roared themselves hoarse. To complete the triumph, the rising wind forced the English ships to beat farther offshore, providing an opening for a sailing convoy of supply from Le Havre that was six months overdue. The weather that had betrayed Napoleon before was his ally this day.

I found myself unexpectedly invited to his Pavilion for the celebratory banquet when the columns finally marched away. I was seated at the smallest and farthest of the tables. Men looked curiously at me, and there were murmurs that I was a great and ruthless spy, an idea I did nothing to discourage. The room was set with linen, silver, flowers, and paper regimental flags. Toasts were raised so often that all of us got drunk. The coastal artillery continued to boom salutes, the setting sun ducked in and out of clouds, and fireworks came at dusk, the exploding stars promising eventual victory. The scent of gunpowder blew back over the beaches and filled the room with its smell.

How odd to celebrate a man whom I knew believed in gnomes, shot at his wife’s swans, pinched ears like his Corsican mother, and whom I’d seen in his bath and in bed with his wife. So ordinary, so extraordinary! The writer Goethe had put to poetry last year the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and now France followed its own piper like those German children. Maybe all future kings will be in Napoleon’s mold, rising from obscurity to make their ambition that of their nation. Stature will come not from birth but from pageantry, men staking their lives on political opera. Truth will be defined by illusion. People will rally around lies.

We filed to go out, congratulating the emperor, and I gave him my hand in a daze of wonderment, apprehension, and calculation. This Brazen Head: did it really exist and, if so, was it something we should find and control to keep it from misuse, like the Book of Thoth from my earlier adventures? Could Rose be trusted? Did I belong with France or England?

“My star is ascending, Ethan,” Napoleon told me quietly, grasping my hand in both of his own. “Do not betray me.” His bright gray eyes had seduced every man in the room.

“I’m dazzled, Your Majesty.” This was true, though that didn’t mean I wanted him to succeed. “I’ll return to Paris to consult with your savants.”

“Listen. You are ever the outsider, so become part of France. Surrender to history. The feeling is electric.”

He meant surrender to him. “I envy your rise.”

He nodded, and then suddenly flashed that soldierly smile. He could be as earthy as his soldiers. “Don’t envy me too much. The worst thing about these ceremonies is that you can’t break for a piss, and I have had to hold my bladder for four hours!”