The Barbed Crown

Chapter 18





The Cathedral of Notre Dame was a brisk mile from our apartment. As we hurried and daylight grew, the snow stopped and clouds began to lift. Eight months had passed since Catherine and I had first landed on the Channel coast, and the entire world seemed to have changed. All of Paris was congregating either on the Île de la Cité, where the church was located, or along the avenues on the Right Bank where the coronation coaches would roll in procession from the Tuileries. The massive, drifting crowds reminded me of migrating buffalo I’d seen in America.

The wind bit, but the mood was festive and preparations precise. Vendors were already selling sausages and mulled wine. Cartloads of river sand had been spread for traction. Regiments of soldiers rose before dawn and marched to line the procession route three ranks deep. Ten thousand cavalry would sandwich the carriages of the elite. Power was to be confirmed by both might and God, and Bonaparte and his ministers had done all they could to avoid humiliation. It remained to us to turn coronation into fiasco.

I carried the Crown of Thorns in a bag on my shoulder, clasped with the imperial seal that would allow the baggage inside Notre Dame. Harry walked between us, scuffing happily at the light snow. He had his bag of marbles in his pocket. I knew he was likely leaving his toys behind, and those would be slight consolation.

I brooded. Would Catherine succeed? French police had followed us from the beginning. Napoleon manipulated us. I’m always nervous when things are going well.

“Whatever happens, we must stay together,” I said.

Astiza squeezed my hand.

The new plazas created by demolition of the old medieval houses were already crowded—the ordinary hoping for glimpses of the famous, and the elite of Napoleonic France grumbling good-naturedly as they were forced into snaking lines to show tickets. The weather-stained cathedral was in sad disrepair. Many of its statues had been “beheaded” during the revolution because rioting peasants had mistaken saintly figures for royalty and took hammers to them in a fit of patriotic vandalism. Political fanatics had subsequently turned Notre Dame into an atheistic “Temple of Reason,” a classical temple temporarily displacing the altar. Later the church served as a food warehouse. Now it was a cathedral again, but one temporarily paneled and painted on the outside with symbols of temporal glory.

The coronation committees had erected a false Gothic facade at the front of the church, covering real stones with fake ones that framed painted scenes of French heroes and battles. The temporary gallery and tent along its north side were used to muster dignitaries and keep the mob at bay. Long pennant flags flew from poles like a medieval tournament, and atop the Gothic towers of the cathedral itself, imperial banners the size of mainsails hung like gargantuan proclamations. A wooden “Roman temple” had been erected to sell snacks and souvenirs; a carousel turned in circles to amuse children; and velvet-clothed pages threaded through the crowds to give away tens of thousands of bronze coronation medallions engraved with images of Napoleon and Josephine.

Skepticism was forbidden. The playwright Marie-Joseph Chenier had opened a play called Cyrus in the Opéra-Comique, but when the actors urged tyrants to be democratic, the performances were promptly shut down.

Even such attempted criticism was rare. Everyone who was anyone wanted to watch the crowning. Women in fashionably low-cut dresses shivered as they shuffled forward, pulling furs onto their shoulders but not quite ready to cover their décolletage. A lucky few dismounted from coaches near the Palais de Justice just as magistrates were marching from the Court of Cassation. The judges gave ladies shelter from the chill with their flame-colored togas, scurrying for Notre Dame like scarlet birds with chicks under one wing.

Commoners buzzed like an agitated hive. People sensed that history had turned a page and something glorious and terrible was about to be commemorated. They would tell their neighbors, in the momentous years to come, that they’d witnessed the beginning. Hawkers sold coffee and rolls. Enterprising merchants nearby charged two francs to use their privies. The most tireless prostitutes assembled, at nine in the morning under paper Chinese lanterns strung along an arcade, to advertise their wares. Farmers from the countryside gawked.

We pushed to the temporary reception tent at the rear of the church, remembering from Catherine that acting important is nearly the equivalent of being so. There was confusion as sentries denied entry to some and pulled others forward, so I took my boy on my shoulders, wife by the arm, and squirted our way to the front. Catherine was waiting, a good sign, and waved frantically from inside. When a sentry moved to block us, she intercepted and spoke sharply. He obeyed because the comtesse wore an artificial flower dyed the French tricolor to signify her authority. She was also wearing a white silk dress I’d never seen before, making her as dazzling as a marble statue. Did the imperial household provide the gown? She ushered us into the circular tent. When she grabbed to take the bag with the crown, I found myself clutching for a moment. A guard was approaching, and Catherine tugged impatiently, her eyes flashing warning. I let it go, and she swept it up to reveal the imperial seal. It warded off the curious gendarme.

“I have only moments,” she said breathlessly. “Tell me I won’t be damned.”

“Only if you fail. Can you get access to the crowns?”

“Presence is everything. I act important, and thus I am.”

“You’d make a fine marshal for Napoleon.”

“For the true monarchy, once it’s restored.” She leaned closer. “Did you pack the pistol as I asked?”

“Loaded and primed.”

“We shouldn’t need it but must brace for the worst. Now, I’ve tried to improve your seating—” She looked over my shoulder to someone behind me, eyes widening. “Oh!”

A hand gripped my shoulder, tight as a vise. I turned. It was the policeman Pasques, a black hangman in a sea of peacocks. Had we been caught?

No, he was only a messenger again. “The Grand Chamberlain Talleyrand requests your company, Monsieur Gage.”

“Talleyrand? Today?”

“It makes no sense to me, either. Come this way, to avoid the line.”

People gave my family a glance of both resentment and respect as Pasques bulled us into the church. I was apprehensive. Half the princes of Germany were here, and Talleyrand had time to see me? Pasques steered us through the throng like a barge cracking ice, and we stopped by a pillar. It was still cold enough that we could see our breath. The cathedral echoed from the theater buzz of assembling spectators and tuning instruments. The timber cribbing of temporary spectator stands broke the usual soaring sightlines of Notre Dame.

“Your wife must wait for you in the choir behind the thrones,” Pasques said. He frowned. “You brought your little boy?”

“We avoid separation. They both must stay with me.”

“Not to see the Grand Chamberlain. They can wait to take their seats with you together when we return. You’ve been moved next to great dignitaries.” He shook his head.

“I fear we’ll be separated in this throng.”

“I’ll watch them,” Catherine said, pulling Astiza from my grasp. “Don’t make a fuss that calls attention.” Her eyes signaled warning.

I nodded. “Papa will be back in a moment,” I told Harry.

“The Grand Chamberlain is waiting at a bell tower,” Pasques said. He cocked his head. “Why does everyone want to talk with you, American?”

“I suppose I’m affable.”

Catherine pulled Astiza and Horus into the shadows. We’d been in Notre Dame only moments and already were altering our plan. Astiza looked worried.

“Talleyrand is impatient,” the policeman said.

“As am I.” A quick meeting, and then reunion. “Lead on,” I told Pasques.

We passed from behind the spectator stands to the central nave. Notre Dame was almost unrecognizable. A broad green carpet covered the stone floor, overlain by a narrow blue one embroidered with Napoleon’s golden bees. To each side, in tiers between the nave’s pillars, temporary viewing stands narrowed the church’s width, giving the ceremony crowded intimacy. Each bank of benches was backlit by stained-glass windows and curtained at the base by fabric panels painted rose and gold. Banners, flags, and white tapestries hung everywhere, turning Gothic grandeur into operatic riot, the cathedral as overwrought as a bordello. And why not? Life today is performed as if onstage: desperate conspiracies, impassioned trysts, dramatic speeches, and doomed charges. Dignity has disappeared. The church pews were gone, confessionals hidden, and the regular altar and its gate obscured.

Pope Pius, I guessed, would not be pleased.

In the transept of the cathedral’s center, where the side arms join the main axis, a triumphal arch had been built out of wood. Steep steps led up to twin thrones canopied with scarlet. To one side was a temporary elevated altar with a throne for the pope.

If the hangings were grand, people’s costumes were grander. Ushers wore black and green; pages purple. A choir the size of a regiment was in pious white, and a full orchestra in black glittered with polished brass instruments and lacquered violins. Officers among the assembling spectators wore the distinctive uniforms of grenadiers, fusiliers, chasseurs, dragoons, voltigeurs, tirailleurs, carabiniers, hussars, cuirassiers, and the Imperial Guard. There were turbaned Mamelukes, high-ranking gendarmes, naval marines, ladies-in-waiting, jeweled duchesses, counts, abbesses, Turkish ambassadors, a Polynesian potentate, and society matrons. No doubt they’d have thrown in some vestal virgins if they could have found any in Paris. The poles of battle flags, regimental standards, and silver pikes jostled and clinked. Swords rattled. Ten thousand female throats bore diamonds that glinted like white flames. I saw foreign uniforms of yellow, pink, orange, turquoise, and ivory. I was dressed shabbily, in clothes meant for escape, and felt as conspicuous following Pasques as a fly on a wedding cake.

The policeman led me to a door giving access to the north bell tower, guarded by a quartet of grenadiers. I hesitated. Was I going to be charged with the theft of bell rope at the scene of my crime?

“Inside, American.”

No, the “limping devil” was truly waiting, his own plush coat cardinal red, his white silk sash as wide as a saddle blanket, and his silk stockings, lace cravat, and tricorne hat outdated but dignified, reflecting his affection for traditional royalist fashion. He took my cold hand with his own white-gloved one. I hesitantly half bowed, wary, curious, and calculating.

“Monsieur Gage! We’re flattered by the attendance of a representative of the United States.”

“Hardly that, Grand Chamberlain. A citizen of America, yes, a Franklin man for certain. But representative? No one from my country knows I’m here.”

His smile was shrewd. Talleyrand, like Réal and Fouché, always gave the impression of knowing all. “But consultant to the emperor! Which is what I want to discuss. These ceremonies take aeons to unfold, and Napoleon will be late getting through the narrow streets, so come up for the view. I’ve also reserved you better seats inside. The whole affair will be gaudy as a circus and longer than the opera, but well worth remembering.”

With surprising energy he stumped his way up the circular stone stairway. I followed, retracing my steps with Harry. I half expected the grand chamberlain to pause dramatically at the bells, point at a sliced rope, and accuse me of high treason. But no, we didn’t go that high; instead, we came out on the walkway and parapet between the two Gothic towers, this grand balcony putting us directly over the main doors to the church.

The view was magnificent.

Not only had the flurries stopped, the clouds had lifted like a rising curtain. Low December sun cast golden light across Paris. The Seine glinted, and rooftops sparkled from their coating of snow. There was a haze of smoke past the Louvre, where celebratory cannon batteries kept firing. Napoleon, the gunner, would have a battle just to hear their music. Church bells pealed, though not the ones directly above us yet, and the snaking admission lines twitched as people shuffled forward. What must it feel like to have hundreds of thousands standing in the cold merely to glimpse your arrival? What power! What vanity!

“Paris is extraordinary, is it not?” the grand chamberlain asked.

“I’m drawn as if by a woman.”

“The feminine beauty we see today is one of the joys of life. Do you remember my theory of the feminine and masculine cycles of history?”

“Yes. And that men and Mars are triumphant now.”

“So in autumn I seek the last leaf, and in spring the first crocus. I frequent the Louvre, Monsieur Gage, and not just to gaze upon the wonders brought back from Italy and Egypt.” The old palace, not lived in since the 1660s, had become Europe’s first public presentation of great works of art. It was usually so jammed it was tiresome. “I go for art, yes, but also for the visiting women. Sometimes I sit discreetly in a shadowy 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 lacks a certain . . . subtlety. That’s what I provide. I have my own spies. So I know that your mission will take you to Bohemia and other parts of the Austrian Empire. And if you find the android that men are seeking, you must not drag it back to Paris.”

I felt uneasy. Did his political omniscience make him friend or foe? “I’m ordered to bring the Brazen Head to the emperor.”

“No, you’re not. His armies will come to you.”

“But Napoleon is marching on London.” Once more I was playing the spy for the British, worming out strategic clues. But who was I, really? Why was I standing with the French Machiavelli when I should be sitting with my family? Each time I tried to provide for or avenge my wife, it seemed to result in separation.

My only salvation was my secret belief that somehow, at some time, I’d win the chance to do something truly good and make up for all my sins.

“Napoleon will march in many directions before he’s finished. And he will be finished someday, as will we all. So look ahead, Gage, look ahead.”

“I’m better at looking into the past. Old tombs and ancient rubbish. Often what we seek doesn’t exist at all.”

“This automaton does.” Talleyrand still watched the golden carriages, crossing the Seine now onto the Île de la Cité, crowds roaring and rippling. “You must find the android first. At the end of the sixteenth century Rudolf II, Holy Roman emperor, established his capital in Prague. It’s a learned city and a mysterious one, tucked away from the main avenues of armies and attracting alchemists, wizards, astronomers, and numerologists. Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler mapped the planets while at his court. Composers performed. Artists painted. Necromancers drew magic circles on cellar floors. Rudolf was mad, but he was also brilliant, and he built a wing at Prague Castle that had cabinets full of strange curiosities. They included a bowl of

agate he believed to be the Holy Grail, a unicorn horn, gemstones, magical swords, clocks, astrolabes, telescopes, and stuffed exotic animals. His gardens had plants from around the world.”

“My boy would like to see that.” It never hurts to remind the powerful that you have a family, in order to encourage mercy should you need it.

“The cabinets have been lost, as have the laboratories where Rudolf’s alchemists such as Edward Kelly and John Dee sought the Philosopher’s Stone. There was parchment of indecipherable writing, peculiar art, intricate mazes, and religious trinkets from lost kingdoms.”

“Now that my wife would like to see.”

“Rudolf never married but had lovers, male and female, who held power over him. They ranged from Ottoman temptresses to a prince of Transylvania. But more than anything he was seduced by knowledge.”

The wind was cold, the sky that lovely robin’s-egg blue of winter, and the procession dazzling as it approached. Napoleon’s golden coach had reportedly cost a million francs. It was paneled in glass to allow people to glimpse him, and was festooned with medallions, coats of arms, allegorical figurines, and enough sculpted eagles to stuff a nest. The coachman was César, who’d saved Bonaparte’s life from the Infernal Machine. Roustan the Mameluke rode protectively behind. The team was eight gray horses decorated with braided manes, bronze-colored reins, and red Moroccan harnesses.

Facing the emperor in the coach were the only two brothers who consented to attend, Joseph and Louis. Brother Lucien, the hapless politician who’d helped Napoleon seize power in 1799, was sulking in Rome because the emperor found him incompetent. Brother Jerome had joined him, smarting from Napoleon’s insistence that he annul his marriage to the American beauty Betsy Patterson and disown his child by her. With them was Napoleon’s shrewish mother Letizia, who’d chosen needy Lucien over hardheaded Napoleon.

How far we’d both climbed—Napoleon to royalty, which made him resented by a dependent family; me to games I wasn’t prepared to play. Instinct suddenly told me to be anywhere than where I was standing.

“I always enjoy a history lesson, Grand Chamberlain, but again am surprised you’ve time to share it. Why are you telling me all this?”

“To guide you, because it’s imperative you succeed. I’m going to suggest you look for the Brazen Head that Napoleon wants you to find amid the castles and caves of central Europe. You want to head east. I’m going to give you the hilt of a broken sword that may prove a clue. I’m doing so because I want to examine this marvel myself. Napoleon would use it for conquest, but I for peace. So I brought you up here to propose a partnership.”

“East is away from England.”

“Exactly. It’s just as well that Sidney Smith begins to forget what you’re up to. Make more money working with me.”

“Money?”

“Ten thousand francs if you find a machine that foretells the future. A castle, if you want it. I suspect we’ll conquer dozens in the years ahead.”

Now my heart beat faster. Investments in England, a fortune from Paris, and a castle in Bohemia . . . my horizons were expanding as rapidly as Napoleon’s. What was my purpose? Payback for the trials my family had endured. I was a puppet, yes, but strings could pull both ways. Perhaps it was I who was in charge! I’d manipulate these greedy, grasping men as they manipulated me, and save the world in the process. I felt a flush of confidence. I didn’t need to flee, I was where destiny demanded.

“My quest seems improbable. A lost automaton?”

“That was my reaction. Napoleon meets a thousand people, of course, and more than a few get his attention by spouting nonsense. But then I remembered an old Jewish legend from my religious studies, a tale of an artificial man made from mud called a golem. It made me wonder if your quest might not have a grain of truth.”

The name had an eerie sound. “A mud man?”

“A monster, answerable to a rabbi master. This golem had the power to defend the Jews of Prague if properly instructed, or so the story goes. By legend it went out of control and had to be subdued and still rests, a clay shell, in a synagogue attic in Prague. Yet isn’t it intriguing how stories of Albertus Magnus, Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf II, and the golem of Prague all take us to the same places? If something extraordinary really exists, it’s imperative I see it first. Foretelling the future! So I’m offering letters of protection if you journey to the east, money to live on, and a fortune if you succeed. Your wife is being given the necessary documents as we speak.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I’ll send cutthroats in competition.”

So I was to be a tool of Talleyrand as well as Napoleon and Smith. If I delivered the automaton to him, he would take credit for delivering it to his own master, Napoleon. I am strangely popular. Getting caught between these men was risky, yet maybe I could use this hysteria over an android to get safely out of Paris. Ten thousand francs to find a mechanical man? If everyone in France thought I was their ally, maybe they’d leave me alone.

“I’m flattered by your confidence, Grand Chamberlain, and honored you’d share it on such a crucial day. But this could be a test, so let me say that my first loyalty is to the emperor.”

“As is mine. Our friendship is for the emperor’s good.”

“He wouldn’t be pleased if I gave this android to you instead of him.”

“Nor am I asking you to. Only that I question it first. It could make me a most valuable adviser. But only an adviser.”

“So valuable you can spare ten thousand francs?” I wanted to confirm this figure.

“We’re going to loot Europe. Such funds will be a beggar’s purse.” He said it matter-of-factly.

I swallowed. “You mentioned expenses?”

He opened his cloak. There were pockets sewn inside stuffed with important-looking papers, making him a walking credenza. He fished out some gold coins. “Enough to make inquiries. And here’s a stub of sword.”

“What’s its story?”

“Simply that its missing medieval blade might prove useful. Look for more legends in Bohemia and the lands east. So we’re partners?”

What choice did I have? I was locked in orbit around powerful puppeteers. “Partners.” Meanwhile, I’d entirely forgotten that I was about to corrupt the coronation and, with it, Napoleon’s rule.

“Good! Let’s go inside and witness the crowning. I have a feeling it will be something never quite seen before.”