The Barbed Crown

Chapter 8





I’ve described Police Minister Fouché as a thin-lipped lizard, and renegade inspector Leon Martel, safely dead, as a rodent. Councillor Réal I’d call a forbidding French father-in-law: handsome, distinguished, and naturally stern, with a long Gallic nose, searching gaze, and a mouth pinched with habitual disapproval, its corners rising just enough to betray weary amusement at the fables and lies of the prisoners he interrogated. It was this man who’d traced the horseshoes of the animal that pulled the huge bomb that almost killed Napoleon in 1800. He’d broken assassination conspirators Louis-Pierre Picot and Charles Le Bourgeois with torture so relentless that they begged for death. More recently, royalist conspirator Jean-Pierre Quérelle betrayed Georges Cadoudal after Réal let the man watch preparations for his own execution. Terrified of eternity, Quérelle confessed all.

I knew vaguely that Réal was considered a moderate, had gambled by throwing in with Napoleon for the coup of 18 Brumaire, and now oversaw the policing of the Channel coast facing Britain. He received me in the cavernous police headquarters off rue de Jerusalem, its hive of cubicles wormed into a decaying pile of a palace. Posts and beams had been inserted to keep the edifice standing, and mezzanines had been built on these to stuff in more policemen, the new floors reached by stairs as steep as ladders. The result was a gloomy maze. Réal’s own office was a stony corner suite overlooking a stone courtyard with stone walls beyond. He wore a severely black civilian suit without insignia, the color the perennial favorite of my police acquaintances. It makes them a dour lot.

High collar and cravat reinforced Réal’s formality, but five gaudy rings hinted at worldly pleasures. I tried to analyze him as annoyingly as he was analyzing me. Perhaps he was not the humorless puritan of reputation, but rather a man who enjoyed profiting from power. I pictured a rich house and family gatherings with laughing children and amber-colored spirits, Réal serenely presiding over bourgeois pleasures, not speaking of the day’s routine of firing squads, weasel informants, and tenacious torture.

Now Réal splayed his fingers on his massive maple desk, as if considering whether to spring. It was said he’d made a study of the interrogation techniques of the Ottomans and the Spanish Church and was a student of the criminal mind, particularly those with shifting causes and irregular employment.

I, in turn, have become something of an expert on ambitious policemen.

“Monsieur Gage, so gracious of you to visit.” The tone was ironic.

Guest I technically was, since the giant Pasques had explained that I wasn’t really under arrest so long as I visited the police inspector “voluntarily.” I was unclear as to the distinction. “I’m flattered by your invitation,” I lied, “though I’m not really Ethan Gage.”

“Amusing fiction. Impostors and aliases have become a fixture of our age. During upheaval, everyone can pretend to be something they’re not. It’s what makes revolution so popular.” He gave me a nod. “It’s an honor to meet a hero of the Pyramids.”

I do have a weakness for flattery, and it seemed futile to pretend I was Greenwell. “Hardly a hero, Councillor,” I said. You have to decline compliments if you hope to get any more. “When the Mamelukes charged, I was safely inside an infantry square.” It was a subtle way of confirming that, yes, I’d been an aide to Napoleon in Egypt. I’d put Bonaparte’s pendant around my neck, in hopes it might prove as potent as a crucifix in a situation like this.

“You’re too modest. You’ve had many adventures since, on assignment for Talleyrand and Jefferson in North America, Bonaparte in the Mediterranean and”—he picked up a folder to peer at it—“Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the black revolutionary who defeated Rochambeau in Saint-Domingue. You’ve also fought with the British general Sir Sidney Smith, against Pasha Yussef Karamanli in Tripoli, and”—here he squinted at his folder again—“done both with former police inspector Leon Martel in Martinique.” He put down the document. “I envy your worldliness, while remaining baffled by your causes.”

“My cause is my family.” I was wary. “It’s actually quite the trouble bouncing from one belligerent to another. Labors of Hercules, and all that.”

“Your wanderings are suspicious.”

“I always come back to Paris.”

“Under an assumed name.” He tapped his file. “Most peculiar, no? The young general you rode with in the Egyptian campaign rises to emperor, and you hide in his capital like a thief?”

“I didn’t want to bother him.”

“Your obscurity aroused our curiosity, especially since Britain has employed half the scoundrels of Europe to spy on France. You fought at Acre with the spymaster Sir Sidney Smith. And every man in Paris seeks advantage from his personal acquaintance with Bonaparte—every man except the famed Ethan Gage.”

“I’m just avoiding responsibility. Being important is tiring.”

“I don’t believe you.” Réal’s gaze bored like an auger. Smart policemen make you feel guilty no matter how innocent you are, and of course I was a would-be Nathan Hale or Benedict Arnold. Yet except for my wife recently sweeping a deck clear of roguish French with a grapeshot-loaded swivel gun, I couldn’t think of anything in particular to confess to. I was a spy, yes, but not a very good one.

“And how is our old comrade Martel?” he went on.

“His name reminds me that the other half of Europe’s scoundrels are working for France.” I was stalling; I’m so honest by nature that I’m a poor liar, making it a habit only because of the bad company I keep. “Is Leon missing?” As I said this I pictured him cutting our rudder cables and dooming our ship on a reef. I’d later found his corpse on a beach, and when inspecting his body found a tattoo marking him as a henchman of Napoleon.

“‘Disappeared on a peculiar mission, according to the governor of Martinique,’” Réal read.

“If I remember correctly,” I tried, “Martel had left French government service and had his own background in crime. Pimp, slaver, thief, and rogue. If he was on a mission for the governor, it must have been of the most disreputable kind.” Which was working with me, but no need to call that out.

“Perhaps.” The councillor stood and moved to his window, looking at a courtyard crisscrossed by gendarmes on urgent, silent missions. Under Napoleon, seriousness meant advancement. By rumor, Fouché was about to be appointed police minister again, and other police chiefs like Savary, Dubois, and Réal were competing over who could catch the most traitors to win favor.

“Martel’s mission was quite important,” the policeman went on, “and we were informed he’d united with you after Dessaline’s victory in Haiti. Two adventurers, pursuing ancient Aztec knowledge for France! And then Martel and an entire bomb vessel vanish, as well as the notorious Ethan Gage. So mysterious and tragic. Until you’re smuggled back into France, arriving from England with your wife and son, and accompanied by a comely governess with royalist background. Perhaps, Monsieur Gage, you’ve become a spy for the British side.” He said it sadly, as if greatly disappointed.

“Then why would I bring my family? It would be lunatic risk.” I wondered where Astiza, Harry, and Catherine Marceau waited in prison.

“Bonaparte tells me you’re clever without sense.” He turned back and sat down behind his desk, as if weary with disapproval. Then Réal gave a Gallic shrug. “So I suppose we’ll start with the comtesse.”

It took me a moment to realize what he’d said. “Start?”

“If she doesn’t talk, and she won’t, some bad food and complete isolation will prepare her for torture. No word will leak of our cruelties. It’s hard for the ministry to know what happens to prisoners when our jailers are their only contact with the outside world. And if she remains silent, then scientifically applied pain.”

“But she’s just a governess. A silly one at that.”

“I’ve found the garrote is an effective tool that leaves little lasting damage. Experts strangle the interviewee to the point of near unconsciousness, revive them, and then strangle again. You had something of the same experience, I believe, with drowning.” He made a temple of his hands.

I had a frightening mental picture of my beautiful comrade with contorted tongue and bulging eyes. “She’s not up to anything, except gossip, fashion, and spending too much of my money. I can show you my ledger book if you don’t believe me. She’s as profligate as Josephine and flitty as a swallow.”

“Then your wife, Astiza, before we start on your little boy, since I have a soft spot for children. I understand she’s part Oriental, and the conventional wisdom is that hot tongs work on them. It would be an experiment on her race. There’d be no need to use instrumentation on Horus until I was certain the adults wouldn’t cooperate. Then you could watch . . .”

“Napoleon would never tolerate such monstrosity.”

“Napoleon, like all leaders, makes a point of not knowing everything done to keep him in power.”

“You’re a wicked man.”

“I keep order.”

We stared at each other. “There’s no need for barbarism, Councillor. We both know I’m a spy, and that my family and companion are innocent.”

“I doubt that, but admitting you’re a spy is the first encouraging thing you’ve said.”

He kept me off balance. “Encouraging?”

“We like English spies, Gage, so long as we know who they are. In fact, we want you to continue spying for Sir Sidney Smith.”

“Councillor?”

“So long as you also spy for us.” His tone became almost cheerful. “That will allow your wife and son to escape torture, your governess to keep her pretty neck, and yourself to once more play a role in great events, as you so like to do. No, don’t protest Gage, you’re a lazy layabout who pursues his own ends in a troubled world, but you’re as driven as a soldier aspiring for a marshal’s baton. It’s simply that in your case, you’re driven by greed, lust, and vanity.”

“I think of it as trying to get ahead.” Napoleon had just appointed eighteen generals to “marshal of the empire”; I was no different in ambition. “You want me to spy for both sides?”

“I didn’t invite you here to discuss the weather. And if I wanted you out of the way, you and your family would already be dead, as you well know.”

The threat, while accurate, irritated me. “I’m afraid I’m disappointed by your new emperor, Councillor, because of exactly this kind of threat. It’s the boast of a bully, and I don’t want to spy for bullies.”

“Why not?” Another Gallic shrug. “Your royalist conspiracy is a ruin. Do you know we’ve arrested three hundred fifty-six people to date who played a part in it?” He recited the statistic with satisfaction. “You’ll be tortured and executed if you don’t cooperate. If you do, you could earn money for your family. What does it matter if you like our emperor? You must provide.” He said this matter-of-factly.

I stalled, trying to calculate what I should do while also realizing I had little choice. “I am a man of political principle.”

“No you’re not, American wanderer. Like most spies you’re an opportunist and schemer. Besides, your country has more in common with French revolutionary fervor than British royalism.”

I glanced at Pasques, who guarded the door as still as a statue. There’s a time for heroic defiance, and a time for calculating the odds. “You have a point.”

“As a double agent you’ll tell Britain what France wants it to hear, which is that invasion is imminent. This is nothing less than the truth. And you’ll tell us what they think about it. Telling the truth again. I realize that’s a novel idea for you, but you can be paid well for doing the right thing.”

“Paid well?” It’s best to pin these elusive promises down.

“Four hundred francs a month.”

“That covers only my rent.”

“Five hundred, to supplement what you already have in English gold. Not as generous as Smith, perhaps, but I don’t have his resources.”

I hadn’t expected this, and acceptance sounded like a quick path to being caught in a crossfire. On the other hand, I’d completely failed to deny my connection to the British, and playing along with Réal might give us a chance to escape.

I shifted in my chair, trying not to sound too eager. “I am a moral man. Isn’t working for two sides unethical?”

“Unethical compared to the espionage and assassination cabal of Sir Sidney Smith? Who is a man with no ethics of his own? Do you know that his heroic escape in 1798, celebrated in song and novel, was in fact the product of bribes to French officials who wanted him gone?”

“Certainly not. We’re told he wooed comely women from his Temple Prison window, got word to royalist agents, and made a daring escape with the help of my late friend Phelipeaux, hero of the siege of Acre. People treat him like Robin Hood.”

“History is just that, Gage, a story, and nothing is more fanciful than a man defying impossible odds. No one escapes Temple Prison without connivance.” That had certainly been true in the case of Astiza and me, when we did so in 1799. “The Directory couldn’t prove allegations of espionage against Smith and found his imprisonment an embarrassment. Yet they couldn’t release him after authorities ballyhooed his capture. Easier for both sides were British bribes to key French jailers, who became conveniently stupid when agents arrived with forged papers. This is how the spy game works. A great deal of skullduggery, and then a satisfactory conclusion for everyone involved. Our business is happier than people think.”

I conceded the argument. Espionage was like juicing cards, and was all the sneaking about simply a scheme to divert some English gold into everyone’s pockets? I tried to work out my chances while deciding if at least temporarily joining the French as well as British was expedient or suicidal. I do have principles: namely, to protect my family from torture. As government, armies, and businesses become ever larger and more implacable, I’m a leaf in a hurricane, a man among millions trying to make my way home. So I take opportunities as they come, and revise strategy as I go along. “How did you know I was in Paris?”

“We knew everything, Gage, including when and where you’d land, though we didn’t expect the coastal ambush that allowed you to escape capture. We knew your address shortly after you arrived in Paris, and we’ve followed with curiosity the little you’ve been doing since. As an agent of the British Crown, you are remarkably unproductive. I’d suspect it an American trait, but your mentor Franklin accomplished a great deal.”

“Ambitious as the devil, and a clever conversationalist. It’s not a fair comparison.”

“We know what you eat, the romance novels your wife reads, and the box under your son’s bed where he keeps his toys. This is not the chaos under the Directory you once knew. This is the empire. France is organized now.”

There’s no privacy in our new nineteenth century, it seems. I twisted uncomfortably, trying to figure what I might bargain for. “If you’ve found me out, I’m indeed a poor spy. The British would do the same, would they not, and dismiss my reports as useless? Maybe you should just pack us off to Italy.”

“Of course they’ll discern you’ve been turned, and like us they won’t care. They’re as conceited as we are, and will believe they can skim useful observations from your abominable character. The fact that everyone treats you like a puppet is your only hope.”

“It’s being a puppet I’m trying to get away from.”

“All of us are puppets, Gage. Even an emperor has strings pulled by the millions under him, a mob he must ceaselessly placate. But perhaps a better description is that you serve as a go-between, diplomat, to improve understanding. Do you have a model of a flying machine?” The change in subject was abrupt, and his knowledge disconcerting.

“Perhaps.”

“Monsieur Gage, I’m inquiring to save your neck.”

I cleared my throat. “Then yes, I do. It’s a little golden toy, actually, and not much to learn from in my opinion. I might just melt it down.”

“France is a ferment of ideas about how to cross the Channel. Martel was working on this. So are many others, including some of our most esteemed savants. Bonaparte is open to each, and thinks that while your character is threadbare, your ingenuity might prove useful.”

“I am an electrician of sorts. A Freemason, too, though I can never remember the ceremonies.”

“Listen. I don’t know precisely what happened to Leon Martel, and I don’t care, but don’t pretend he didn’t disappear while in your company. He was a rascal but a useful rascal, so you can save yourself only by taking his place. Every attempt you make to wriggle from Napoleon’s control will only enmesh you deeper. And don’t pretend you don’t know a great deal about flight and firearms. You escaped Egypt in a balloon, worked with Martel to find this Aztec flying machine, and there are even stories you befriended an English scholar of flight named Cayley. Not to mention the American inventor Robert Fulton.”

“I like smart people.”

“Bonaparte wants your expertise again. He says you’ve occasionally been unwittingly inspirational, such as provoking his brilliance in crossing the Alps for the Marengo campaign.”

“He gives me too much credit.” Requisite modesty again. “I did remind him about Hannibal.” Napoleon wanted to see me? And would I accuse him of jeopardizing my family if I did? Should I shoot him and be done with it? Every time I stayed in Paris, life became more complicated. “He’s a difficult chap. Napoleon, I mean. Hannibal, too, I suppose.”

Réal was impatient. “Should we guillotine you instead?”

“I am a fount of intriguing ideas. You know, your emperor once gave me a mark of favor.” I pulled the pendant out like a trump card. It was a golden N, surrounded by a golden wreath. “I worked on negotiations for Louisiana and kept pirates from a dangerous weapon.” The trinket glittered.

“So you’re warming to my proposal.”

“I’m just trying to save my family.”

“Napoleon doesn’t fear that you can provide anything truly useful to the British. But he does want your thoughts on military matters. He said you’re a thinker when pressed.”

“Then perhaps I should earn a thousand francs.”

“Be prudent, not ridiculous.”

The trouble with hurling yourself into a conspiracy is that once it collapses, you have few options. I stewed only because my weakness was so humiliating. Then I remembered another possible sign of favor. “By the way, Pasques said Bonaparte wants to give me a present?”

He scowled. “Yes. A joke of sorts, from one soldier to another. But not a joke, as well.” He picked up a twin-bladed dagger on his desk of the kind a murderer might wield—had it been confiscated?—and used the blade to ring a small brass bell. Another policeman entered, carrying a long package bound in a cotton sheet.

I perked up. Everyone likes a gift.

“The emperor said you claim you lost your long rifle to a dragon, a story that has provoked a great deal of amusement at dinner parties.”

“Well, I did.”

“He’s decided to offer you a replacement.”

“A gun?” It was the last thing I expected.

“More than just a gun. It is, after all, from an emperor.”

I was presented with a German Jaeger hunting rifle, which had been the Old World inspiration for the Pennsylvania long rifle I’d once brandished. The Prussian weapon is grooved in its barrel like the American version but is shorter, making it easier to carry in brush or on horseback.

“More indeed,” I admitted. This particular piece was gorgeous, its stock carved with stags and unicorns. “The brass plating is really quite brilliant,” I said. “The entire piece is pretty as a Spanish saddle.”

“Not brass. Gold, like your pendant.” He watched me like a horse trader.

Good heavens. A man I’d vowed to kill had just given me a weapon perfectly suited to do it with, and worth a diadem besides? “Solid?”

“Plated. But more than you could afford.”

The rifle had the same N with engraved laurel wreath, I saw. The generosity was embarrassing, the bribe clear, and the arrogance annoying. Pure Napoleon. “You first have me followed and then trust me with this weapon?”

“Rest assured it’s unloaded.” The tone was dry. “And men like Napoleon never give without expecting something in return. You know that. The emperor actually does want your advice about tactics and aerial maneuvers. And he thinks you’ve become confused about what each side stands for. Therefore, he commands you and your wife to attend him in the first public display of imperial ceremony.”

“Astiza as well?”

“He’s created a new Legion of Honor to which every Frenchman will aspire, and he’s betting it will remind you of what the new France is all about.”

“And what is it you are about again?”

“Reforming Europe, restoring honor, and institutionalizing ideals. This country is the future, Monsieur Gage. And despite your transgressions, you’re still invited to be a part 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.”