'We can try. There's a large inn over there with a handsome sign.'

The Auberge du Palais, one of the oldest and best-appointed in the region, nestled its thick, ochre-coloured walls and roof of semi-circular Roman tiles up against the Porte de l'Oulle. That it was also a staging post for the diligence was attested by the presence in the yard of that vast, unwieldy vehicle, liberally coated with dust, in the process of disgorging its load of stiff and yawning passengers amid a babel of clanging bells, shouting postillions and joyful cries of greeting from those meeting or being met.

One of the postillions, standing on the roof of the coach, was engaged in handing down boxes, portmanteaux and parcels belonging to the passengers to one of the inn servants. When all the luggage had been unloaded, he picked up several bundles of newspapers and tossed them down also. They were copies of the Moniteur from Paris; one of the bundles burst when the ostler failed to catch it, scattering the papers on the ground.

A stable boy sprang forward to retrieve them but, as he did so, his eye fell on the news contained in the front page and he let out a shout.

'Holy Virgin! Napoleon has sent old Fouché packing. How's that for news!'

There was uproar as patrons and inn servants began talking at once.

'Fouché dismissed? Surely not!'

'Bah! The Emperor must have had enough of him at last.'

'No, you're wrong there. The Emperor's done it to please his new Empress. She wouldn't want to be meeting him every day, not one of the old regicides from the Revolution who sent her uncle to his death!'

Some were delighted at the news, others merely amazed. Provence had never wholly supported the new regime. The region had remained royalist at heart and Fouché's fall was greeted on the whole as a hopeful sign.

Gracchus had remained on his box, observing the little scene, but now Marianne leaned out and called to him again.

'Go and fetch me one of those newspapers,' she said, 'and hurry!'

'At once, my lady. As soon as I have bespoke your lodging.'

'No. This minute! If these people are right, we may not be staying here after all.'

The news concerned her closely. It seemed almost too good to be true that her old persecutor Fouché, the man who had dared, by threats, to introduce her into Talleyrand's household as a spy, who had failed to save her from falling into the hands of Fanchon Fleur-de-Lis and who, worst of all, had permitted Francis Cranmere to roam Paris at liberty, should really have lost the dangerous power which had made him the secret master of the whole country. Marianne could scarcely believe it.

Yet, when she held the paper in her hands, yellowed and dusty from its long journey, she was obliged to accept the evidence of her eyes. Not content with the bare announcement that the Duke of Otranto had been succeeded as head of the Ministry of Police by Savary, the Duke of Rovigo, the Moniteur also published the text of the Emperor's official letter to Fouché.

'The services which you have rendered me on various occasions,' the Emperor wrote, 'have led us to entrust to you the governorship of Rome until such time as Article 8 of the Constitution Act of 17 February 1810 shall come into effect. We expect that you will continue, in this new post, to give further proof of your zeal in our service and devotion to our person…'

Crumpling the paper nervously between her hands, Marianne allowed the joyful news to sink in. It was better even than she had hoped! Exiled! Fouché had been exiled! For there was no mistaking the real meaning of his appointment as governor of Rome; Napoleon wanted Fouché away from Paris. Another item of news, placed at a sufficient distance from that of Fouché's dismissal to ensure that no connection between the two should occur to the man in the street, caught Marianne's eye. On the very day of Fouché's 'retirement', the banker Ouvrard had been arrested in the salon of a brilliant Parisienne hostess, on charges of malversation and acting against the interests of the state. Marianne's thoughts went instantly to Fortunée and the threats which she had uttered against her lover. Had she been responsible for Ouvrard's arrest? And, if that were so, was it through her that Napoleon had learned of Fouché's secret negotiations with England? She was perfectly capable of it, for she was as vindictive to her enemies as she was loyal to her friends.

'What is your highness's will?'

Gracchus's everyday tones broke in on her reverie. After such news there could be no more question of dawdling on the way. She must get back, quickly. Now that he had lost his ally, Francis had ceased to be a danger. She favoured her youthful coachman with the most radiant smile seen on her lips since leaving Lucca.

'Drive on, Gracchus, as fast as you can! I want to be in Paris as soon as possible.'

'Your Highness has not forgotten we are not driving post horses now? If we drive the way we did on the outward journey, these will be done in well before Lyon. And that, if I may say so, would be a downright shame.'

'I don't mean to kill my horses but I want you to make the stages as long as you can. We will go on further tonight. Drive on.'

With a resigned sigh, Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche mounted his box and began taming the berline round, watched with a jaundiced eye by the landlord who had stepped out to welcome such an elegant equipage. Then, whipping up the horses, he set the coach bowling along the road to Orange.

It was nightfall when, after a striking demonstration of the stamina of Marianne's horses, the travelling berline, so splashed with mud and coated with dust that even the colour, let alone the crest, was scarcely to be seen, drew up at the Fontainebleau guard post.[3] Marianne could not repress a sigh of relief when she saw the lights in the doorways of the elegant buildings designed by Ledoux which marked the outer limits of the city of Paris. She had arrived at last.

The initial surge of joy which had swept over her at Avignon and sent her speeding along the road to Paris had, it was true, abated somewhat, as it had seemed to do also in the minds of the people she met as she approached the capital. As the towns and staging posts swept by, Marianne had very soon made the discovery that Fouché's dismissal was regarded for the most part in the light of a catastrophe. This was not so much out of any affection for Fouché himself as from a universal dislike of his successor. People feared Savary for his blind devotion to his master; he was the imperial policeman, a man capable of carrying out any order, however monstrous, without blenching. As a result, Marianne had learned to her amazement that, in their alarm and bewilderment, the people of France had begun to think of the slippery Fouché as almost a saint, and regret his departure.

Well, I at least will never regret him!' she told herself, remembering bitterly all that she had suffered at his hands. 'Besides, this Savary has never done me any harm. I have never met him, and I can't see that I need have anything to fear from his appointment.'

However, she could not repress a certain irritation when she saw the men on duty at the guard post paying unwontedly close attention to her coach.

'May I ask what you expect to find?' she snapped sharply. 'I suppose you imagine I am carrying a keg of brandy concealed under my cushions?'

'Orders are orders, madame.' The reply came from a gendarme who emerged at that moment from the guardhouse. 'All carriages entering Paris to be searched, especially those coming from a distance. Where are you from, madame?'

'From Italy,' Marianne said tartly. 'And I promise you I have no contraband goods, or conspirators in my coach. I am merely returning home.'

'Then I daresay you'll have a passport,' the gendarme said, smiling unpleasantly and revealing in the process a set of startlingly white teeth framed in the bristly thatch of his moustache. 'A passport in the name of the Duke of Otranto, perhaps?'

It did not appear that such passports would be well received and Marianne blessed the fate that had made her, henceforth, a loyal subject of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Proudly, she produced the passport which Count Gherardesca had presented to her three days after her marriage.

'This bears the signature of her Imperial Highness, Princess Elisa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Princess of Lucca and Piombino – and sister to his Majesty, the Emperor and King, as you may perhaps be aware,' she added ironically, taking a sardonic pleasure in retailing the impressive list of titles. However, the gendarme seemed impervious to irony. He was heavily engaged in spelling out the name inscribed on the official document by the light of the lantern.

'Marianne Elizabeth d'Assel… nat de Villeneuve… Princess… Sarta – no, Santa Anna…'

'Sant'Anna,' Marianne corrected sharply. 'Now may I return to my coach and continue my journey? I am extremely tired – and it is starting to rain.'

Big, round drops, heavy as coins, were beginning to fall, making small craters in the dust around the coach, but the gendarme in his cocked hat appeared not to notice it. He was eyeing Marianne suspiciously.

'You can get back in, but don't move on. I've got to check something.'

'Just what, I'd like to know?' Marianne raged, as the man vanished into the guardhouse with her passport. 'Does the oaf imagine that my papers are false?'

The answer came from an old market gardener with a cart full of cabbages who had drawn up alongside the berline.

'No use getting impatient, m'dame. It's the same for everyone, every bloody day standing in the bloody rain! They've got so ruddy nosey you wouldn't believe! I can tell you, I've been made to unload a whole cart of cabbages, just in case I might be hiding some bleeding conspirator.'