'What is that?' She asked in a low voice, sensing instinctively that whatever it was, it belonged to the dead.
'Versailles,' he said.
Marianne caught her breath. The sun had gone in, as though unwilling to shine on the deserted dwelling of him who had taken it for his empire. The huge, empty palace slept in the grey light of a winter day, lightly shrouded in mist, while nature led the slow assault on its pure line with the relentless advance of moss grown terraces and neglected gardens. The great spectre of departed royalty was so poignant that Marianne turned to the Emperor with eyes filled with tears. But the face she saw might have been carved from the same stone as the statues in the park.
'I can do nothing for it,' he said at last, gazing with brooding eyes on the huge, hollow monument. 'The people might rise against me if I so much as tried to restore it. The time is not yet. The people could not understand.'
'A pity. It would suit you so well—'
He thanked her with a smile and laid his hand over hers as it rested on his arm.
'I have sometimes dreamed. But one day, I too shall build a palace worthy of my power. On the hill of Chaillot probably. There are plans already. But there are still too many memories attached to this one, too many memories which the people still hate.'
Marianne said nothing. She dared not say that the imminent arrival of a niece of that martyred queen might well affect the French people more than the employment of a few hundred workmen at Versailles. Besides, she too had her memories. It was in the chapel of this palace, visible from where they stood, in the days when it seemed that Versailles must live forever, that her mother had been married. But she made no attempt to ask him to go nearer so as to see the chapel. She was too much afraid of feeling again the grief that had pierced her heart as she pushed open the door of her own ruined house. Instead, she only pressed a little closer to Napoleon and asked to go back.
In silence, as they had come, each wrapped up in their own thoughts, they made their way back to the Trianon from which a troop of mounted couriers was at that moment setting out in all directions, carrying the morning's letters. It was also time for the changing of the guard and all this gave to the palace an air of bustling activity.
But instead of returning to his desk as Constant had predicted, Napoleon led Marianne straight back to their bedroom and shut the door. Without a word, but with a desperate ardour that seemed as though it would never be quenched, he made love to her as he had never done before. It was as though he sought to draw from her young body all its reserves of fresh strength and energy to help him fight the invading shadows of the past. Perhaps he was trying in some way to combat an unacknowledged dread of the unknown Viennese in whose veins ran some of the blood of the Sun King himself.
Then, with no explanation beyond a long kiss and a brief 'See you later', he vanished, leaving her alone in the untidy room, an island of quiet in the midst of the Palace humming like a hive with military orders, the clatter and the coming and going of servants. But when, a few minutes later Constant entered gravely bearing a laden tray, Marianne had done her hair, restored some order to her clothes, and even made the bed, so embarrassed was she at what the solemn valet might think. She was very far, as yet, from having acquired the traditional shamelessness of a royal favourite.
However, this did not prevent her from devouring everything Constant set before her with the utmost enjoyment. The keen morning air and the lovemaking which followed had sharpened an already considerable appetite. When she had finished, she glanced at the valet gratefully.
'Thank you,' she said. 'That was lovely – though I doubt I shall be able to eat a mouthful at dinner.'
'I should not be so sure of that. In theory, dinner is at six, but if the Emperor takes it into his head to work later, he may well dine three or four hours after that.'
'It can't be fit to eat.'
'Not at all. The cooks have orders to keep something always ready, even if only a roast chicken. They put a fresh one on the spit every quarter of an hour, so that one is always ready when his majesty wishes to sit down.'
'And – do they get through a great many that way?'
'On one occasion, mademoiselle, we attained the figure of twenty-three,' he told her with pride. 'So mademoiselle has plenty of time in which to recover her appetite. I might add that most of those honoured with an invitation to the Imperial table are accustomed to take some precautions beforehand. If not, they are unlikely to satisfy themselves in ten minutes, especially as they are generally obliged to answer the Emperor, who talks incessantly without missing a mouthful.'
Marianne laughed. She enjoyed discovering Napoleon's little oddities, but, however surprising, she was much more inclined to find them funny than shocking. She loved him too well for that.
'Never mind, Constant,' she said. 'One does not need food when one is with the Emperor. That is enough in itself.'
The valet's broad, pale face was suddenly serious. He nodded.
'Mademoiselle says so because she truly loves the Emperor. But not everyone thinks as she does.'
'Are there really people who do not love him? Truly, I can't imagine it.'
'How could it be otherwise? He is so great, so powerful, so far above the common run of men! But he was not born to a throne and there are those who would a hundred times rather see the crown on the head of some half-witted scion of a royal house than worn by a man of genius who frightens them and makes them see themselves for what they are. Inferiority is never an agreeable sensation. There are some who avenge themselves by jealousy, hatred and ambition – he can trust no-one. His marshals are envious and think for the most part that they would have made better sovereigns than he, his family plague him constantly, his friends, or those who claim to be his friends, are for the most part only thinking of what they can get out of him – only his soldiers give him a simple, honest love. And that poor, sweet Empress who loved him and cared for him like a child she was never able to give him.'
Constant was speaking now without looking at Marianne and she realized that this was probably the first time he had spoken his thoughts aloud for a very long time. And he was doing it because he had sensed that Marianne truly loved the master he revered. When she spoke, it was so softly as to be almost a whisper.
'I know all that. The Grand Marshal said something of the kind yesterday and I have met the Empress. But what do you think of the one who is to come?'
Constant seemed to come back again to the real world. He shook his head, picked up the tray and moved a few steps towards the door as though unwilling to reply. But before opening it, he turned to Marianne and smiled rather sadly.
'What do I think, mademoiselle? Saving the respect I owe him, exactly what the grumblers of his Old Guard think as they sit round their fire. "The Tondu ought not to have sent his old woman packing! She brought him luck – and us too!'"
'The Tondu?'
'That's what they call him, and sometimes the Little Corporal, or Puss in Boots, or Père la Violette. I told you they worshipped him! They're old devils who fought their way through a good many campaigns and they are not often wrong! I'm afraid they may be right again. It wasn't an Empress from the Danube that he needed.'
That night, just as she was dropping off to sleep, her body overwhelmed by a delicious weariness, Marianne was surprised to see Napoleon leap out of bed, stark naked, as though the building were on fire. He put on his white flannel dressing gown and slippers, wound a white silk scarf about his head and, picking up a candlestick, was already making for his office when Marianne sat up amid the pillows and asked, like any young bride: 'Where are you going?'
'To work. Go to sleep!'
'Again? But what time is it?'
'Half past twelve. Go to sleep I tell you.'
'Not without you! Come here—'
She held out her arms, confident in the power her beauty had over his awakened senses. But he frowned and made as if to go. Then he seemed change his mind, put down the candle and came back to the bed. Marianne closed her eyes, but instead of kissing her parted lips he merely tweaked her ear hard.
'I have already told you you are a dreadful siren, mio dolce amore, but don't abuse your power. I have just sent the comte de Narbonne back to Munich as Ambassador with the King of Bavaria and I have important despatches to send him. Besides that, some rogues have been circulating counterfeit coins among the soldiers of one of my Irish regiments stationed at Limoges and I forgot to deal with it—'
'State affairs, never anything but state affairs!' Marianne complained, tears starting to her eyes. 'I have so little of you to myself – and for so little time! You promised me a week.'
'And you have it. If you were the Empress, you would not have me for more than a few minutes a day, or not much more at least. I have cleared a space around us so as to be able to love you. Do not ask for more—'
'I wish I could help you – I mean, be useful to you in some way. I am nothing but an instrument of pleasure, a kind of odalisque for a busy sultan!'
He was not smiling now. Taking Marianne's head in his two hands he forced it gently back on to the pillow and then bent over her until all he could see were her wide eyes, ringed now with a faint bluish shade.
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