“Would the gentleman care to look at my pictures?” a travelling salesman called out the following day, whilst arranging his wares along the château railing. “I’ve got every kind imaginable, all in colour: scenes of great battles, grand reviews, and notable figures.”
Without hesitation, Agénor hurried over to the man.
“Let me show you first,” continued the salesman with practised enthusiasm, “the illustrious, the greeeeat Napoleon himself, flanked by—”
Before he could conclude his pitch, the illustrious Napoleon—now battered, tattered, and misshapen from a well-aimed punch—lay measuring its full length upon the ground.
The boy had taken to his heels without delay. They settled accounts with the hawker, who was beside himself with rage, and come suppertime, perhaps with appetites whetted by such a fracas, Robert de Cluses and Abbé Robiquet went on and on with their diatribes, treading and retreading the familiar grounds of their hatred.
As a rule, the youngster would absorb their words whilst suspended in a wistful daze, his mind adrift and billowing, digesting the ceaseless readings that had been imposed with such cruel selectivity. But this minor accomplishment, which loomed large in his childish self-esteem, made him feel more grown-up and sparked his interest in day-to-day happenings.
Tears came to his eyes when he learnt of the initial Russian reverses: Ostrowno, Smolensk, Borodino(21). Should someone have enquired what caused his weeping, bashful and emotionally bewildered as he was, he would likely have been unable to provide a thoughtful explanation. In this way, many things mature in the liminal spaces of young life that struggle to make themselves known. Even so, he could feel that those far-off musket volleys were somehow attacking his upbringing, his father’s principles, his planned future, his possible calling—and such awareness, fleetingly, threw him into complete turmoil.
Reports reached him of Moscow in flames. Then, with autumn’s icy grip taking hold, the papers proclaimed that the Grand Army was entertaining thoughts of retreat, despite its accustomed string of victories. There, moving through Slavic territories that were verdure-less, mucky, and frozen hard, with snow either tumbling in clusters or spinning like fine powder, with deluging rains cascading without mercy, with the wind screaming until it lost its voice, four score thousand warriors—the heroic wreckage of an army—bore a hodgepodge of uniforms bit by bit drained of their colours, sliced by cavalry sabres, begrimed with filth and black powder, and stretched out into a stupendous file that each hour found hungrier and more dejected, whilst Cossack raiders picked them off steadily. Wellington routed Marmont’s forces near Salamanca; Malet’s treasonous plot was exposed; Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Spain, and eventually Austria joined together in the sixth coalition. Napoleon kept his head held high. And as France found herself invaded post-Leipzig, one witnessed this strange spectacle: a relatively meagre band of soldiers, most often victorious, compelled to fall back, to forever fall back before an ever-renewing ring of iron, before a rising tide of nations. Of what use were Saint-Dizier, Brienne, Champaubert, Montmirail, Château-Thierry, Vauchamps, Mornant, Nangis and Donnemarie, Soissons, Craonne and Reims—meaningless bloodbaths, glories as brief as shooting stars! Double-crossed by some, half-heartedly helped by others, despised, sabotaged, stripped of power, Napoleon fell to pieces(22).
The lordly mansion of Juvigny erupted in absolute joy. A Te Deum was sung there. Robert de Cluses went to Calais, threw in his lot with Louis XVIII, allowed himself to be made general, and after the consequent intoxication of success had worn off, straightaway summoned his son and Abbé Robiquet to the new establishment he had secured. The boy was preparing to take his first communion.
They rushed him through the ceremony come what may, then quit Juvigny aboard the mail coach as May flowers came into bloom, traversing landscape where, dotted here and there as they neared Paris, tree-crowned ruins were crumbling and boroughs split asunder by war stood agape. Foxtails flapped at the team’s heads; their rings of bells tinkled without pause; the diligence unloaded passengers whilst taking on fresh ones; and upon entering towns, throughout the byways, the coachman showered all comers with stirring trumpet blasts.
“I summoned you both here,” Robert de Cluses told them upon arrival, “because the political ground seems solid to me now, and Agénor must see something of life, must come to know his people and establish friendships.”
And the youth’s days continued—more agitated days, days filled with surprises—during which, now treated with adult consideration, he maintained his own lodgings, a fashionable gig, two mounts, and his private valet. He was also of fairly impressive height and gave every indication of growing into a handsome fellow.
Up betimes, he would go riding until eight in the morning, applied himself to Abbé Robiquet’s lessons till noon, took his luncheon, loafed briefly, picked up his studies again, dressed properly, and between four and seven o’clock, either in his father’s company on selected days or under his tutor’s watchful eye, he made social calls, toured the sights and exhibitions, and invariably ended by taking the air in whatever garden happened to be in vogue.
There, facing the Tuileries, whilst the scarlet sun of late afternoon sank towards the Arc de Triomphe, setting fire to the sprouting chestnuts and centennial elms, lingering amongst the shade-flecked gravel walks, taking pleasure in flooding the garden beds with its dying light, Agénor—whom feminine allure and splendour were already beginning to rouse—indulged his gaze in princely delight. It was the season of Russian-inspired hats in crinkled black satin doubled with luminous silk, of Pamela styles topped with a rose, of fabrics in blue, green, seedling-green, bronze, buff, and pearl-mouse tints joyfully adorned with diverse florals and variegated stripes—the age of canezous(23), tartan gowns, and English-cut half-boots. And a vernal crowd meandered through the groves, settled here and there, gossiped, showed itself off—the supremely fashionable women exposing generous portions of their shoulders and décolletage, a multitude of men decorated with white badges and tightly fitted in long-skirted coats and waistcoats banded with crosswise stripes.
“The hour grows late, dear boy… We must make haste, we must make haste,” Abbé Robiquet never stopped muttering, made anxious by the press of humanity.
The passing years had done nothing to him; and he stepped along, pink-faced and scrawny, his restless Adam’s apple relatively still for once. In the interim, Marie-Thérèse of France selected the Marquis de Cluses as her gentleman-in-waiting, and from then on he graced his home only at lengthy intervals.
Yet one night, his court attendance ended, he hurried home to his residence at the fastest trot his team could sustain, and when the clock chimed twelve, he headed towards Agénor’s sleeping quarters.
“Pardon me for waking you, but Her Majesty granted me the privilege of asking about you, of indicating that you ought to be presented… Shall we arrange it for tomorrow?”
All of a tremble, his lids heavy with drowsiness, Agénor, suddenly and confusedly awake, responded:
“Of course, tomorrow… as early as can be arranged.”
Thereupon, his father’s kiss alighting on his brow, he underwent a fit of complete, personal elation that eased him back onto his bolsters, his look reflective.
“Are you happy about it, then?” the Marquis wanted to know.
Happy? He could hardly contain himself!
He stayed awake three hours straight, his intellect in gestation, his soul in turmoil, shoring up a myriad of absurdities, considering what he might tell the king, imagining he could dazzle him with his premature virile wisdom, even presuming to hope—knowing the king to be industrious—to quote Louis XIV’s dictum: “that rule comes through effort; that desiring one without the other demonstrates thanklessness and impudence before God, wrongdoing and tyranny before men,” thereby paying him a clever and oblique compliment, possibly even winning him over, as the young Cinq-Mars(24) had once won over Louis XIII.
Out of his many suits, he’d already settled on a cloth jacket and yellow breeches piped in blue. He dozed off whilst, in the library with windows thrown open, a matinal grey radiance softening the night sky, his father and Abbé Robiquet stayed up discussing politics: the first content, trusting, well-fed; the second entirely acrid with unease, judging it wicked to flout the Charter, wicked to glorify Cadoudal and Moreau’s memory, preposterous that Dupont—who capitulated at Bailén—should be named the new minister of war, perilous the hauteur of the overly-favoured émigrés, and vain, alack! utterly vain, the pensioning off under fraudulent excuses of twelve to fifteen thousand deserving officers whose insignia no traitorous deed had ever besmirched(25).
On the morrow, as the intensity of a stormy afternoon was abating, Agénor and his father alighted from their coach at the Tuileries, one wearing his general’s formal attire with upright collar, completely bedecked with oak-leaf motifs, the other red-cheeked, in the jacket he had first picked out.
They went up a flight of stairs, traversed an antechamber, wound through a sequence of reception rooms where, his temples hammering, his earlier musings fleeing helter-skelter, Agénor—deadened, refined to spirit, having lost all power of sight—could make out neither the frescoed ceilings, nor the deluges of light flooding through tall casements, nor the panelling heavy with gilt, nor the palace staff. They debouched into a vast chamber where only three guard officers lingered, in red and gold.
“Private audience!” announced Robert de Cluses.
And, taking hold of his son’s hand, he let himself be guided by a lieutenant.
A door came open; the officer moved aside, disappeared. They found themselves before Louis XVIII, unpretentiously garbed in blue cloth, his neck girdled with black satin, seated beside a table whose maroon drape hung down to the wooden floor. In this way the king had long since split his grotesque fatness into two parts, the better to disguise the most unsightly portion.
“Ah! It is you, Marquis,” he exclaimed, in a pleasant voice with a dull timbre. “And this is your child!… I am charmed to see him.”
Agénor bowed above the bloodless, fleshy hand proffered to him, and with a single glance, he could not stop himself from examining the man whom countless reverent conversations had portrayed to him.
He didn’t remind one of Louis XIV at all!
“A delightful young fellow, truly!” continued the erstwhile Count of Lille. “Splendid eyes! The Marquise, his mother—she was English, was she not?”
“Your Majesty, she was Lord Gainsborough’s daughter, with whom Your Majesty was, I believe, acquainted,” Robert de Cluses answered.
They discussed briefly the late lord, his bloodline, London, the days of exile, various other matters—Agénor speechless, unmoving, thoroughly affected, his heart glowing. Then, after a quarter of an hour had gone by, the king said:
“You will place this young man in my care, will you not, Marquis? If he has an inclination for military service, we’ll make him an officer of my guard; if he finds the uniform disagreeable, we’ll attempt to make him a diplomat… I pledge not to forget him.”
Robert de Cluses was about to render thanks, but with a slight bow of his head, Louis XVIII sent away his two callers, and they retired amid endless courtesies.
Captivated, at the summit of pride and rapture, Agénor took leave of his father, withdrew from the Tuileries, and from the Place du Carrousel to the Hôtel de Cluses, in intimate and youthful transports, he continued completely lost in thought, recreating the King, his coin-like profile, his wide countenance with eyes so keen, mouth so refined, and his locks—his lengthy white-as-snow locks, which a slender black band collected at the back.
And, going back to his first impression, he persistently worked to amalgamate Louis XIV and Louis XVIII, now had virtually a craving to detect a bodily likeness between them, even coerced himself into finding one, utterly dim, utterly misty, utterly surface-deep, so greatly did he crave it, so wildly did the wanderings of his desire bubble forth thoughtlessly.
“Well then?” questioned Abbé Robiquet when Agénor entered the loft where he lived, a loft which, by his explicit wish, a table, an iron bed, a crucifix and roughly a hundred books alone embellished—the very habitation of a hermit.
The lad was beaming.
“If only you knew!” he proclaimed. “His Majesty was all graciousness, all kindness to me!… I must have struck him as terribly ungainly, of course! I kept my lips sealed the entire time.”
“Nonsense, my dear boy,” declared the abbé. “What service would it have rendered you to conduct yourself otherwise?… Does one need to babble to win favour at your stage of life?… The greater one’s restraint, the more—”
But Agénor stopped him short:
“Now then! Monsieur, what would you suggest? Am I to be a diplomat, or an officer in His Majesty’s household?”
“The thing ask reflexion ,” enunciated the priest with a smile.
“Oh yes, certainly, I believe I am.”
Léon Hennique Novel 