Napoleon had laid down the strategy to be followed by his Marshals. Gouvion St. Cyr was to clean up Catalonia, Victor was to destroy the Spanish army in Andalusia, Ney was to hold down Galicia while Soult advanced from there to take Oporto, then Lisbon. In mid-March Victor crossed the Tagus and defeated the Spanish regulars, but was so weakened that, without reinforcements, which King Joseph in Madrid could not send him, decided that he dare advance no further. Towards the end of the month Soult arrived in front of Oporto. Led by the Bishop, thirty thousand insurgents put up a most heroic resistance; but, lacking even a semblance of organisation, were massacred by the thousand. Having captured the city, but still surrounded on all sides by hordes of enemies, Soult, too, felt he dared advance no further.
Such was the situation when, on April 22nd, Wellesley landed in Lisbon. With twenty-five thousand British troops and sixteen thousand Portuguese, he decided that he was strong enough to defeat first Soult, then Victor. Marching northwards, he carried out a most daring crossing of the Douro where the cliffs were so steep that Soult had left the river unguarded. Taken by surprise, the French Marshal was chased out of Oporto, then found himself cut off by dispositions Wellesley had made. In despair, he burned his baggage, sacrificed his plunder and abandoned his artillery. The remnants of his shattered corps, reduced to a starving rabble, made their way as best they could by goat tracks over the mountains back to Galicia.
No such major disaster as the destruction of an entire French Army Corps took place in northern Europe; but there were portents of trouble to come. Sickened by the pusillanimity of his King, Frederick von Schill, who commanded a regiment of Prussian Hussars, left Berlin with them on April 28th. He endeavoured to surprise the French and take from them the great fortress of Magdeburg. In that he failed, but in other anions he met with considerable success, including the capture of Stralsund. But there he was overwhelmed by Napoleon's Danish and Dutch troops and mortally wounded.
Schill’s gallant exploits raised the patriotic fervour of his countrymen to fever-pitch and incited the young Duke of Brunswick to follow his example. He had formed a corps of volunteers in Bohemia. With them he invaded Saxony and, on June nth, captured Dresden. After several times defeating the troops of Napoleon's brother, King Jerome, in Westphalia, the Duke decided to fight his way right across Germany. After many perilous encounters, he succeeded, and with his men was taken off by British ships to England. His little troop became the nucleus of the 'King's German Legion', that later fought with great gallantry under Wellington in Spain.
During the battle of Aspern-Essling, while carrying a message from the Emperor to Massena, a bullet had knocked Roger's hat from his head and ploughed through his scalp. It was not a serious wound, but resulted in his being sent, after a few days on Lobau, with one of the batches of casualties, into Vienna for treatment by a civilian doctor.
There, he found that Duroc was already allocating accommodation in the Schonbrunn Palace, in anticipation of the arrival of the Court. Since the Palace would also be used as
Great Headquarters, it was certain that it would be crowded and very noisy. As additional accommodation, Duroc had commandeered a number of small private houses just outside the Park. Roger suffered from severe headaches as a result of his wound, so he was anxious to secure quarters where he would be as quiet as possible, and he asked Duroc if he might occupy one of the houses. His old friend readily granted his request.
It was a pleasant little, double-fronted villa, with a wing consisting of stables and coach house at ground level and servants' quarters above. To the right of the front door, a drawing room ran the whole depth of the house, with a similar room as best bedroom on the first floor. To the left, there was a small dining room and kitchen, with two more bedrooms over. Opposite the top of the stairs, between the big bedroom and the other, smaller room at the back, was a slip room which could be entered from either. It could have been used as a dressing room, but Roger saw that it had been fitted up as a clothes closet.
At the back of the house there was a verandah, and along the first floor a broad, covered balcony looking out on a half an acre of pleasant garden. Roger decided that he would leave the big bedroom to Lisala, and himself occupy the smaller one further along the balcony. There, with his soldier servant and groom to serve him, he rested for some days, getting up only for meals and strolls round the garden, until his scalp had healed and his headaches ceased.
By that time, Napoleon was living in the Palace and Roger reported back for duty. A week later the Court arrived and, as one of the Empress' ladies, Lisala. She was, Roger had to admit to himself, as beautiful as ever; but she stirred no trace of desire in him. Treating her with the same politeness he had shown her in Paris, he took her to the little house. She was enchanted with it, and declared that she wished she could laze away the summer days in the garden instead of having to attend on Josephine. However, hardly had she settled in than, to his intense annoyance, she produced another sheaf of bills that considerably exceeded the one thousand francs a month he had agreed to allow her.
There followed a violent quarrel. She maintained that, in her position, it was essential always to appear in the latest mode. He argued that other ladies-in-waiting did not always do so and were far less extravagant. She had found out from someone what his pay and allowances amounted to, and declared that he could well afford to indulge her tastes. He admitted that he could, but only within reason, and he would soon be beggared if she continued to run up bills at this pace. She remarked with a smile that spies who had given themselves away should not grumble at having to pay for their continued immunity. Seething with anger, he agreed to settle her bills, then stamped out of the house.
For the hundredth time he contemplated the terrible fix into which he had got himself, and felt that to go on like this indefinitely was impossible. Yet only two alternatives offered themselves. One was to kill her, the other was to throw in his hand, quietly slip away from Vienna, then make his way to England.
During his time, Roger had caused many men to die violent deaths, but to murder a woman in cold blood was a very different matter and, although he had come to hate Lisala, he knew he could not kill her. He was almost equally reluctant to free himself from her by absconding, because he felt that Europe was now hovering on the brink of the greatest crisis that had arisen for many years. It needed only one major defeat of Napoleon by the Archduke Charles to bring about the Emperor's fall. In adversity, every hand would be against him. In Paris, Talleyrand and Fouche, backed by many of the Marshals, would seize power. Both of them knew the truth about Roger, so he would then have nothing to fear. He could divorce Lisala and send her packing.
While continuing with her, he had only one consolation. So far no rumour had reached him that she had taken a lover. Her nature being as it was, he had little doubt that, after he left Paris, she had had one or more, and that she would shortly select one here in Vienna. But at least she was exercising discretion in her amours. Perhaps because she had taken seriously his threat that, should she fail to do so, he would kill her. In any case, she had not as yet brought public ridicule upon him.
During the last half of June Schonbrunn became nightly the scene of balls, operas, plays and brilliant receptions. The Emperor appeared at them all, attended by his subject Kings and Princes, and giving the impression that he considered the war with Austria as good as over. But, during the days and far into the nights, he was in his Cabinet, working with frantic energy to build up the army that still occupied the island of Lobau.