Having done his best to tidy his hair, he went downstairs. Again the depressed-looking scattering of officers in the big, echoing hall took scant notice of him, apart from a few of them nodding a greeting; as they imagined him to be of no particular interest and fust another unfortunate condemned to share their dreary existence. But one young man stood up, smiled and said:
'Monsieur, there are few grounds for welcoming you here, but at least it is pleasant to see a new face in our unhappy company. I am Captain Pierre d'Esperbes of the Hussars of Conflans, at your service.'
Roger returned his smile. 'Indeed, then you must be a brave fellow, since you hold that rank under such a dashing commander as Brigadier Gerard. I am happy to make your acquaintance. My name is Breuc, and I have the honour to be a member of His Imperial Majesty's personal staff.'
There was a sudden tension perceptible among the other officers. Those who were napping sat up. The four at the card table ceased playing and one of them exclaimed, 'Not "le brave Breuc", the hero of a hundred exploits and the man who saved the Emperor from assassination when we were in Venice?'
'I am called that, although quite unworthy of the soubriquet,' Roger replied modestly. 'I am sure that I have done nothing that any of you might not have done had you been in my place at the time.'
They all came to their feet and crowded round him, plying him with questions. 'How long have you been a prisoner?' 'How did you come to be captured?' 'Your limp implies that you were wounded in the leg; have you just come from the hospital?' 'Have you any news of how the campaign is going?' 'How comes it that your uniform has been so stripped of all signs of your rank so that we took you for a junior officer of little account?'
For the next twenty minutes, Roger gave his new companions an account of what had befallen him. Then they were summoned to their evening meal. In a long, dimly-lit room they partook of it. The food was plentiful, but uninteresting. There was no wine which, being a life-long accompaniment of every meal, these Frenchmen bitterly resented; but each of them was provided with a good ration of vodka.
During the meal and after, when they had adjourned to the hall, Roger was plied with questions about the Emperor. In the now huge French Army, very few junior officers had ever been spoken to by him or met any member of the Bonaparte family; and they were eager to hear what the great man and his horde of relatives were really like.
Roger spoke with great admiration of his master as an administrator as well as a general. Then when he came to the family, he was careful that his criticisms should not sound too malicious.
Napoleon's mother, Letizia, he said, was a woman of immense determination, but narrow mind. Left a widow, she had overcome every sort of difficulty to bring her large family up to be honest and God-fearing. A typical Corsican, she had once remarked that, if faced with a vendetta, she could count on two hundred kinsmen to take up their weapons on her behalf. Her native language was an Italian patois, and she could still talk French only with difficulty. She had flatly refused to play any part in Napoleon's self-aggrandisement so, perforce, he had had to content himself with styling her simply as 'Madame Mere'. When her other children were in trouble, she always took the side of the weakest. She strongly disapproved of the splendour with which Napoleon, as Emperor, now surrounded himself; could not be convinced that his incredible rise to power would be lasting and hoarded the greater part of the huge income he insisted on giving her, so that, in the event of disaster overwhelming him and the Kings, Princes and Princesses into which he had made her other children, she would have enough money to support them all. She was religious, austere and, on occasion, could even browbeat her greatest son into giving way to her wishes.
The only person from whom Madame Mere would take advice was her half-brother, Joseph Fesch, a little abbe who, during Napoleon's first glorious campaign in Italy, had temporarily abandoned the Church to become an army contractor, and made a small fortune out of selling his 'nephew' equipment of dubious quality. He had then returned to his religious duties and, when Napoleon had made his Concordat with the Pope, included in the deal had been the elevation of 'Uncle' Fesch to Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons. Still able and avaricious where money was concerned, he now owned vast properties and was extremely rich.
Joseph, the eldest of Letizia's sons, had been trained as a lawyer, and was a very able man. Fat, good-natured and honest, he gave Napoleon less trouble than his younger brothers. But he was no diplomat, a worse soldier and a poor administrator. The Emperor had, a few months earlier, actually had to push him into becoming King of Naples, as he would have much preferred a quiet life without responsibilities.
Luden, a tall, awkward fellow with gangling limbs, was the enfant terrible of the family. From his teens, he had been a red-hot Revolutionary; even changing his name to Brutus. A Deputy of the Convention, chance had elevated him to be its President during the month of the coup d'etat and he had made a major contribution to Napoleon's becoming First Consul. But he had done everything possible to obstruct his brother's ambitious measures to make himself a dictator. Although he declared himself to be a true representative of the people, he had not scrupled, as Minister of the Interior, to divert millions of francs from the Treasury into his own pocket, and to use his power to advance the fortunes of a score of ambitious men as the price of their wives becoming temporarily his mistresses; for he was a born lecher. At length, glutted with enough gold to make him independent of his brother for life, he had quarrelled violently with him, and had taken himself off as a private citizen to Italy. Roger declared roundly that he despised and loathed him.
Napoleon, when a poor student at the Ecole de la Guerre, had sent for his brother, Louis, to Paris to share his cheap lodging, and had, himself, educated the boy. For years the Emperor had been under the delusion that Louis had the makings of a military genius. But Louis detested soldiering, and proved a great disappointment. Josephine, in the hope of getting a foot into the camp of her husband's family, who loathed her, had pushed her daughter, Hortense dc Beauharnais, into marrying Louis. As they disliked each other intensely, the marriage was far from being a success. Louis had become a neurotic, jealous, hypochondriac. Adamantly determined on the aggrandisement of his family, Napoleon had made him King of Holland; but he was disliked by all who came in contact with him and, with gross ingratitude, did everything he could to cause trouble for his illustrious brother.
Jerome, the youngest son, had proved equally troublesome. He had been put into the Navy. In 1803, during a courtesy visit by his ship to the United States, he had gone ashore at Baltimore, and there had been so feted as 'the brother of the already legendary First Consul, General Bonaparte, that he had stayed on without leave, fallen in love with a Miss Elizabeth Paterson, the daughter of a merchant, and married her. Napoleon, having already conceived the ambition of marrying off his brothers and sisters to Princesses and Princes, was furious. In vain he had endeavoured to persuade the Pope to annul the marriage; then, not to be thwarted, when he became Emperor, he had dissolved it by an Imperial decree. Greatly disgruntled, Jerome had returned to France and, in the previous autumn, had sullenly obeyed his all-powerful brother's order to marry the Princess Catherine of Wurttemberg.