Napoleon had, too, been unlucky in the matter of an alliance for his eldest sister, Eliza. In 1797, while he was in Italy, behind his back his mother had married her off to a Corsican landowner named Bacciocchi, a moron of a fellow who had taken sixteen years to rise from Second Lieutenant to Captain in the Army. Realising that no possible use could be made of him, Napoleon had given Bacciocchi a profitable administrative sinecure in Corsica, and sent them back there. Dumpy and plain, although physically less highly sexed than others of her family, Eliza's mind seized avidly upon everything to do with eroticism. A born blue-stocking, her great ambition was to become a famous patroness of the arts and letters. Having badgered Napoleon to allow her to return to Paris, she had started a salon. It failed to attract any but second-rate men of talent, and she made herself a laughing stock by designing an absurd uniform to be worn by all the members of a literary society she had formed. In due course, as Emperor and King of Italy Napoleon, much as he disliked her, had given her the Principalities of Piombino and Lucca; but she ruled them with such ability that he later said of her that she was his best Minister.
About Pauline, by far the loveliest of the sisters, and considered to be the most beautiful woman in Paris, Roger was somewhat reticent, refraining from disclosing that her beauty was equalled only by her lechery. In her teens, Napoleon had approved her marriage to General Leclerc, because he was an aristocrat. But Leclerc had died of yellow fever in Dominica. She had then become Roger's mistress but, during his enforced absence from Paris, married again, this time Prince Borghese—not because she loved him, but so that she might wear his fabulous family emeralds, and on account of his vast wealth. Borghese had proved a poor bed companion but, even had he not been, that could not have prevented pretty Pauline from enjoying her favourite pastime with a score of handsome young men, both before and after her second marriage. Napoleon had given her the Principality of Guestalla in her own right, but she was fated to derive little pleasure from it, as she loathed having to give up the magnificent palace in Paris on which she had spent a fortune in decorating with admirable taste; and she had since become the victim of chronic ill health.
The youngest sister, Caroline, had, apart from Napoleon, a better brain than any other Bonaparte. She also shared his ruthlessness and inordinate ambition, but not his generosity and loyalty to friends. When very young she had fallen in love with the flamboyant Murat, doggedly resisted all Napoleon's efforts to persuade her to accept other suitors that would have better served his own plans and, on leaving school, married the great cavalry leader.
On becoming Emperor, Napoleon had created Joseph's wife, Julie, and Louis' wife, Hortense, Imperial Highness; but he had not bestowed that rank on his three sisters. At a family celebration dinner at which he had announced these honours, Pauline was absent in Italy. The other two had been hardly able to contain their rage at his neglect of them, so had gone to the Tuileries next day. All the Bonapartes had extremely violent tempers and habitually threw the most appalling scenes whenever they suffered a disappointment. The two women had screamed abuse at their brother until he had agreed to make them, and Pauline, also Imperial Highnesses.
During 1806, the Emperor had entirely remade the map of Germany; first welding numerous small Principalities into the Confederation of the Rhine. He had then deprived various states of portions of their territories, to create the Grand Duchy of Berg-Cleves, and made the Murats its sovereigns. Caroline had since been busily dissipating its revenues but, her ambitions still unsatisfied, had packed her stupid, gallant husband off to Poland, in the hope that the Emperor would make him king of that country.
There remained the Emperor's stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais. Napoleon had always had a great fondness for him and, while still a boy, had taken him on his campaigns as an A.D.C. Eugene, although not brilliant, was honest, capable and devoted to his stepfather. In 1805, Napoleon had made him Viceroy of Italy and, in the following year, -formed another valuable alliance by marrying him off to the Princess Augusta of Bavaria.
Most of this was already known to Roger's audience, but they delighted in his personal descriptions of the Bonaparte family, their idiosyncrasies and the way in which they had battened upon their illustrious brother; costing the nation hundred of millions of francs, spent mostly in vulgar ostentation with the vain idea that they could impress the ancient sovereign families of Europe and be regarded by them as real royalties.
An elderly Major remarked, 'The "Little Corporal" has done so much to restore the greatness of France, that one can't grudge him the pleasure of showering benefits on his relations; but what does stick in my gills is the licence he allows his Marshals.'
'They, too, have some claim on France,' Roger replied,
'for many of them have made notable contributions to the Emperor's victories.'
'True enough. Ney at Ulm, Davoust at Auerstadt, and in the early days Augereau at Castiglione and Lannes at Areola. But so, for that matter, have we all. Yet the Marshals are given vast provinces to loot at will. Out of our wars they are making great fortunes, but not a fraction of it ever reaches us. We have to soldier on for nothing but our pay; and that is often in arrears.'
'I wouldn't object to that so much,' said a youngish Captain of Dragoons, 'if only the fighting would come to an end, and we could get home.'
At that there was a chorus of assent, and Roger knew that it now voiced a feeling general in the Army. Some of the older men had been campaigning in, or garrisoning, distant lands for ten years or more. Only by luck had their regiments now and then been brought back to France, thus enabling them to get leave to spend a short spell with their families.
Roger sympathised, but felt that in his position he was called on at least to make a show of upholding morale; so he said, 'It's hard on you gentlemen, I know. But the Emperor dare not make peace until he has smashed the Prussians and Russians for good and all. If he did, within a year or two we'd find ourselves back with the colours, having to prevent our enemies from invading France, instead of fighting them in their own country.'
'And what if we did?' retorted a Lieutenant of Engineers. 'France's natural frontier is the Rhine, and we could hold it without difficulty. If fight one must, at least let it be there where, between battles, we'd have the benefit of comfortable billets, ample food, good wine and women for the asking. Whereas, in this God-forsaken country, we are frozen, starved and hardly better off then the lice-ridden peasants who inhabit it.'
'Things will be better in the spring, and that's not far off now,' Roger said, in an endeavour to cheer them up. 'When the campaign reopens, it needs only one more victory by the
Emperor and the enemy will be forced to make terms which will include all prisoners of war regaining their freedom.'
'And what then?' put in the Captain of Dragoons. 'That would be all very well for you, Colonel. You and the rest of the gilded staff would go riding gaily back to Paris with the Emperor. But most of us would be left here to garrison the cities and fortresses we've taken.'
The elderly Major took him up. 'That's it, and "gilded staff" is right. In the old days they had all risen from the ranks, and were tough, courageous men who cheerfully shared hardships with the rest of us. But since Bonaparte put a crown on his head in Notre-Dame, he's changed all that. He's welcomed back the emigres and surrounded himself with young popinjays: ci-devant nobles, who are better at making a play for pretty women in ballrooms than risking their skins on a battlefield.'
Roger frowned, sat forward and asked sharply, 'Are you implying... ?'