With a frown, Roger changed the subject. 'All you tell me of the situation here seems quite extraordinary. Berthier's ability to bring up reinforcements by roads on which they will not converge and become congested is known to us all. But what of the Emperor? Has he not used that great brain of his to devise some policy that would cause dissension among our enemies, so that they no longer have a concerted strategy and we could defeat them piecemeal?'
'Mon ami, it is .quite a time since you have been with us at headquarters. Believe it or not, Napoleon has ceased to be interested in waging war. With him here he has the Countess Maria Walewska. Admittedly, she is a charming young creature: dignified, modest, unambitious. Having now been repudiated by her old husband, she has accepted our master wholeheartedly, and he has become a changed man. The years have dropped from him, and his is like a youth in his teens; positively besotted by her. For weeks past they have been enjoying a honeymoon. For days at a time he never emerges from their suite, and refuses all pleas to discuss business. For ten days or more I have had here missions from both the Grand Turk and the Great Sophy. Only once has he consentcd to receive these Turkish and Persian emissaries. Yet both could prove invaluable allies in harassing the Czar. Naturally, they have become resentful and contumacious; but there is nothing I can do about it.'
Roger expressed his sympathy, while inwardly much pleased that it looked as though, at last, England's archenemy was losing his grip and might, in a few weeks' time, be so thoroughly defeated by the Russians and Prussians that his gimcrack Empire would fall to pieces and Europe be restored to its pre-revolutionary state.
Having asked Duroc to request an audience with the Emperor for him as soon as possible, they adjourned to the senior officers' Mess. There Roger was greeted with delight by many of his old comrades; but several of them were missing, and he learned to his distress that they had died at Eylau.
For three days Roger waited without receiving any summons from his master, and he became more and more impatient at the delay, because he had long been cherishing a means of getting out of Poland as soon as his exchange had been effected.
For a long time past, he had owned a small chateau near St. Maxime, in the South of France and, on the excuse of a weak chest, aggravated by a bullet through his lung at Marengo, he had usually obtained long leave to winter there; which gave him an opportunity to slip over to England and report very fully to Mr. Pitt all that was going on in France.
But this year he had been caught out. After returning to France in the previous May, he had thoroughly enjoyed his summer in Paris, and it was not his custom to apply for winter leave until December; so he had naturally accompanied the Emperor when, in September, he had left Paris to open his campaign against Prussia. After the double victory of Jena-Auerstadt, he had welcomed—being a born lover of travel and never having been to either Berlin or Warsaw— the chance of spending a few weeks in both those cities; so, when December had come, as he was no longer in the service of the British Government and, anyway, had nothing to report that could be of help to his now moribund country, instead of asking for leave he had lingered oh at the Emperor's headquarters. Napoleon's taking the field again in January, much earlier than anyone had expected, had put Roger in an awkward position. To have applied then to spend the remainder of the winter months in the sunshine of the South of France would be regarded as an act of cowardice by many of his comrades, who were unaware of his skilfully-established disability. In consequence, he had participated in the campaign which had ended for him at Eylau.
However, as the thaw had only just set in and several weeks of cold, foul weather were still to be expected, he had made up his mind that, immediately he saw Napoleon, he would ask for two months' leave, in order to escape the miserable conditions that must continue to afflict the Army for some time to come. Instead, he would travel from Poland as swiftly as he could to the shores of the Mediterranean, where no one even thought of war, except to celebrate the Emperor's victories with splendid dinners and lashings of champagne. There, as a rich and distinguished officer, he would lead a life of leisure, spiced with gay parties, in the company of elegant men, and pretty women who were not over-scrupulous about their morals.
No scruples about failing to serve Alexander troubled him. His code had always been 'all's fair in love and war', and he had considered himself fully justified in misleading the Czar in order to obtain his freedom.
On the morning of his fourth day at Finckenstein, he was walking along a corridor when he suddenly saw the Emperor approaching.
Napoleon's face lit up, and he exclaimed, 'Ah! mon brave Breuc! I feared you dead. When they told me you had fallen prisoner to these devilish Russians and could be exchanged, I was truly delighted. And at this juncture you are more than welcome here. The Turks and the Persians have both sent missions to me. This has led to my conceiving a plan by which I can stab that young fool Alexander in the back. So I am sending General Gardane on a mission, first to the Great Turk, then to the Shah. It will consist of a number of officers. But I need one personally attached to me, who will privately keep me informed how well or ill the mission is progressing.'
Suddenly, Napoleon lifted a hand, seized the lobe of Roger's left ear and tweaked it. 'You, Breuc, with your knowledge of the East, are the very man for this. Procure for yourself everything you may require, at my expense, and be prepared to set off for Constantinople.'
The Greatest Statesman of his Age
Roger made a grimace of pain, for the way in which Napoleon tweaked people's ears, although always a gesture of approbation, was far from gentle.
At the same moment he took in the disastrous effect that this idea of the Emperor's could have on his own plans. No carefree, lazy days in the sunshine of the Riviera; no bathing in the warm sea from a sandy beach; no pleasant expeditions into Nice and St. Tropez, where he might make the acquaintance of some charming lady who would become his mistress and add rapture to his days and nights. Instead, an interminable journey over bad roads, staying overnight at pestiferous inns, down through the semi-barbarous Balkans to countries in which all desirable women were kept under guard in harems, and the food would probably prove disgusting. Somehow or other, he must dissuade the Emperor from sending him on this mission, which threatened to ruin the daydreams with which he had been entertaining himself for the past few weeks.
As soon as he had recovered, he said, 'Sire, I have been extraordinarily lucky in that, with the chest trouble by which you know I am afflicted, I escaped pneumonia and death while a prisoner of the Russians; but I suffered severely at their hands, as you can see from my gaunt appearance. I was about to ask you for two months' leave, so that I might recuperate in the South of France.'