That summer he had arbitrarily united sixteen of these Princes to form under his suzerainty the Confederation of the Rhine. Talleyrand had obediently brought them into line, while looking down his slightly retrousse nose. He, and his Austrian opposite number, Prince Metternich, knew well enough that such a hastily-assembled kettle of normally antagonistic fish could prove no substitute for a strong Austrian Empire.
In that summer, too, Talleyrand had again endeavoured to bring about a peace with Britain. Charles Fox had all his life been so strong a Francophile that his then being in power favoured it; but negotiations had broken down over the future of Sicily.
The age had opened when Napoleon was to play ducks and drakes with the ancient thrones of Europe. He had recently made his elder brother, Joseph, King of Naples; his youngest brother, Louis, King of Holland; arid his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, Grand Duke of Berg. But Joseph was as yet in possession of only the land half of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Bourbon King Ferdinand had fled from Naples to the great island and, protected by the British Fleet, still held it. Such was Napoleon's loathing for Ferdinand's Queen, Caroline—the intriguing elder sister of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette—that he was determined to conquer the island at the first opportunity, and laid claim to it as part of Joseph's Kingdom. Pledged to continue to defend the Bourbons, in honour bound Britain could not agree to abandon them. Then, in September, the grossly obese Fox had followed his life-long opponent, Pitt, to the grave.
There had followed the whirlwind Prussian campaign. After the defeats of Jena and Austerlitz, Frederick William had asked for terms. Again Talleyrand had urged the Emperor to show mercy to the defeated and bind them to him by an alliance. Napoleon would not hear of it. An alliance, yes; but not until Prussia had forfeited half her territories. In vain Talleyrand had pointed out that, with both Austria and Prussia broken, there would be no major Power left to help resist the Muscovite hordes overrunning Central Europe and invading France herself. But Napoleon, by then the arbiter of Europe from the tip of Italy to the Baltic, and from the Carpathian mountains to the North Sea, had become so overwhelmingly confident in his own power to deal with any and every situation that he had refused to listen. The Prussians had sullenly withdrawn to the north, and were still giving the Czar such help as they could.
It had begun to snow again: large, heavy, silent flakes. As Roger drew his furs more closely round him, he wondered how it would all end. The French had taken a terrible hammering that day at Eylau, but no one could dispute Napoleon's genius as a General. Roger would have bet a year's pay that, before the year was out, by one of his fantastically swift concentrations the Emperor would catch the Russians napping and inflict a terrible defeat upon them. But what then?
Britain alone would remain in arms defying the might of the Continent's overlord. But she was in a worse way than she had been at any time since the beginning of the struggle. The so-called 'Ministry of All the Talents' consisted almost entirely of weak, incompetent men who lacked a firm policy, and spent their time quarrelling amongst themselves.
If Napoleon's Continental System proved a really serious threat to Britain's trade, industrial interests might force the present futile gang to agree a humiliating peace. Again, should Napoleon succeed in defeating the Russians, he would have no enemy left but England; and would march the Grande Armee back to Boulogne. For the time being Trafalgar had rendered invasion out of the question; but, with every dockyard in Europe at his disposal, the Emperor could, in a year or two, build a fleet strong enough to challenge again the British Navy. The great Nelson was dead. Would his successor succeed in defeating a French Armada; or, awful thought, would Lasalle's Hussars and Oudinot's Grenadiers yet ravage and burn the peaceful farmsteads of Kent and Sussex?
As the falling snow formed a blanket over Roger's hunched body, he knew that the issue was, for him, academic; but he tried to cheer himself by looking on the brighter side.
There was another possibility. During this past year the Emperor had succumbed to folie de grandeur. He had absolute confidence in his 'star' and considered himself a superman whose decisions could never be wrong. Hence his abrupt dismissal of Talleyrand's far-sighted policies. But it is said that 'pride goeth before a fall'. It was not only the rulers and the armies of Austria and Prussia that had been humbled by defeat. The peoples of those countries, countless thousands of whom had casually been made citizens of foreign states, resented most bitterly the fate that Napoleon had brought upon them.
At least there was a chance that they might be seized with a patriotic fervour and rise in their wrath against this oppressor. Between '92 and '96 it had been the people of France who had not only overthrown the Monarchy, but defied and defeated the trained armies of Austria, Prussia, Piedmont and Spain. If Napoleon had his back turned—for example being occupied with the invasion of England—might not the Germans and Austrians combine to massacre the French garrisons left in their cities, and regain their freedom?
The fanaticism that had imbued the early armies of the Republic with the courage to achieve their amazing victories turned Roger's thoughts to France as it was now, under the benign but iron hand of the Emperor. In '99, when he had become First Consul, the country had been in a state of anarchy. There was no justice in the land. Every Municipality was a law unto itself, flagrantly robbing such citizens of any means who had not escaped abroad, yet neglecting the roads in its district until they became almost impassable. The country had swarmed with bands of deserters who pillaged and murdered at will. In the cities the Churches had been turned into gaming hells and brothels, half the houses had become rat-infested tenements, and the streets were half-choked with the accumulated filth of years.
Within a year, in one great spate of inexhaustible energy, overriding every obstacle, the First Consul had cleaned the country up. The venal Municipalities had been replaced by Prefects, answerable only to him. The roads were repaired, the diligences again ran on time, the inns were made habitable and their staffs were no longer surly and offensive. The dries were cleansed, thousands of new schools opened, justice restored and the finances put in order. That one man could have achieved so much in so short a time was miraculous and, as an administrator, Napoleon had Roger's whole-hearted admiration. But a price had had to be paid for his services. The French people had lost their hard-won liberty. By a series of swift, crafty changes in the Constitution, Bonaparte had made himself a dictator whose will no man could question. Yet, because he had brought order out of chaos and again given them security, they had accepted this new bondage without a murmur.
As Roger recalled those days of hectic endeavour to retrieve France from the appalling state of disorder into which she had fallen during the ten years of the Revolution and Directory, the image of another personality entered his mind.
This was Joseph Fouche. Equally, perhaps, with Talleyrand, after Napoleon, he had for many years been the most powerful man in France. He was, too, the only other who knew Roger to be in fact the son of an English Admiral.
Fouche was the antithesis of Talleyrand. He had started life as a lay teacher of the Oratorian Order, become a close friend of Robespierre and was the Deputy for Nantes in the Revolutionary Convention. In '93 he had emerged as one of the most ruthless of the Terrorists. As Commissioner in Nevers he had looted the Cathedral and sent scores of bourgeoisie to the guillotine. In Lyons he had put down a Liberal revolt, had trenches dug outside the city, then had the captured rebels —men, women and children—lined up in front of them and mowed down with cannon firing grapeshot.