Napoleon resumed his place beside his wife and took her hand, and gently stroked her head with his spare hand as he spoke gently.‘Did you hear? The child is coming. Be strong, my love; it will be over soon and the pain will pass.’
She gritted her teeth and nodded, then strained again.
‘The child is coming, sire,’ said the doctor. ‘I can see the crown emerging now.’
Marie-Louise suddenly screamed and arched her back and a sudden, glutinous rush of liquids soaked the sheet covering her knees.
The crowd outside the palace stirred as the signal flag was hoisted up the mast above the Tuileries. There was a brief roar of relief and delight that the Emperor’s child had been born, then the cheers subsided as they waited to discover if it was a boy or a girl. A distant thud sounded from the battery at Montmarte, then another, and the crowd counted each discharge as it rolled across Paris like thunder. As the twentieth gun sounded the crowd fell absolutely silent, and waited.
Another gun fired, and some muttered to themselves, ‘Twenty-one.’
The sound died away and then there was a pause. No more than the regulation interval between shots, but the moment seemed to stretch out intolerably.
The boom of the next gun was instantly swallowed up by a roar of joyous exultation as the crowd waved their arms, and some threw their hats into the air. In amongst them were members of the Paris militia, and they stuck their cocked hats on the ends of their muskets and raised them high, the red plumes dancing above the crowd. Bottles and jars of wine were uncorked and passed around as the mob celebrated the arrival of the Emperor’s heir.
In the palace, Napoleon waited as the doctor and the midwife carefully swaddled the cleaned child. On the bed, Marie-Louise sat propped up. Now that the delivery was over she looked exhausted but radiantly happy, and she smiled at her husband.
‘Show him to the people, but not for too long. It is cold outside.’
‘Yes, my dear.’ Spontaneously, Napoleon rushed across the room and held her gently as he kissed her on the lips. ‘You have made me the happiest man in all Europe.’
‘That pleases me.’
He looked down at her fondly. ‘This means everything to me. My son, our child, marks the true union of France and Austria, and our own.’
She touched his cheek. ‘I am glad. I am also tired, my dear husband. I must sleep. But you must show our son to your people. Go now.’
Napoleon kissed her again and crossed to the midwife who was holding his child. As he took the small bundle in his arms and gazed down at the tiny wrinkled face he felt a surge of tenderness and love that he had never experienced before in his life. Then the doctor opened the long glazed door on to the balcony, and Napoleon emerged with his child. The cheers of the crowd reached a deafening climax as they beheld the Emperor and his heir. Napoleon turned slowly so that all the people who had gathered in the Place du Carrousel, tens of thousands of his subjects, could see the child as the guns continued to thunder out across the capital. Already the signal stations that stretched across France would be carrying the news to every city, town and village. Soon the guns of every French army would be echoing the salute across the empire, from the cold expanse of Poland to the hills and plains of Spain and Portugal.
The celebrations for the birth of the emperor’s son, whom Napoleon named Franзois Charles Joseph, soon abated and Napoleon turned his mind back to the growing number of problems besetting his empire. When his advisory council met in the palace on a clear spring day there was little sense of any good cheer that the change of seasons had brought to the capital. Looking down the table Napoleon was struck by how few men of genuine talent remained for him to call on. Talleyrand remained in disgrace. Fouchй had been removed from office after rumours had reached Napoleon’s ear that the Minister of Police was plotting against his master yet again. Fouchй had been attempting to negotiate with the English to discover what terms they would consider, if anything happened to the Emperor. It had been tempting to have Fouchй imprisoned, but the minister had many supporters in the capital, as well as a network of agents across the country. Napoleon could not risk becoming a victim of his vengeance.
Talleyrand had been implicated in the same plot, and had been stripped of his office as the Emperor’s Grand Chamberlain. There was no question that Talleyrand could ever be trusted, but his intelligence and peerless diplomatic connections meant that Napoleon did not dare dispense with his services completely. For the moment Talleyrand must be shunned, to teach him a lesson. In time Napoleon would readmit him to his close circle of advisors, but only when Talleyrand had come to appreciate that his influence and power were at the whim of his Emperor.
Napoleon had replaced Fouchй with General Savary, a man whose loyalty was unquestionable. Sadly, his ability was somewhat more uncertain, and he was neither as well connected as his predecessor, nor as clever and cunning. As a consequence government officials had returned to their old vices and were as corruptible as they had ever been under the Bourbons. The Minister of Finance, Cordet, was equally second rate and relied too heavily on the advice of his subordinates. Lastly, the new Foreign Minister, Maret, had no opinions of his own and merely deferred to everything that the Emperor said.
The members of the council, and two of the imperial secretaries, had arrived first, as protocol dictated, and stood beside the table as they waited for their master to appear. Napoleon arrived promptly at the scheduled time and took his seat. Once he had made himself comfortable he waved a hand at the others. ‘Sit down, gentlemen.’
Their chairs scraped as the officials took their seats, and the secretaries settled at their desks, set to one side. They hurriedly took out inkwells, pens and notebooks from their satchels and prepared to take notes. When he could see that they were ready, Napoleon began.
‘Gentlemen, we have a considerable number of difficulties to resolve, foremost of which is the need to increase the flow of revenue to the treasury. Even allowing for the corruption of sundry officials, our receipts continue to fall. This is not acceptable at a time when it is essential to expand the army and the navy to meet current and future threats. Cordet, you speak for the treasury. What are your plans to deal with the situation?’
Cordet swallowed as he flipped open his folder and quickly consulted his notes. ‘Sire, my officials are doing all that they can to collect taxes efficiently. I am told that a drop in tax raised from trading activities is the area where our loss of income is most pronounced.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Sire, trade is increasingly restricted right across Europe, due to the Continental Blockade,’ he ventured warily. ‘The embargo on trade with England is stifling all of the economies of Europe, including ours.’
‘I am aware of that,’ Napoleon cut in tersely. ‘But we are at war with England. If we are to defeat them then we must strike at their weak spot. England needs to trade with other nations, or die. There is no question of lifting the restrictions on trade with our enemy.’
‘All nations need to trade with England, sire, or their economies will wither. We and our allies have suffered enough already. In fact, I would argue that the Continental Blockade is doing far more to harm France’s cause than to assist it.’
Napoleon frowned. He knew that Cordet spoke the truth. In Holland, Napoleon’s brother, King Louis, had all but abandoned any adherence to the system and the Emperor had been forced to annex the country and run it as a province of France. Louis had fled and gone into hiding, eventually resurfacing in the court of a Bohemian prince. Napoleon had been furious at first, but in the end he put his brother’s resistance to his will down to weakness of mind, and insanity.