Nevertheless, Napoleon was so bewitched by Talleyrand's genius for statescraft that, having made him a Prince and one of the six Great Dignitaries of the Empire, he continued to consult him on all important questions.
Talleyrand had known Roger ever since he had first come to Paris as the youthful secretary to the Marquis de Rochambeau. In those pre-revolutionary days the Abb6, as he then was—although he had already taken to wearing the lay clothes of a Court exquisite—lived in a small house in the suburb of Passey. After an attack by footpads, Roger had been carried there unconscious, and his babblings had revealed the fact that he was an Englishman. A friendship had sprung up between them and, several years later, it was Roger who had secured the papers that had enabled Talleyrand to escape the guillotine and get safely out of France.
That was one reason why, still later, even when Roger had re-appeared in Paris as an A.D.C. to Napoleon, Talleyrand had kept it secret that Roger was the son of a British Admiral. But there was also another reason. From the very beginning, the great statesman had held the conviction that there could be no lasting peace in Europe unless France and Britain ceased their long enmity and became allies—a belief that Roger fully shared. To that end Talleyrand had ever worked secretly and consistently, and he had astutely decided that if Roger was a secret agent the damage he could do France was outweighed by his usefulness as an abettor of his own intrigues; as had proved the case at the time of the coup d'etat. More recently, when he had secured actual proof that Roger was a spy, he had still refrained from denouncing him because, when at last the Emperor's downfall could be brought about, Roger would prove a trustworthy go-between to vouch for it to the British Government that he, Talleyrand, had contributed to that fall and was the most suitable man to guide France into an entente cordiale with Britain.
In consequence, on this August evening the two met as old friends, although on Talleyrand's part with pleased surprise. Limping forward from behind his huge, mahogany desk, he laid a beautifully-manicured, beruffled hand on Roger's arm and exclaimed:
'Mon cher ami! How delighted I am to see you. I had believed you long since dead in those accursed Russian snows.'
Roger returned his smile. 'Nay, Prince. 'Twas a devilish near thing, and by ill chance I became separated from the Emperor, so had to hide while the tide of war swept over me. But after several nightmare weeks, half-frozen and starving, I succeeded in reaching Reval. Thence I took ship to Stockholm, where I was kindly received by Bernadotte.'
'How fares that Gascon rogue ?'
'I found him in excellent trim. As Grown Prince he has become very popular with his Swedes and, as you must know, has had the good sense to enter into an alliance with both Russia and Britain.'
'Indeed I do, for they have paid his price—a free hand to oust the Danes from Norway. He offered to remain neutral if the Emperor could give him that, but Napoleon dared not, otherwise he would have lost the Danes as allies.'
'I had no idea that Bernadotte had been playing with both sides.'
'Ah, he's a sly one. But, mark my words. The new Coalition will derive little benefit from the army he has landed in Stralsund. He'll let the others do the fighting, and just stand by to pull his share of chestnuts out of the fire when all is over.'
'Think you this autumn's campaign will at last see an end to the war?'
Talleyrand had told the footman who had shown Roger in to bring champagne. The man now returned with it. While it was being poured and until the man had left the room, the statesman remained silent. Then, raising his glass, he said, 'Here's defeat and damnation to the scourge of France. But when it will come no man can say. Everything is still in the melting pot.'
Roger willingly drank the toast, then frowned. 'I am at a complete loss to understand why, after he had lost his army in Russia, the Prussians did not seize the chance to turn on him at once and, with the Russians, finish him off.'
'In last winter's campaign, the Russians suffered nearly as severely as their enemies. After they had driven what remained of the Grande Armee over the. frontier into Poland, they were too exhausted and wasted by disease to launch an offensive. Remember, too, that although our field army had been almost annihilated, we still had many thousands of troops in Poland, Prussia, Saxony and other German States, and garrisons in every fortress city of importance. When Murat abandoned the command the Emperor had left with him, and made off to his Kingdom of Naples, Prince Eugene, who took over, could have held the line of the Oder. That he later fell back to the Elbe was a strategic blunder, but he can hardly be blamed, since he could not know the weakness of the enemy confronting him.
'As for Prussia, you know as well as I do what a gutless fellow Frederick William is. Even when his own General, von Yorck, took his army corps over to the enemy, the King could not be persuaded by Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Bliichcr to declare openly against France. Admittedly he was in Berlin, which was held by us; but even after he had sneaked away by night to Breslau, it was well into Spring before he could be persuaded to enter into an alliance with the Russians.
'No-one can at least accuse our little man of dragging his feet. By mid-December he was back here working twenty hours out of every twenty-four, recalling troops from Spain and Italy and pouring into new regiments every, male between sixteen and sixty who could be laid hands on. Ah, even the deaf, the one-eyed and men who were still partially disabled from old wounds. By April the reinforcements he had despatched to the army of the north made it superior in numbers to those of Russia and Prussia combined, and several of his best Marshals; Ney, Marmont, Macdonald and Oudinot all commanding corps. Early in May he arrived to take command in person. There followed the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen.'
Roger nodded. 'Yes, I have heard accounts of them, and I gather that at both he gave the Allies a tremendous pasting.'
'He did indeed. They were most bloody encounters, with heavy losses on both sides, and from both he emerged victorious. But in neither case did he follow up his success. Had he done so after either, as he would have done in the old days, he might well have inflicted a final defeat on the Allies and forced them to sue for peace. But he is no longer the man he was.'
'For that at least we can thank God. What thinks Your Highness of the armistice which he agreed early in June? Will he benefit from it when the conflict is renewed, or the reverse?'
Talleyrand smiled. 'With luck, it will prove his undoing, and I was largely responsible for it. As you know, I have long been in secret correspondence with Metternich and, in addition, had the ear of Prince Schwarzenberg while he was Austria's Ambassador here during the winter. I persuaded them to build up their army to the maximum possible extent, then use the threat of it to coerce our mass-murderer into agreeing terms which would lead to a permanent pacification of Europe.'
‘I heard something of this just before I left England in July, and more talk of it at the Duke of Wellington's headquarters, from whence I have just come. According to these rumours, the Austrian terms are so harsh that I judged it unlikely that the Emperor would accept them.'