Four nights later, at the final pre-Coronation reception on December 1st, Madame de Remuset again sought out Roger in the crowded ballroom where Henri II had had the monogram of his beautiful mistress Diane de Poitiers made the motif of the inlaid floor and ceiling, and slipped a note into his hand. It was from Josephine and read:
'Bless you a thousand times. Napoleon made no difficulties
and this afternoon we were privately married by Cardinal Fesch.'
Early next morning the whole Court repaired to Paris. As Master of the Ceremonies, the Comte de Segur again excelled himself. The assembly in Notre Dame exceeded in brilliance any gathering there in the days of the anciene regime: a horde of soldiers in brilliant uniforms, Senators, Ambassadors, dignitaries and bejewelled women packed the great Cathedral. Napoleon, wearing a laurel wreath on his broad brow, clad in a gorgeous velvet robe embroidered with golden bees and wearing the sword of Charlemagne, led Josephine up to the altar.
There was only one unpleasant incident. The Bonaparte sisters, furious at having been ordered to carry Josephine's train, maliciously pulled on it as she ascended the shallow steps to the chancel and she nearly fell over backwards. But she managed to retain her balance.
Among the train bearers Roger was a little surprised to see the beautiful Pauline. Later he learned that, in order to get back to the gay life of Paris that she so dearly loved, she had used as an excuse the death of her son. She had insisted that he should be buried beside his father at Montgobert, and Napoleon had not had the heart to refuse her. But Roger now found himself gazing at her with indifference.
When the crux of the ceremony was about to take place Napoleon suddenly took the crown from the hands of the startled Pope and crowned himself. Then among shouts of acclaim that made the lofty vault ring, he crowned Josephine.
At the reception afterwards, Roger had a few words with Pauline and expressed his sympathy at her loss of Dermid. 'It was too terrible,' she told him. 'Had I been there 'tis possible that I might have saved him. But I was suffering from the sickness that afflicts me and had had a relapse. When a courier arrived at Bagni de Lucca they thought me too ill to tell me, and by the time I had recovered it was all over.'
After a moment, she added with a smile, 'But I am over the shock now and back in dear Paris. You must come to see me.'
He returned her smile and thanked her, but he had no intention of accepting her invitation. As he bowed himself away, he wondered if he would ever again want to make love to a woman. The long succession of them through the years had been only substitutes for Georgina, and it seemed that, somehow, her death had destroyed in him all desire to make love.
Soon after the Coronation there came a new development in the European situation that gave him great concern for Britain. While at Stillwaters he had learned that early in October Mr. Pitt's instructions had been carried out and the Admiralty had despatched four frigates to intercept the Spanish treasure ships. When they appeared, the Spanish squadron consisted of four slightly smaller frigates and, numbers being even, the gallant Spanish commander refused to surrender. During the ensuing fight one of the Spanish ships blew up and only then did the other three lower their colours.
Clearly the Admiralty had blundered badly in not having sent a larger force which the Spaniards would have decided they had no hope of resisting. But the damage had been done. Britain was indignantly accused of having committed both an act of war against a nation with whom she was at peace, and piracy. Godoy, as Mr. Pitt had anticipated, had done his utmost to avoid making this a cause for hostilities but the British Prime Minister had left Napoleon out of his calculations.
The Emperor had insisted that Spain must fight. Godoy had still resisted. Determined to make him, Napoleon had then charged Spain with being unfriendly to France, and had threatened to send an army to invade the Peninsula. The Spaniards had caved in and, on December 12th, declared war on Britain.
This brought about the very thing that Mr. Pitt had dreaded. The combined fleets of France and Spain outnumbered that of Britain. Now, at last, Napoleon had a real chance of achieving command of the seas, sweeping the Channel and, almost unopposed, launching his invasion.
It was two days after Spain had declared war that on entering the Tuileries to go on duty Roger was handed a letter. It was inscribed, 'M. le Colonel Breuc, Aide de Camp a Sa Majeste L’Empereur des Francois, Palais de Tuileries, Paris' And the franks upon it showed that it had come via Cologne from Hamburg. Roger had a vague feeling that he knew the writing but could not imagine who would have written to him from the German port.
Tearing the packet open he saw that it contained several sheets of close writing in French. Then he recognized the hand of Colonel Thursby. Evidently the Colonel had had something urgent to communicate, sent the letter by the Captain of some neutral ship and had written in French so that, should it fall into the wrong hands, Roger would not be compromised as being in correspondence with an Englishman.
Quickly Roger carried the letter over to the embrasure of a window. As he skimmed the first line his heart missed a beat. It read:
'I felt I must endeavour to let you know that Jenny has returned to us...."
Roger's mind reeled. He gave a gasp and clutched at the heavy curtain for support. If Jenny was alive Georgina might be too.
24
Jenny's Story
Roger's hands were trembling so much that it was a few moments before he could steady them sufficiently to read the letter. Even then his eyes skipped from passage to passage, hoping for definite news of Georgina. Bit by bit he swiftly took in the main facts.
On the evening of March 20th when 'Enterprise' was a day's run to the north-east of the exit to the Windward Passage, she had been attacked by a buccaneer. The Captain and crew of 'Enterprise' had fought her gallantly but she had been outgunned and a fire started in her that could not be brought under control. Fearing that the fire would reach her magazine the order had been given to abandon ship. Several of the boats had already been rendered useless by the cannonade from the attacking ship, the Captain had been killed and there was an unseemly rush to get into the three that remained serviceable, during which Jenny had become parted from her mistress.
One of the three, in charge of the First Mate, had been overloaded and sank within a few minutes of being lowered. The other two, in an attempt to avoid capture, which would have meant their occupants being held to ransom, had headed for a small island about a mile away. The sun was setting and a calm had fallen; so the buccancjr, her sails hanging slack, was unable to go in pursuit but began to fire upon them. The boat containing Georgina, Lord Rockhurst and the Skiflingtons, was hit, several people in it were killed and it sank, leaving the others struggling in the water.
Jenny, in the remaining boat, had been near enough to see that Georgina and Lord Rockhurst were among the half dozen or so who were swimming towards the shore. The boat she was in was a jollyboat in charge of Mr. Small, the bos'n. She had pleaded with him to go to the rescue of her mistress and the others, but in vain. Shots were still falling round Mr. Small's boat and the six men in it were pulling desperately to get out of range; moreover, by turning away from the island they would stand a better chance of doing so and with that object he had just altered course. Had they turned back it seemed certain that they too would have been sunk before they could pick up the swimmers and get clear of the whistling cannon balls. So poor Jenny could only weep and pray as distance obscured the bobbing heads and soon afterwards the tropic night had descended, blacking out the scene.