'Back to your barracks!'
They stopped at the sound of his voice and turned towards him as Napoleon trotted up. Taking a deep breath he tried his most commanding voice when he addressed them again. 'Back to barracks! That's an order! Do it, now!'
No one moved.Then, one of the soldiers took a tentative step towards the young officer. 'Sir, we know you. You're not one of these stuck-up gentlemen who give themselves all sorts of fancy airs.You should be for us. Not them.'
'Enough!' Napoleon's eyes burned with anger as he confronted the soldier. 'Now get back to your barracks!'
'Sorry, sir.'The man shook his head.'That's not going to work. The lads have got grievances. We've agreed not to carry out any more orders until we get what we want.'
'Get what you want?' Napoleon repeated in astonishment. 'Where the hell do you think you are? This is the bloody army, not a debating society. Now I won't tell you again. Get back to barracks.'
The man shook his head again and turned away from Napoleon. 'Come on, lads. Follow me.'
As the men flowed past him, keeping a respectful distance so they did not accidentally knock him in passing, Napoleon opened his mouth to shout the order again. But he could see that it was pointless, and his mouth closed, then fixed into a grim line as he glared at the mutineers. He would only have looked a fool if he had tried to resist, he told himself. Nothing he could say would stop them, and he cursed himself for not having the strength of personality to get them to do as he had ordered.With a sick feeling in his guts Napoleon slowly set off after them, knowing that his duty must be to stand with the other officers in this confrontation.
Once they had found the colonel, the soldiers demanded that he open up the chest that contained the regiment's welfare fund. As soon as the money was shared out the soldiers helped themselves to the wines and spirits of the officers' mess before heading into town to spend the money they had stolen on yet more drink. As the evening came, they returned with barrels of ale and forced the officers to drink with them and dance. The colonel, clearly afraid that the atmosphere might turn nasty at any moment, ordered his officers to go along with the men. And so it went on through the hot, sultry, night, and the party only ended when the soldiers had drunk themselves into a stupor.
It took another day for the effects of the drink to wear off and the men slowly returned to their duties.The colonel made it clear that he did not want to address himself to the mutiny and the soldiers gratefully slipped back into their routine under the uneasy eyes of their officers. But Napoleon had seen enough. All the long traditions of the regiment, all the training and enforcement of discipline – all of it had been rendered purposeless by the drunken confrontation. He could see that life in the Auxonne garrison was going to be plagued by the same chaos, uncertainty and danger that had consumed Paris.
The next morning Napoleon was summoned to the colonel's office. As he stood to attention in front of the desk the colonel leaned back in his chair, and behind him, on a small chest, Napoleon saw a brace of pistols. It had already come to this, he realised. The officers were beginning to arm themselves against their men. The colonel looked tired and had not shaved for two days so that there was an audible rasp as he scratched his cheek and stared at Napoleon.
'I'm sending you on leave.You're going back to Corisca.'
'Sir?' Napoleon could not hide his surprise. 'Why? I don't understand.'
'I'm not asking you to understand, Lieutenant. It's an order. You'll do as you are told and go on leave.'
'But why, sir? Surely I'm needed here.'
The colonel stared at him for a moment, before he relented and gave a weary shrug. 'You're a good officer, Buona Parte. I know that. But I'm acting on orders from the War Ministry.'
'What orders, sir?'
'I'm to send any officer on leave whose loyalty to the King is suspect. I consulted with Captain Des Mazis and he has no doubt that you have radical sympathies. Therefore, I have no choice but to send you away.'
Napoleon's cheeks burned with shame and indignation.'That's outrageous! Sir, I protest. I-'
The colonel raised his hand to silence Napoleon. 'Your protest is noted, and you are dismissed. Go and pack your bags, Buona Parte. I want you out of the barracks by the end of the day.'
Napoleon stared back at him, then swallowed. 'When may I return to duty, sir?'
'When you are called for, Lieutenant.'
Chapter 53
As soon as the news of the assault on the Bastille reached Dublin, Arthur sent an anxious letter to his former mentor at the Academy in Angers. Marcel de Pignerolle did not reply to Arthur's letter until late in the year. He thanked his former pupil for asking after his health and safety, and assured Arthur that the events in Paris had, as yet, failed to make a significant impact on life at Angers. Some of the students had been withdrawn and the director was considering advising those that remained to return home to their families while public life in France was disrupted. They might return if things settled down, although the director had little hope that the King and the deputies of the new National Assembly would eventually come to their senses and abandon this mad experiment with radical democracy that seemed to have infected the heart of the Paris mob.
The fall of the Bastille and the grisly aftermath seemed to have awakened people to the danger of events running out of control. King Louis had wisely ordered the regiments that had been slowly gathering round Paris to return to their barracks. In October, in order to remove some of the tension between the people of Paris and the deputies representing the whole of France who had gathered at Versailles, the King and the National Assembly had moved to the Tuileries Palace in the heart of Paris. While Marcel de Pignerolle approved of this development, he could not help wondering if the King had not been a little unwise in trusting to the protection of the National Guard units of Paris, who seemed to answer only to the municipal authorities.
While life at the academy was quiet the director had taken the opportunity of visiting some relatives in Paris with his wife and was disquieted by the changes since his previous visit. And here, Arthur noted, the tone of the letter shifted to a more serious, anxious description of events:
My dear Arthur, you can little imagine the alteration in civil manners of the common people. Since the so-called National Assembly published their Declaration of Human Rights in August, the common man has taken this measure as permission to excuse him from all manner of incivility and immorality.The Districts of Paris answer to no one but themselves, and petty demagogues are free to whip up the feelings of the herd so that mobs pillage the premises of innocent bakers and merchants, or beat to death or hang those they proclaim to be enemies of the people. But if the Paris mobs are little more than barbarians, they take their lead from the representatives of their class at the National Assembly. A more venal house of petty jealousy and unbridled ambition is hard to conceive of. They meet in what was once the riding school of the Tuileries and one can not help but wonder if the former occupants of the building were better educated and mannered than the crude mouthpieces of the third estate.Worse still, of course, are those with breeding who play traitor to their class and have abandoned the first and second estates to descend into the ranks of the third. It is only with their support that the demagogues have managed to remove all manner of privileges to our class, and strip the Church of her right to the financial support of the people. It is this wretched Godlessness in the hearts of those who are destroying the old order that distresses me most.What is happening is evil, and I pray that the majority of the people apprehend the gathering darkness and act against it before it is too late.