Marianne and the Crown of Fire

'He cannot! Even if he would, he is not alone. There are others – all those who stand to gain from his conquests. The men for whom Moscow has become a kind of Golconda. The marshals—'

'Them? They ask nothing better than to be gone! Most of them are dreaming all the time of going home. They have never really believed in this war, their hearts have not been in it and, above all, they have not needed it. All of them have grand titles, vast possessions and fortunes they want freedom to enjoy. It's human enough. As to the King of Naples, that glittering centaur, as vain as a peacock and just about as intelligent, at this present moment he is cavorting about in front of Platov's cossacks who are guarding the Russian rear, and doing everything but fraternize with them! The cossacks are swearing that the Russian army is at its last gasp, that more men are deserting every day, and assuring him that he's the most wonderful thing they've ever seen and he, the fool, believes them!'

'It can't be true!'

'Don't tell me you've met him and you don't believe it. He's so delighted with them that he's stripping all his staff officers of their watches and jewels to make them presents of them – having parted with everything of his own already! Oh yes, if I had managed to convince Napoleon, the army would have been off in the morning.'

'That's all very well, but why do it yourself? I should think there must be plenty of persuasive men ready to face the risk – among all those millions at your command.'

He started and looked at her with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

'What do you mean?'

'That I know who you are, and the power you possess in this world. You are the man they call the Black Pope.'

Instantly he gripped her hands hard to silence her and shot a furtive glance around him.

'Hush! There are some things which should not be said aloud. How did you guess?'

'It was Jolival. He realized it at Odessa, when you showed your ring to the Duc de Richelieu.'

A faint smile touched the cardinal's lips.

'I should have been more wary of your friend's sharp eyes. He is a good man, and no fool. I am happy to leave you in his care.'

Marianne was suddenly angry with him.

'Leave Jolival out of it. We are not talking about him. What I want to know is why you suddenly transformed yourself into a prophet of vengeance! You can't have had the faintest idea of Napoleon's character. To have done what you did was to condemn yourself to death without a doubt. He was bound to react as he did. He took you for an enemy spy.'

'And what makes you think that I am not? An enemy, I have always been, and if I do not care for the word spy I am very willing to admit that my life has been passed in serving secretly, in the shadows.'

'That is why I cannot understand what made you choose to step out into the limelight like that.'

He thought for a moment, then shrugged lightly.

'I admit that I was mistaken in the Corsican's character. I was counting on the latin, the Mediterranean side of his nature. He is superstitious, I know. I could not have found a more dramatic setting, or a more auspicious moment to try and make an impression on him—and to bring him to reason.'

'You must have had a hand in the fire. Certainly you knew all about it.'

'Yes, I did know, and I was afraid for you when I found you here. That was the reason I did my best to save you. And then, when I saw such vast numbers of men – this huge army – and recognized some of our own among them—'

'Men of the old nobility, you mean?'

'Yes. Ségurs and Monatsquioux, even a Mortemart, I tell you, my heart bled. It was these, also that I was trying to save, these men who had followed the star of this madman – a madman of genius, but still doomed. I'll not conceal from you that my object in coming here was to destroy him at all costs, he and his. God forgive me, I even contemplated assassination—'

'Oh no! Not that! Not you—'

'Why not? The society of which I am the head has not, in the course of its history, always shrunk from committing that sin when it seemed that the good of the Church demanded it. There was – Henri IV, and others. But I give you my word that I had changed my mind. I was sincere, most desperately sincere, when I begged him to turn back, return to France, abandon his endless wars and reign in peace at last.'

Marianne's great eyes had opened very wide and she was staring at the priest as if he had taken leave of his senses.

'Reign in peace. Napoleon? Godfather, you can't be serious? How can you possibly wish him to reign in peace when you have always served Louis XVIII?'

Gauthier de Chazay gave a faint smile with no touch of humour in it. He closed his eyes for an instant and then opened them and in the gaze that met her own his goddaughter read, for the first time, a grim despair.

'I serve only God now, Marianne, and God hates war. I was wagering everything, you see. Either I would succeed, or else leave here what has become to me a worthless life.'

Marianne's anguished cry held an element of disbelief.

'You cannot mean what you are saying? You, a prince of the Church, heaped with honours and power – truly wish to die?'

'Perhaps. You see, Marianne, in the position to which I have been called I have learned many things. Above all, I have become the repository of the Order's secrets. The most terrible of these I learned only recently and it came as a bitter shock to me, worse than anything I had ever known. The true king of France is not the man I have served for so long, blindly as you said. It is another, closely concealed, a close kinsman of this man and yet indebted to him for a cruel, unjust – and wicked fate!'

At that moment, Marianne had a feeling that he was no longer with her, that his mind and heart were somewhere else, caught up in a dreadful nightmare that oppressed him. It was as much to bring him back to reality as because she really wanted to know the meaning of what he hinted at, that she asked quietly: 'Do you mean that – that even if he ever came to the throne, Louis XVIII would be only an usurper – worse even than Napoleon? But that would mean that the boy Louis XVII, the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who was supposed to have perished in the Temple—'

The cardinal rose quickly and laid his finger on her lips.

'Say no more,' he said sternly. 'There are some secrets it is death to know and this is one you have no need to know. If I have told you something of it, it is because you are the child of my heart and so have some right to try to understand me. Know only this, that I found that among the papers of my predecessor – who died not long ago – which showed me that my whole life had been in error. I had made myself, without knowing it, the accessory to a crime, and it is that which I can no longer endure. But for my religion, and the cloth I wear, I might perhaps have put a period to my existence. Then it seemed to me that I might sacrifice my life and at the same time perform a singular service to the world. In making Napoleon turn back, snatching him from his deadly course, I could die in peace – gladly even, for at least he would cease to bleed white with her perpetual wars the country I love as much as God Himself, and yet have served so ill. I have failed, but I shall die none the less.'

Marianne stood up quickly.

'Yes,' she agreed, 'and very soon, unless you agree to what I have to propose.'

'And that is?'

'Your freedom. No,' she added, seeing him about to protest, 'I did not say anything about a reprieve. You are to be tried this evening and before nightfall you will be dead – unless you do as I say.'

'What is the good? I have failed, I tell you.'

'Precisely. And let me tell you that it is stupid to die for nothing. God did not make Napoleon listen to you but He cannot wish your death, since I am here.'