At that moment, Louis seemed to stir again on his straw.
… What a fate! To sink within sight of the harbor; to end his epic struggle here in this… this Belgian rabbit hutch, beside a… beside this… but who the devil was this Louis? His mysterious neighbor had gone to sleep again without emitting any sounds that could identify him. No matter, he would see who this creature was in the morning — and besides, why should this ridiculous companion be of any concern to him?… Sleep claimed him at last.
WHEN HE OPENED his eyes again, the gray light that comes before dawn was filling the shed. Sitting up, he was astonished to see that the door was open. The room was much smaller than he had imagined. A heap of gardening tools draped in cobwebs and a big garden umbrella dotted with pigeon droppings occupied one corner. In the other was a straw litter with a faded red horse blanket lying across it. The ceiling was made of badly joined boards that formed a loft, where cooing pigeons could be heard pattering about on their tiny, soft feet.
Napoleon got up cautiously. His limbs were numb. The cold air made him shiver. He was unsure whether to go out. Wasn’t this open door some sort of a trap?
Just as he had finally decided to try his luck, a person who obviously had been waiting for this signal to make his entrance suddenly burst into the hut.
It was the sergeant. His face was transfigured. He seemed to be overcome by such intense excitement that it was hard to recognize the nondescript official of the previous evening.
He rushed toward Napoleon, dropped down on one knee, and seizing his hand he kissed it, saying in a voice choked with emotion: “Sire! Sire! You’ve come back at last!”
After quickly hiding his initial surprise, the Emperor, now very much in control of himself, graciously placed a hand on the gendarme’s shoulder and raised him to his feet again.
For a long while the two men stood facing each other in silence. The pigeons could still be heard quietly walking about above their heads.
Breathtaking encounter! Unforgettable moment! Indescribable emotion!
How many times had Napoleon imagined situations like this in his dreams of returning to France! In actual fact, the only real surprise was to discover how similar this scene was to everything he had already imagined, so similar that he almost had the feeling of living through it for the second time.
In a hurried whisper, the sergeant apologized profusely: last night he had had to lodge his Emperor in a most unworthy fashion, but it had been the only way to ensure his safety and protect him from any indiscreet curiosity on the part of the other gendarmes. He had sent them to patrol the Fleurus highway before dawn, so the two of them were alone for the moment. However, there was not a minute to lose.
He led Napoleon back into the empty guardhouse, got him to gulp down a big bowl of coffee, and slipped some bread, two hard-boiled eggs, and a piece of cheese into the pocket of his overcoat for the journey. “I’m going to take some shortcuts to get you across the border. I’ll leave you on the road to Valenciennes, and when I come back I’ll explain to my men that I took you to Charleroi police station myself. As for your file which came from Brussels, there’ll be no further action on that — I just have to dispose of the report of your arrest. Here are your papers. Now, let’s make a start as soon as possible.”
For safety’s sake, the sergeant asked Napoleon to walk in front of his horse while they were on the highway, in the fashion a gendarme usually leads a prisoner.
Then they took a track across country with Napoleon up behind the sergeant on the same horse. They covered a good two leagues at a brisk pace, following low-lying roads, taking shortcuts across pastures where the cows took little notice of them, passing plowed fields, and avoiding the few villages by constantly keeping under the cover of the thick woods which dotted the countryside.
The sergeant pulled his horse to a halt at the top of a hill crowned with poplars. From the place where they stood, a cart track consisting of two ruts overgrown with grass wound its lazy way around the curve of the hill and descended toward the plain. In the haze of early dawn, a vast plain spread out in front of them; far away in the distance, one could vaguely see the blue shape of one or two large towns with their steeples and belfries.
The sergeant jumped down from his horse and helped Napoleon dismount. The horse was exhausted and steaming. It snorted loudly, then began to graze along the slope.
Dawn was turning into day.
“Sire, you are now in France!”
Napoleon let his eyes wander for a moment over this soft gray expanse. There was not the slightest breath of wind. He felt warmer now after the ride. Then he turned toward his guide, who was respectfully standing two paces behind him.
There were a thousand things the sergeant wanted to say, but his throat went dry. Never, even in his wildest dreams, had he ever imagined that one day he could have a private conversation like this with his Emperor, but now he felt those indescribable moments whirling away from him before he had had the chance to express the emotion that filled his heart.
And what of Napoleon? To tell the truth, at that moment his mind was occupied, much against his will, with a thought so futile that he himself was irritated by it: Who on earth was Louis? Resisting this stupid obsession, inappropriate to the solemnity of the occasion, he finally asked, “What is your name, my good man?”
“Bommel. Bommel, Justin. Ex-company sergeant-major in the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Départements du Nord. I was at Waterloo… well, almost…” he added, stumbling over the last words. If he had not been at Waterloo, it was certainly through no fault of his own. The recruits from the north had been mobilized at the last moment and arrived too late to take part in the action. Napoleon knows all that, and many other things besides. He can read this simple fellow’s face like an open book: it tells of a lifetime of frustrated hopes and dogged loyalty. This man is truly one of the faithful. Napoleon commits his name to memory; one day, he will be able to show his appreciation.
Bommel has an inspiration that suddenly loosens his tongue. “In Paris you could get in touch with my friend Second Lieutenant Truchaut, who lives in the Impasse-des-Chevaliers-du-Temple. He’s absolutely loyal to the cause. He ekes out a meager living on his half-pension; in the eyes of the local bourgeois, he’s just a poor devil, not worthy of any particular attention. For this very reason, you would be quite safe with him. He will certainly be able to offer you accommodation. And besides, he knows all the veterans of the Imperial Army in Paris…”
He stops short, suddenly frightened by his own audacity. Since when did the Eagle need the help of sparrows to build his eyrie? Wasn’t it impudent and ridiculous to imagine for one moment that Napoleon would need to rely on the likes of Bommels and Truchauts? Overcome by the sense of his own unworthiness, the poor man has already forgotten that if the Emperor had managed to escape complete disaster in Belgium, it was entirely due to him! Napoleon, however, has made a more accurate assessment of the situation and, far from being offended by the gendarme’s naïve concern, has carefully taken note of Second Lieutenant Truchaut’s name and address.
There was no time to waste; they now had to go their separate ways.