It was early in March that an event occurred which caused Roger considerable perturbation. A courier arrived from the Emperor. Such a thing had never happened before and, had it done so while he was supposed to be at St. Maxime but was actually away on one of his secret trips to England, his absence could have proved far from easy to explain.
The contents of the dispatch also gave him much food for thought. It was in Napoleon's own almost illegible scrawl, and briefly conveyed that he was worried about Josephine. Apparently the officer whom he had appointed to act as the Comptroller of her Household at Malmaison had proved far from satisfactory, and she had asked if
Roger could replace him. Anxious to please her, Napoleon had granted her request, with the proviso that he could spare Roger for only a few months, until she was more satisfactorily settled. He then ordered Roger to return to Paris, in order to take up his new post as speedily as possible.
This summons placed Roger in a nasty quandary. He had intended, later in the month, to take Georgina across to Bordeaux and, in a village somewhere along the coast there, find a smuggler who would run them across the Channel. But could he, with any decency, deny the consolation of his friendship to the unhappy Josephine?
That night he discussed the situation fully with Georgina. Being of a most generous nature, she said that, as the appointment was to be only for a few months, he must do as he had been asked, and that she would remain on at St. Maxime until he could rejoin her.
He accepted her view that he must leave her for a while; but was worried that her return home would be so long delayed. After some thought he hit upon an idea that would enable her to leave France more speedily. The British Navy, being dominant in the Mediterranean, constantly patrolled the coast from Gibraltar to Genoa, and hardly a day passed without one of the patrolling frigates passing within sight of St. Maxime. If he could put her aboard one of them, when it next put in to Gibraltar for supplies it could land her there and, as the one-time Countess of St. Ermins, he had little doubt that the Admiral in command would give her passage in another ship to carry her to England.
Three days elapsed before a ship came close enough in for her to be reached without undue risk and, fortunately, at midday the wind dropped to hardly a breeze; so for the afternoon she lay about three miles offshore, almost becalmed.
As Roger was anxious that no one in the town should see him put Georgina aboard, they waited until an hour or so before twilight was due to fall before leaving the house. Early in the afternoon he had made certain through his telescope that the frigate was British; Georgina had then packed most of the clothes he had bought for her while she was living at Passy and, having told the Dufours that they were going for a trip in the yacht, they had carried the bags down to her.
With the approach of evening, the usual breeze from the land caused the sails of the ship to fill a little, and she began to put on way. But Roger was not displeased as, without the breeze, he could not have sailed his yacht, and he felt confident that he could overhaul the frigate. Before they hoisted the anchor they took a long, tender farewell of one another, but Georgina put a brave face on their parting, and the yacht was soon churning up a ripple at her bow.
It took them over two hours to come up within hailing distance of the frigate, but that suited Roger well, as he did not want to run even the slight risk of one of the officers on board recognizing him as Mr. Brook, To reduce the possibility to a minimum, he had put on his oldest sailing clothes, and it was now nearly dark.
The watch answered Roger's hail; then a lengthy exchange took place, during which the Captain came on deck. At first he was most reluctant to take a female aboard; but, on being assured that she was the Countess of St. Ermins, a well known beauty who had many influential friends, he decided that it was better not to risk a reprimand from his superiors for having refused to assist her to escape from enemy territory.
At length a breeches buoy was let down, Roger lashed Georgina firmly into it, then she was hauled up, He had lowered the sails of his yacht and now sat down in the stern while she gently rocked. After waving Georgina away, he sadly watched the ship until she had disappeared into the darkness. He then hoisted sail and turned the yacht in the direction of St. Tropez, where he intended to sleep that night.
The following afternoon he told the Dufours that their mistress had received news that a member of her family was dangerously ill; so she had had to leave for Marseilles at a moment's notice. Next morning, with a heavy heart, he took the road to Paris.
6
A New Mission
When, on the 12th March, Roger reached the capital, he found it agog with excitement over the Emperor's approaching marriage, and was glad to learn that the bride was to be the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, the nineteen year-old daughter of the Emperor Francis.
The Russian alliance, entered into with such enthusiasm by the Czar in the summer of 1808, when the two Emperors had met on a raft in the middle of the river Niemen at Tilsit to agree an armistice, had never been popular with a great part of the Russian nobility; and later, when the two Emperors had met again at Erfurt, Alexander a mental as well as a born autocrat had baulked at the suggestion of giving his sister to a Corsican upstart. Finally, to avoid offending Napoleon, his formal proposal had been rejected by the Dowager Czarina on the excuse that her daughter was still too young to marry.
The result must be a further weakening of the Franco-Russian alliance, which gave Napoleon security in the north and could lead to his becoming still more powerful through the conquest and partition of Turkey; so Talleyrand, Fouche, Roger and everyone else who was secretly hoping for Napoleon's downfall were very pleased that the new Empress was to be the Austrian.
Having made his service to the Emperor, Roger rode out to Malmaison. Josephine received him with delight, had the best guest suite in the house prepared for him and said that he must order anything he desired, at her expense. During the next few days he took over from her Comptroller and found that there was nothing basically wrong with the running of the household. It was simply that the official had endeavored to check Josephine's extravagance, and had shown no tact in doing so. Feeling confident that he could always persuade the Emperor to give her more money, Roger made few changes and soon settled down to his new life.
As spring was now well on the way, much of his time was spent with Josephine in her beautiful garden. Flowers were her chief delight. Tens of thousands of bulbs were blooming in the glades, and in the hot-houses there were many rare tropical plants that she had had sent from her native Martinique. But, although she no longer drove in Paris, she was far from leading the life of a recluse.
Apart from the enmity of members of the Bonaparte family, she had been universally popular and her old friends flocked out to Malmaison to visit her; so Roger was kept up-to-date with all that was going on at Court.
Berthier had been sent to escort Marie Louise from Vienna, and the Emperor was to receive her at St. Cloud.
But with his usual impatience, instead of adhering to the arrangement, as soon as he learned that she had passed the frontier, he drove at full speed to meet her. To the surprise and dismay of her attendants, he dashed into a house where she had broken her journey to rest and, although soaked to the skin from having been exposed to the pouring rain, fervidly embraced her. He then hustled her out to his carriage and carried the frightened girl off to his palace at Compiegne. Then he declared his intention of sleeping with her that night. Vigorous protests were made, because the marriage had not yet taken place;