By taking the inland road they covered the twelve miles to Calais in good time and entered the town a little before seven o'clock. Lannes said that their General had taken up his quarters for the night at the house of the Military Commandant, General Reveillon. It was a spacious mansion which, before the Revolution, had been the property of a wealthy noble. In the courtyard Lannes and Roger handed their mounts over to the two Hussars and the Brigadier led the way inside.
In the hall they ran into another old friend of Roger's, Fauvelet de Bourrienne. He was a ci-devant noble and as a youth had been a cadet at the Military Academy at Brienne with Bonaparte, although he had later gone into the Diplomatic Service instead of entering the Army. During the Revolution he had been recalled from his post in Germany but, fearing that as an aristocrat he would be sent to the guillotine, he had refused to return to France; so he had been listed as an emigre.
When peace negotiations were about to be entered into, following the signing of the armistice at Leoben, Bonaparte had felt the need of a really capable man, on whose devotion he could rely, to act as his Chef de Cabinet. At Brienne, Bonaparte, as the poor son of a landless Corsican gentleman, had been almost ostracized by his rich and noble schoolfellows. Bourrienne had been one of the few who, as well as being a star pupil, had befriended him; so he had written and offered him the post. Bourrienne had accepted, joined him in Italy and soon showed such ability that Bonaparte had every reason to be pleased with his choice.
On seeing Roger, Bourrienne opened wide his arms, embraced him and cried, 'Mon ami, what a joy to have you back with us!
But what a state you are in! You look as though you have been dragged through a hedge backwards. What the deuce have you been up to? '
Between them Roger and Lannes gave him a rough outline of what had occurred, the latter promising a more detailed account later. Then Bourrienne took him into a room at the front of the house which their host used as an office.
General Reveillon w$is sitting there: a big, red-faced, jolly-looking man in his late forties. Having welcomed Roger, he took him up to a bedroom on the third floor and ordered a soldier servant to bring up cans of hot water so that Roger could wash and tidy himself up. As he was about to leave, he said:
' When you are ready, come down to the big salon on the first floor. Supper will be ready in about three-quarters of an hour, and I have asked some of my officers to meet the General-in-Chief; so we'll be quite a big party.'
Half an hour later, having made himself as presentable as he could and with a light heart now that all his troubles were over, Roger went downstairs and entered the salon. There were nearly twenty officers there, and Bonaparte was standing near one of the tall windows, talking to Reveillon. The young conqueror was then twenty-eight and a half, so was some eighteen months younger than Roger.
The eagle eyes in the pale face of the weedy-looking little Corsican lit on Roger immediately. With an abrupt gesture he beckoned him over. Roger drew himself up, walked forward and stood stiffly to attention.
Bonaparte, whose memory was prodigious, said sharply, ' Breuc, you were due to report back from leave not later than January 31st. You are twelve days late. Explain yourself.'
Roger replied with quiet confidence, ' Mon General, it was in your service. I recovered from the wound I received in Venice more speedily than I had expected; so I decided to put the remainder of my sick leave to good purpose. Since you have often spoken to me of your intention, sooner or later, to invade and conquer England, and since I can so easily pass for an Englishman, I had myself smuggled across the Channel. My return was delayed by appalling weather, but in the six weeks I spent there I carried out a reconnaissance of the present state of defence on the south coast, from Ramsgate to Lymington.'
A sudden smile twitched Bonaparte's thin lips and his large dark eyes lit up as he murmured, 'That was well done, Breuc. Well done indeed. I have always counted on your value when we make our descent on England, and now you will be worth an extra Division to me.'
When he had first addressed Roger so sharply a sudden hush had descended on the room. Now, raising his voice so that all could hear, he laid his hand on Roger's arm and said, '1 appoint you my Aide-de-Camp-in-Chief for the invasion of England, and I have today decided to lead the Army of the North against that accursed island before the spring is out.'
The New Babylon in 1798
Bonaparte's pronouncement was received with great enthusiasm. Lannes alone among the assembled officers refrained from joining in the cheers and for a moment it looked as if he were about to voice a protest. But evidently considering the time and place inappropriate, he refrained and confined himself to exchanging an uneasy glance with Bourrienne.
Having dealt with Roger, the General-in-Chief resumed his conversation with R6veillon; so Roger tactfully withdrew and mingled with the others. When supper was announced they filed into a large dining room where, although Reveillon was the host, he insisted on Bonaparte taking the head of the long table. The gesture showed Roger that his chief had by his return to France lost nothing of the status he had achieved for himself in Italy.
There, at Montebello, during the peace parleys with Austria, he had in a few months transformed his position from that of a fighting soldier, who shared all hardships with his strongly Republican officers and men, to that of an almost royal personage. He had formed a Court at which his wife, mother and sisters set the tone for the many other ladies who had been invited from France to join his senior officers. Even his oldest friends no longer dared to ' thee and thou' him. Like royalty, he dined every night in state, with his family and only a few others whom, from time to time, he chose to honour. The drawing rooms and antechambers of the Palace were always crowded, not only with his Generals but with a score of German and Italian nobles sent by their Princes to fawn upon him and win his goodwill.
He talked almost incessantly and now, as then, everyone hung upon his words while his agile mind flashed from subject to
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subject, hardly waiting for answers to the questions he shot at those nearest him. Reveillon had taken the place on his right and Bourrienne was on his other side. Lannes and Roger were on the opposite side of the table, a few places down. The meal was nearly over when, during a brief pause in the conversation, Lannes said to his master:
' But for my arrival on the scene this afternoon you would have been short of an aide-de-camp. At four o'clock Breuc was on the point of being shot as a spy.'
Bonaparte gave Roger an amused glance. 'That would have been carrying your pretence of being an Englishman a little too far. Tell us how you got yourself into such a predicament.'
One of Roger's most valuable gifts was his ability as a raconteur. He plunged into his story with gusto, deliberately raised several laughs against himself, gave a graphic description of the terror he had felt and belittled his achievement of having got away from seven armed men.
He could afford to adopt such an attitude because Bonaparte believed him to be fearless. At the siege of Toulon, soon after they first met, Roger had got himself into a position where he had no alternative but to lead an assault on an enemy battery over open ground in full daylight, and the out-at-elbows little Commander of the Artillery was under the impression that he had deliberately volunteered to undertake this suicidal act. More recently, too, on an island near Mestre, he had defended himself against a dozen Venetians under the eyes of the General-in-Chief, and in so doing had saved him from their most unwelcome attentions. He had received a sword of honour as a reward and a mention in Army Orders that had established his reputation for valour.