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“Do you remember a masked man who appeared when you were dining at the common table in a hotel in Avignon? He carried a bag containing two hundred louis, which he’d stolen by mistake from a Bordeaux wine merchant in a stagecoach?”
“Yes, I remember him well. Ah, Monsieur Fouché, that is the kind of man I need.”
“It is not devotion to an earlier regime, Citizen First Consul, that drives men like him; it’s really just a matter of self-interest.”
“How right you are, Fouché. Well, how about the third one?”
“The third son will be your friend if you want.”
“How’s that?”
“Obviously, it is with his agreement that Madame de Sourdis, skilled in flattery, is asking for your blessing of her daughter’s marriage as if you were a king. Give your blessing, sire, and instead of being your enemy, Monsieur Hector de Sainte-Hermine will have no choice but to become your friend.”
“Fine,” said Bonaparte. “I shall give it some thought.” Rubbing his hands in satisfaction at the thought that someone had just fulfilled a formality that used to be associated with French kings, he then proceeded: “Well, Fouché. Any news?”
“Just one piece of news, but it’s quite important, especially for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Yesterday, in the green room at Mortefontaine, with Lucien, the Minister of the Interior, holding the pen, you dictated and signed my dismissal and my admission to the Senate.”
In a gesture familiar to Corsicans, Bonaparte ran his thumb twice over his chest in the sign of the cross, and said: “Who told you such a story, Fouché?”
“One of my agents, of course.”
“He was mistaken.”
“He was so far from mistaken that my dismissal is right there, on that chair, in the side pocket of your gray frock coat.”
“Fouché,” said Bonaparte, “if you limped like Talleyrand, I would say that you were the devil himself.”
“You no longer deny it, am I right?”
“Of course not. Besides, your dismissal has been arranged with the most honorable terms.”
“I understand. It is surely to my credit, during all the time I have been in your service, that you have never noticed any of your silver missing.”
“Now that France is at peace and the Ministry of Police is unnecessary, I can send its minister to the Senate so that I know where to find him if ever the ministry needs to be reestablished. I am aware that in the Senate, my dear Fouché, you will have to give up your administration of gambling, which provides you a source to streams of gold, but you already have so much money you cannot possibly enjoy it all. And your domain in Pontcarré, which I knew you would like to keep expanding, is really already quite large enough for you.”
“Do I have your word,” said Fouché, “that if the Ministry of Police is reestablished it will be for no one other than for me?”
“You have my word,” said Bonaparte.
“Thank you. And now, may I announce to Cabanis that Mademoiselle de Sourdis, his goddaughter, has your blessing to marry the Comte de Sainte-Hermine?”
“You may.”
Bonaparte nodded slightly, Fouché answered with a deep bow, and departed.
The First Consul, his hands behind his back, paced up and down silently for a few moments. Then, stopping behind his secretary’s chair, he said, “Did you hear that, Bourrienne?”
“What, General?”
“What that devil Fouché just said to me.”
“I never hear anything unless you order me to listen.”
“He knew that I had retired his minitry, that I had done so at Mortefontaine, and that the dismissal order was in the pocket of my gray frock coat.”
“Ah,” said Bourrienne. “That is not so surprising. All he needed to do was to give your brother’s personal valet a pension.”
Bonaparte shook his head. “All the same, that man Fouché is dangerous.”
“Yes,” said Bourrienne, “but you have to admit that a man whose subtlety can surprise you can be a useful man in times like these.”
Silent for a moment, the First Consul then said, “I’ve promised him that at the first signs of trouble I will call him back. I shall probably keep my word.”
He rang for the office boy. “Landoire,” Bonaparte said, “look out the window and see if a carriage is ready.”
Landoire leaned out the window. “Yes, General,” he said.
The First Consul pulled on his frock coat and picked up his hat. “I’m going to the Conseil d’Etat.”
He started toward the door, then stopped. “Bourrienne,” he said, “go down to Josephine and tell her that not only does Mademoiselle de Sourdis’s marriage have my blessing but also that Madame Bonaparte and I shall sign her marriage contract.”
XXI In Which Fouché Works to Return to the Ministry of Police, Which He Has Not Yet Left (#ulink_44c1fff0-58b6-587d-b7f6-711fd118b56d)
FOUCHÉ WENT BACK to his office furious. He still had a role to play, but the role was limited. Outside of the police, Fouché had only secondary power, which to him was of no real value. For nature had endowed him with crossed eyes so that he could look in two directions at once and with big ears that could hear things from all directions. Add to that his subtle intelligence and his temperament—nervous, irritable, worrying—all of which went wanting without his ministry.
And Bonaparte had hit upon the truly sensitive point. In losing the police, he was losing his control over gambling, so he was also losing more than two hundred thousand francs a year. Although Fouché was already extremely rich, he was always trying to increase his wealth even if he could never really enjoy it. His ambition to extend the boundaries of his domain in Pontcarré was no less great than Bonaparte’s to move back the borders of France.
Fouché threw himself into his armchair without a word to anyone. His facial muscles were quivering like the surface of the ocean in a storm. After a few minutes, however, they stopped twitching, because Fouché had found what he was looking for. The pale smile that lit up his face indicated, if not the return of good weather, at least a temporary calm. He grabbed the bell cord that hung above his desk and pulled it vigorously.
The office boy hurried in. “Monsieur Dubois!” Fouché shouted.
A moment later the door opened and Monsieur Dubois entered. Dubois had a calm, gentle face, with a kindly, unaffected smile, and he was scrupulously neat. Wearing a white tie and a shirt with cuffs, he pranced more than he walked lightly in, and the soles of his shoes slid over the carpet as if they were a dancing master’s.
“Monsieur Dubois,” said Fouché, throwing himself back in his armchair, “today I need all your intelligence and discretion.”
“I can vouch only for my discretion, Monsieur le Ministre,” he answered. “As for my intelligence, it has value only when guided by you.”
“Fine, fine, Monsieur Dubois,” said Fouché a little impatiently. “Enough compliments. In your service, is there a man whom we can trust?”
“First I need to know what we will be using him for.”
“Of course. He will travel to Brittany, where he will organize three bands of fire-setters. One fire, the largest, must be set on the road between Vannes and Muzillac; the other two, wherever he likes.”
“I’m listening,” said Dubois, noting that Fouché had paused.
“One of the bands will call itself Cadoudal’s band, and it will pretend to have Cadoudal himself at its head.”
“According to what Your Excellency is saying.…”
“I shall let you use those words for now,” said Fouché with a laugh, “especially since you’ve not much time left appropriately to use them.”
Dubois bowed, and, encouraged by Fouché, he went on: “According to what Your Excellency is saying, you need a man who can shoot if necessary.”
“That, and whatever else is necessary.”
Monsieur Dubois thought for a moment and shook his head. “I have no one like that among my men,” he said.
But, when Fouché gestured impatiently, Dubois recalled: “Wait a moment. Yesterday a man came to my office, a certain Chevalier de Mahalin, a fellow who was a member of the Companions of Jehu and who asks for nothing better, he says, than well-paid dangers. He is a gambler in every sense of the word, ready to risk his life as well as his money on a throw of the dice. He’s our man.”
“Do you have his address?”
“No. But he is coming back to my office today sometime between one and two o’clock. It is now one o’clock, so he must be there already or else he will be soon.”
“Go, then, and bring him back here.”
When Monsieur Dubois had left, Fouché pulled a file from its box and carried it over to his desk. It was the Pichegru file, and he studied it with the greatest attention until Monsieur Dubois returned with the man he’d talked about.
It was the same man who had visited Hector de Sainte-Hermine regarding the promises he’d made to his brother and who then had led him to Laurent’s band. Now disbanded, with nothing more to be done in Cadoudal’s cause, the good man was looking elsewhere for work.
He was probably between twenty-five and thirty years old, well built, and quite handsome. He had a pleasant smile, and you could have said he was likeable in every respect, except for a troubled and disturbing look in his eyes that often caused people he dealt with worry and concern.
Fouché examined him with a penetrating look that enabled him to take any man’s moral measure. In this man he could sense the love of money, great courage, though he seemed more ready to defend himself than to attack another, and the absolute will to succeed in any undertaking. That was exactly what Fouché was looking for.
“Monsieur,” said Fouché, “I have been assured that you would like to enter government service. Is that correct?”
“That is my greatest wish.”
“In what role?”
“Wherever there are blows to receive and money to be earned.”
“Do you know Brittany and the Vendée?”
“Perfectly well. Three times I have been sent to meet General Cadoudal.”
“Have you been in contact with those serving just beneath him?”
“With some of them, and particularly with one of Cadoudal’s lieutenants—he’s called George II because he looks like the general.”
“Damn!” said Fouché. “That might be useful. Do you believe you could raise three bands of about twenty men each?”
“It is always possible, in a region still warm from civil war, to raise three bands of twenty men. If the purpose is honorable, honest men will easily make up your sixty, and for them all you will need are grand words and elegant speech. If the purpose is less principled and demands secrecy, you will still be able to enlist mercenaries, but to buy their questionable consciences will cost you more.”
Fouché gave Dubois a look that seemed to be saying, “My good man, you have indeed come up with a real find.” Then, to the chevalier, he said, “Monsieur, within ten days we need three bands of incendiaries, two in the Morbihan and one in the Vendée, all three of them acting in Cadoudal’s name. In one of the bands a masked man must assume the name of the Breton general and do all that he can to convince the populace that he really is Cadoudal.”
“Easy, but expensive, as I have said.”
“Are fifty thousand francs enough?”
“Yes. Unquestionably.”
“So then, we are agreed on that point. Once your three bands have been organized, will you be able to go to England?”
“There is nothing simpler, given that my background is English and that I speak the language as well as I do my mother tongue.”
“Do you know Pichegru?”
“By name.”
“Do you have a means of getting introduced to him?”
“Yes.”
“And if I asked you how?”
“I would not tell you. After all, I need to keep some secrets; otherwise, I would lose all my value.”
“So you would. And so you will go to England, where you will check out Pichegru and try to discover under what circumstances he would be willing to come back to Paris. Were he to wish to return to Paris but finds money to be lacking, you will propose funds in the name of Fauche-Borel. Don’t forget that name.”
“The Swiss bookseller who has already made proposals to him in the name of the Prince de Condé; yes, I know him. And were he to wish to return to Paris and needs money, to whom should I turn?”
“To Monsieur Fouché, at his domain in Pontcarré. Not to the Minister of Police, the difference is important.”
“And then?”
“And then you will return to Paris for new orders. Monsieur Dubois, please count out fifty thousand francs for the chevalier. By the way, chevalier.…”
Mahalin turned around.
“If you should happen to meet Coster Saint-Victor, encourage him to come back to Paris.”
“Does he not risk arrest?”
“No, all will be forgiven, that I can affirm.”
“What shall I say to convince him?”
“That all the women in Paris miss him, and especially Mademoiselle Aurélie de Saint-Amour. You may add that after being a rival to Barras for her charms, it would be a shame for him not also to be a rival to the First Consul. That should be enough to help him make up his mind to return, unless he has even more extraordinary liaisons in London.”
Once the door had shut on Dubois and Mahalin, Fouché quickly had an orderly carry the following letter to Doctor Cabanis:
My dear doctor,
The First Consul, whom I have just seen in Madame Bonaparte’s apartments, could not have more graciously received Madame de Sourdis’s request concerning her daughter’s marriage, and he is pleased to see such a marriage take place.
