‘Neil Campbell,’ said Madame Delacroix. ‘It seems he had departed from Elba on HMSPartridgecarrying a dispatch for Lord Castlereagh.’
Spade laughed humourlessly. ‘What was in the dispatch – a warning that Bonaparte was planning to escape?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised, but it doesn’t say here.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Golfe-Juan, on the south coast.’
‘So he’s not coming here. That’s a relief.’
‘If it’s true,’ the landlady said. ‘These newspapers don’t know everything.’
‘But what could he do in France, with only a thousand men?’
She shrugged like a Frenchwoman. ‘All I know,’ she said, ‘is that one should never underestimate Napoleon.’
*
Amos Barrowfield was about to take a large consignment of dark-blue merino wool cloth on a barge downstream to Combe and then by sea to Antwerp. It was his first big order from the newly liberated Netherlands, and he was concerned that the cloth should be delivered swiftly and securely, because he hoped to win more business from the same customer and others there; so he was taking it across the Channel personally.
The day before he was due to depart he had dinner at the High Street Coffee House – roast lamb with potatoes – and read the latest news.
The headline in theGazettewas:
BONAPARTE IN FRANCE
‘Hell,’ he said.
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said a voice, and Amos looked up to see Rupe Underwood at the next table, eating the same lamb and reading the same newspaper.
Amos and Rupe were friendly enough these days, though they had once been rivals for the affections of Jane Midwinter. They were both in their forties now, and Amos was struck by how Rupe had aged, then realized that he had aged too, in the same way: a little grey in the hair, a softness around the waist, an aversion to running.
Rupe said: ‘Bonaparte has landed on the south coast of France at a place called Cannes, it says here. Then he went to Mass at a local church.’
Amos said: ‘Worst of all, it seems local men are flocking to join his army.’
‘Everyone thought he would run to some place where his empire hasn’t yet collapsed.’
‘Probably Naples.’
‘But we misjudged him – again.’
Amos nodded agreement. ‘There’s only one reason for him to return to France with an army, even a small one. He wants to be emperor again.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘I believe a lot of French people would welcome him back. The new king, Louis XVIII, seems to have done all he can to remind them why they had a revolution in the first place.’
‘Such as?’
‘I understand he’s revived the ancient royal custom of forgetting to pay the soldiers.’
‘Will Bonaparte reach Paris?’
‘That’s what I’m wondering. I’m due to leave tomorrow for Antwerp.’
‘Which is what, seven or eight hundred miles from the south coast of France?’
