"What disaster do you expect to befall them, commanded by Kleber?"
"Kleber may be killed, general; and who is there behind Kleber? Menou.
Kleber and your twenty thousand men are doomed, general!"
"How doomed?"
"Yes, the Sultan will send troops; he controls by land. The English will send their fleet; they control by sea. We, who have neither land nor sea, will be compelled to take part from here in the evacuation of Egypt and the capitulation of our army.
"You take a gloomy view of things, general!"
"The future will show which of us two have seen things as they are."
"What would you have done in my place?"
"I don"t know. But, even had I been forced to bring them back by way of Constantinople, I should never have abandoned those whom France had intrusted to me. Xenophon, on the banks of the Tigris, was in a much more desperate situation than you on the banks of the Nile. He brought his ten thousand back to Ionia, and they were not the children of Athens, not his fellow citizens; they were mercenaries!"
From the instant Bernadotte uttered the word Constantinople, Bonaparte listened no longer; the name seemed to rouse a new train of ideas in his mind, which he followed in solitary thought. He laid his hand on the arm of the astonished Bernadotte, and, with eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce, like a man who pursues through s.p.a.ce the phantom of a vanished project, he said: "Yes, yes! I thought of it. That is why I persisted in taking that hovel, Saint-Jean-d"Acre. Here you only thought it obstinacy, a useless waste of men sacrificed to the self-love of a mediocre general who feared that he might be blamed for a defeat. What should I have cared for the raising of the siege of Saint-Jean-d"Acre, if Saint-Jean-d"Acre had not been the barrier in the way of the grandest project ever conceived. Cities! Why, good G.o.d! I could take as many as ever did Alexander or Caesar, but it was Saint-Jean-d"Acre that had to be taken!
If I had taken Saint-Jean-d"Acre, do you know what I should have done?"
And he fixed his burning eyes upon Bernadotte, who, this time, lowered his under the flame of this genius.
"What I should have done," repeated Bonaparte, and, like Ajax, he seemed to threaten Heaven with his clinched fist; "if I had taken Saint-Jean-d"Acre, I should have found the treasures of the pasha in the city and three thousand stands of arms. With that I should have raised and armed all Syria, so maddened by the ferocity of Djezzar that each time I attacked him the population prayed to G.o.d for his overthrow. I should have marched upon Damascus and Aleppo; I should have swelled my army with the malcontents. Advancing into the country, I should, step by step, have proclaimed the abolition of slavery, and the annihilation of the tyrannical government of the pashas. I should have overthrown the Turkish empire, and founded a great empire at Constantinople, which would have fixed my place in history higher than Constantine and Mohammed II. Perhaps I should have returned to Paris by way of Adrianople and Vienna, after annihilating the house of Austria. Well, my dear general, that is the project which that little hovel of a Saint-Jean-d"Acre rendered abortive!"
And he so far forgot to whom he was speaking, as he followed the shadows of his vanished dream, that he called Bernadotte "my dear general." The latter, almost appalled by the magnitude of the project which Bonaparte had unfolded to him, made a step backward.
"Yes," said Bernadotte, "I perceive what you want, for you have just betrayed yourself. Orient or Occident, a throne! A throne? So be it; why not? Count upon me to help you conquer it, but elsewhere than in France.
I am a Republican, and I will die a Republican."
Bonaparte shook his head as if to disperse the thoughts which held him in the clouds.
"I, too, am a Republican," said he, "but see what has come of your Republic!"
"What matter!" cried Bernadotte. "It is not to a word or a form that I am faithful, but to the principle. Let the Directors but yield me the power, and I would know how to defend the Republic against her internal enemies, even as I defended her from her foreign enemies."
As he said these words, Bernadotte raised his eyes, and his glance encountered that of Bonaparte. Two naked blades clashing together never sent forth lightning more vivid, more terrible.
Josephine had watched the two men for some time past with anxious attention. She saw the dual glance teeming with reciprocal menace. She rose hastily and went to Bernadotte.
"General," said she.
Bernadotte bowed.
"You are intimate with Gohier, are you not?" she continued.
"He is one of my best friends, madame," said Bernadotte.
"Well, we dine with him the day after to-morrow, the 18th Brumaire; dine there yourself and bring Madame Bernadotte. I should be so glad to know her better."
"Madame," said Bernadotte, "in the days of the Greeks you would have been one of the three graces; in the Middle Ages you would have been a fairy; to-day you are the most adorable woman I know."
And making three steps backward, and bowing, he contrived to retire politely without including Bonaparte in his bow. Josephine followed him with her eyes until he had left the room. Then, turning to her husband, she said: "Well, it seems that it was not as successful with Bernadotte as with Moreau, was it?"
"Bold, adventurous, disinterested, sincere republican, inaccessible to seduction, he is a human obstacle. We must make our way around him, since we cannot overthrow him."
And leaving the salon without taking leave of any one, he went to his study, whither Roland and Bourrienne followed. They had hardly been there a quarter of an hour when the handle of the lock turned softly, the door opened, and Lucien appeared.
CHAPTER XXII. THE OUTLINE OF A DECREE
Lucien was evidently expected. Bonaparte had not mentioned his name once since entering the study; but in spite of this silence he had turned his head three or four times with increasing impatience toward the door, and when the young man appeared an exclamation of contentment escaped his lips.
Lucien, the general"s youngest brother, was born in 1775, making him now barely twenty-five years old. Since 1797, that is, at the age of twenty-two and a half, he had been a member of the Five Hundred, who, to honor Bonaparte, had made him their president. With the projects he had conceived nothing could have been more fortunate for Bonaparte.
Frank and loyal, republican to the core, Lucien believed that, in seconding his brother"s plans, he was serving the Republic better than the future First Consul. In his eyes, no one was better fitted to save it a second time than he who had saved it the first. It was with these sentiments in his heart that he now came to confer with his brother.
"Here you are," said Bonaparte. "I have been waiting for you impatiently."
"So I suspected. But I was obliged to wait until I could leave without being noticed."
"Did you manage it?"
"Yes; Talma was relating a story about Marat and Dumouriez. Interesting as it was, I deprived myself of the pleasure, and here I am."
"I have just heard a carriage driving away; the person who got in it couldn"t have seen you coming up my private stairs, could he?"
"The person who drove off was myself, the carriage was mine. If that is not seen every one will think I have left."
Bonaparte breathed freer.
"Well," said he, "let us hear how you have spent your day."
"Oh! I haven"t wasted my time, you may be sure."
"Are we to have a decree or the Council?"
"We drew it up to-day, and I have brought it to you--the rough draft at least--so that you can see if you want anything added or changed."
"Let me see it," cried Bonaparte. Taking the paper hastily from Lucien"s hand, he read:
Art. I. The legislative body is transferred to the commune of Saint-Cloud; the two branches of the Council will hold their sessions in the two wings of the palace.
"That"s the important article," said Lucien. "I had it placed first, so that it might strike the people at once."
"Yes, yes," exclaimed Bonaparte, and he continued:
Art. II. They will a.s.semble there to-morrow, the 20th Brumaire--