The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [romance book recommendations TXT] 📗

hand to Sir John, he added: “Have you anything to ask of me, sir?”

“The only thing I seek has been asked of you by my friend Roland.”

“And I answered, sir, that I shall be pleased to see you the husband of his sister. If I were richer, or if you were less so, I would offer to dower her”—Sir John made a motion—“but as I know your fortune will suffice for two,” added Bonaparte, smiling, “or even more, I leave you the joy of giving not only happiness, but also wealth to the woman you love. Bourrienne!” he called.

Bourrienne appeared.

“I have sent it, general,” he said.

“Very good,” replied the First Consul; “but that is not what I called you for.”

“I await your orders.”

“At whatever hour of the day or night Lord Tanlay presents himself, I shall be happy to receive him without delay; you hear me, my dear Bourrienne? You hear me, my lord?”

Lord Tanlay bowed his thanks.

“And now,” said Bonaparte, “I presume you are in a hurry to be off to the Château des Noires-Fontaines. I won’t detain you, but there is one condition I impose.”

“And that is, general?”

“If I need you for another mission—”

“That is not a condition, citizen First Consul; it is a favor.”

Lord Tanlay bowed and withdrew.

Bourrienne prepared to follow him, but Bonaparte called him back. “Is there a carriage below?” he asked.

Bourrienne looked into the courtyard. “Yes, general.”

“Then get ready and come with me.”

“I am ready, general; I have only my hat and overcoat to get, and they are in the office.”

“Then let us go,” said Bonaparte.

He took up his hat and coat, went down the private staircase, and signed to the carriage to come up. Notwithstanding Bourrienne’s haste, he got down after him. A footman opened the door; Bonaparte sprang in.

“Where are we going, general?” asked Bourrienne.

“To the Tuileries,” replied Bonaparte.

Bourrienne, amazed, repeated the order, and looked at the First Consul as if to seek an explanation; but the latter was plunged in thought, and the secretary, who at this time was still the friend, thought it best not to disturb him.

The horses started at gallop—Bonaparte’s usual mode of progression—and took the way to the Tuileries.

The Tuileries, inhabited by Louis XVI. after the days of the 5th and 6th of October, and occupied successively by the Convention and the Council of Five Hundred, had remained empty and devastated since the 18th Brumaire. Since that day Bonaparte had more than once cast his eyes on that ancient palace of royalty; but he knew the importance of not arousing any suspicion that a future king might dwell in the palace of the abolished monarchy.

Bonaparte had brought back from Italy a magnificent bust of Junius Brutus; there was no suitable place for it at the Luxembourg, and toward the end of November, Bonaparte had sent for the Republican, David, and ordered him to place the bust in the gallery of the Tuileries. Who could suppose that David, the friend of Marat, was preparing the dwelling of a future emperor by placing the bust of Cæsar’s murderer in the gallery of the Tuileries? No one did suppose, nor even suspect it.

When Bonaparte went to see if the bust were properly placed, he noticed the havoc committed in the palace of Catherine of Medicis. The Tuileries were no longer the abode of kings, it is true, but they were a national palace, and the nation could not allow one of its palaces to become dilapidated. Bonaparte sent for citizen Lecomte, the architect, and ordered him to clean the Tuileries. The word might be taken in both senses—moral and physical.

The architect was requested to send in an estimate of the cost of the cleaning. It amounted to five hundred thousand francs. Bonaparte asked if for that sum, the Tuileries could be converted into a suitable “palace for the government.” The architect replied that the sum named would suffice not only to restore the Tuileries to their former condition, but to make them habitable.

A habitable palace, that was all Bonaparte wanted. How should he, a Republican, need regal luxury? The “palace of the government” ought to be severely plain, decorated with marbles and statues only. But what ought those statues to be? It was the First Consul’s duty to select them.

Accordingly, Bonaparte chose them from the three great ages and the three great nations: from the Greeks, from the Romans, from France and her rivals. From the Greeks he chose Alexander and Demosthenes; the genius of conquest and the genius of eloquence. From the Romans he chose Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Brutus and Cæsar, placing the great victim side by side with the murderer, as great almost as himself. From the modern world he chose Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, the great Condé, Duguay-Trouin, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Maréchal de Saxe; and, finally, the great Frederick and George Washington—false philosophy upon a throne, and true wisdom founding a free state.

To these he added warlike heroes—Dampierre, Dugommier, Joubert—to prove that, while he did not fear the memory of a Bourbon in the great Condé, neither was he jealous of his brothers-in-arms, the victims of a cause already no longer his.

Matters were in this state at the period of which we are now speaking; that is, the last of February, 1800. The Tuileries had been cleaned, the busts were in their niches, the statues were on their pedestals; and only a favorable occasion was wanting.

That occasion came when the news of Washington’s death was received. The founder of the liberty of the United States had ceased to breathe on the 14th of December, 1799.

It was that event of which Bonaparte was thinking, when Bourrienne saw by the expression of his face that he must be left entirely to the reflections which absorbed him.

The carriage stopped before the Tuileries. Bonaparte sprang out with the same haste with which he had entered it; went rapidly up the stairs, and through the apartments, examining more particularly those which had been inhabited by Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette. In the private study of Louis XVI. he stopped short.

“Here’s where we will live, Bourrienne,” he said, suddenly, as if the latter had followed him through the mental labyrinth in which he wandered, following the thread of Ariadne which we call thought. “Yes, we will lodge here; the Third Consul can have the Pavilion of Flora, and Cambacérès will remain at the Chancellerie.”

“In that way,” said Bourrienne, “when the time comes, you will have only one to turn out.”

“Come, come,” said Bonaparte, catching Bourrienne by the ear, “that’s not bad.”

“When