on the 18th june, 1815, at the very moment when the destiny of europe was being decided at waterloo, a man dressed like a beggar was silently following the road from toulon to marseilles.
arrived at the entrance of the gorge of ollioulles, he halted on a little eminence from which he could see all the surrounding country; then either because he had reached the end of his journey, or because, before attempting that forbidding, sombre pass which is called the thermopylae of provence, he wished to enjoy the magnificent view which spread to the southern horizon a little longer, he went and sat down on the edge of the ditch which bordered the road, turning his back on the mountains which rise like an amphitheatre to the north of the town, and having at his feet a rich plain covered with tropical vegetation, exotics of a conservatory, trees and flowers quite unknown in any other part of france.
beyond this plain, glittering in the last rays of the sun, pale and motionless as a mirror lay the sea, and on the surface of the water glided one brig-of-war, which, taking advantage of a fresh land breeze, had all sails spread, and was bowling along rapidly, making for italian seas. the beggar followed it eagerly with his eyes until it disappeared between the cape of gien and the first of the islands of hyeres, then as the white apparition vanished he sighed deeply, let his head fall into his hands, and remained motionless and absorbed in his reflections until the tramplings of a cavalcade made him start; he looked up, shook back his long black hair, as if he wished to get rid of the gloomy thoughts which were overwhelming him, and, looking at the entrance to the gorge from whence the noise came, he soon saw two riders appear, who were no doubt well known to him, for, drawing himself up to his full height, he let fall the stick he was carrying, and folding his arms he turned towards them. on their side the new-comers had hardly seen him before they halted, and the foremost dismounted, threw his bridle to his companion, and uncovering, though fifty paces from the man in rags, advanced respectfully towards him. the beggar allowed him to approach with an air of sombre dignity and without a single movement; then, when he was quite near—
“well, marshal, have, you news for me?” said the beggar.
“yes, sire,” said the other sadly.
“and what are they?”
“such that i could wish it were anyone but myself to announce them to your majesty——”
“so the emperor refuses my services! he forgets the victories of aboukir, eylau, and moscow?”
“no, sire; but he remembers the treaty of naples, the taking of reggio, and the declaration of war of the viceroy of italy.”
the beggar struck his forehead.
“yes, yes! i daresay he thinks i deserve his reproaches, and yet it seems to me that he ought to remember that there are two men in me—the soldier whom he made his brother, and the brother whom he made a king.... yes, as brother i have treated him ill—very ill, but as king, upon my soul, i could not have acted differently.... i had to choose between my sword and my crown, and between a regiment and a people. listen, brune: you do not know how it all happened. there was an english fleet, the guns of which were growling in the port, there was a neapolitan population howling in the streets. if i had been alone, i would have passed through the fleet with one boat, through the crowd with my sword alone, but i had a wife and children. yet i hesitated; the idea of being called traitor and deserter caused me to shed more tears than the loss of my throne, or perhaps the death of those i love best, will ever wring from me.... and so he will have nothing more to do with me? he refuses me as general, captain, private? then what is left for me to do?”
“sire, your majesty must leave france immediately.”
“and if i don’t obey?”
“my orders are to arrest you and deliver you up to a court-martial!”
“old comrade, you will not do that?”
“i shall do it, praying god to strike me dead in the moment i lay hands on you!”
“that’s you all over, brune. you have been able to remain a good, loyal fellow. he did not give you a kingdom, he did not encircle your brow with a band of iron which men call a crown and which drives one mad; he did not place you between your conscience and your family. so i must leave france, begin my vagabond life again, and say farewell to toulon, which recalls so many memories to me! see, brune,” continued murat, leaning on the arm of the marshal, “are not the pines yonder as fine as any at the villa pamfili, the palms as imposing as any at cairo, the mountains as grand as any range in the tyrol? look to your left, is not cape gien something like castellamare and sorrento—leaving out vesuvius? and see, saint-mandrier at the farthest point of the gulf, is it not like my rock of capri, which lamarque juggled away so cleverly from that idiot of a sir hudson lowe? my god! and i must leave all this! is there no way of remaining on this little corner of french ground—tell me, brune!”
“you’ll break my heart, sire!” answered the marshal.
“well, we’ll say no more about it. what news?”
“the emperor has left paris to join the army. they must be fighting now.”
“fighting now and i not there! oh, i feel i could have been of use to him on this battlefield. how i would have gloried in charging those miserable prussians and dastardly english! brune, give me a passport, i’ll go at full speed, i’ll reach the army, i will make myself known to some colonel, i shall say, ‘give me your regiment.’ i’ll charge at its head, and if the emperor does not clasp my hand to-night, i’ll blow my brains out, i swear i will. do what i ask, brune, and however it may end, my eternal gratitude will be yours!”
“i cannot, sire.”
“well, well, say no more about it.”
“and your majesty is going to leave france?”
“i don’t know. obey your orders, marshal, and if you come across me again, have me arrested. that’s another way of doing something for me. life is a heavy burden nowadays. he who will relieve me of it will be welcome.... good-bye, brune.”
he held out his hand to the marshal, who tried to kiss it; but murat opened his arms, the two old comrades held each other fast for a moment, with swelling hearts and eyes full of tears; then at last they parted. brune remounted his horse, murat picked up his stick again, and the two men went away in opposite directions, one to meet his death by assassination at avignon, the other to be shot at pizzo. meanwhile, like richard iii, napoleon was bartering his crown against a horse at waterloo.
after the interview that has just been related, murat took refuge with his nephew, who was called bonafoux, and who was captain of a frigate; but this retreat could only be temporary, for the relationship would inevitably awake the suspicions of the authorities. in consequence, bonafoux set about finding a more secret place of refuge for his uncle. he hit on one of his friends, an avocat, a man famed for his integrity, and that very evening bonafoux went to see him.
after chatting on general subjects, he asked his friend if he had not a house at the seaside, and receiving an affirmative answer, he invited himself to breakfast there the next day; the proposal naturally enough was agreed to with pleasure. the next day at the appointed hour bonafoux arrived at bonette, which was the name of the country house where m. marouin’s wife and daughter were staying. m. marouin himself was kept by his work at toulon. after the ordinary greetings, bonafoux stepped to the window, beckoning to marouin to rejoin him.
“i thought,” he said uneasily, “that your house was by the sea.”
“we are hardly ten minutes’ walk from it.”
“but it is not in sight.”
“that hill prevents you from seeing it.”
“may we go for a stroll on the beach before breakfast is served?”
“by all means. well, your horse is still saddled. i will order mine—i will come back for you.”
marouin went out. bonafoux remained at the window, absorbed in his thoughts. the ladies of the house, occupied in preparations for the meal, did not observe, or did not appear to observe, his preoccupation. in five minutes marouin came back. he was ready to start. the avocat and his friend mounted their horses and rode quickly down to the sea. on the beach the captain slackened his pace, and riding along the shore for about half an hour, he seemed to be examining the bearings of the coast with great attention. marouin followed without inquiring into his investigations, which seemed natural enough for a naval officer.
after about an hour the two men went back to the house.
marouin wished to have the horses unsaddled, but bonafoux objected, saying that he must go back to toulon immediately after lunch. indeed, the coffee was hardly finished before he rose and took leave of his hosts. marouin, called back to town by his work, mounted his horse too, and the two friends rode back to toulon together. after riding along for ten minutes, bonafoux went close to his companion and touched him on the thigh—
“marouin,” he said, “i have an important secret to confide to you.”
“speak, captain. after a father confessor, you know there is no one so discreet as a notary, and after a notary an avocat.”
“you can quite understand that i did not come to your country house just for the pleasure of the ride. a more important object, a serious responsibility, preoccupied me; i have chosen you out of all my friends, believing that you were devoted enough to me to render me a great service.”
“you did well, captain.”
“let us go straight to the point, as men who respect and trust each other should do. my uncle, king joachim, is proscribed, he has taken refuge with me; but he cannot remain there, for i am the first person they will suspect. your house is in an isolated position, and consequently we could not find a better retreat for him. you must put it at our disposal until events enable the king to come to some decision.”
“it is at your service,” said marouin.
“right. my uncle shall sleep there to-night.”
“but at least give me time to make some preparations worthy of my royal guest.”
“my poor marouin, you are giving yourself unnecessary trouble, and making a vexatious delay for us: king joachim is no longer accustomed to palaces and courtiers; he is only too happy nowadays to find a cottage with a friend in it; besides, i have let him know about it, so sure was i of your answer. he is counting on sleeping at your house to-night, and if i try to change his determination now he will see a refusal in what is only a postponement, and you will lose all the credit for your generous and noble action. there—it is agreed: to-night at ten at the champs de mars.”
with these words the captain put his horse to a gallop and disappeared. marouin turned his horse and went back to his country house to give the necessary orders for the reception of a stranger whose name he did not mention.
at ten o’clock at night, as had been agreed, marouin was on the champs de mars, then covered with marshal brune’s field-artillery. no one had arrived yet. he walked up and down between the gun-carriages until a functionary came to ask what he was doing. he was hard put to it to find an answer: a man is hardly likely to be wandering about in an artillery park at ten o’clock at night for the mere pleasure of the thing. he asked to see the commanding officer. the officer came up: m. marouin informed him that he was an avocat, attached to the law courts of toulon, and told him that he had arranged to meet someone on the champs de mars, not knowing that it was prohibited, and that he was still waiting for that person. after this explanation, the officer authorised him to remain, and went back to his quarters. the sentinel, a faithful adherent to discipline, continued to pace up and down with his measured step, without troubling any more about the stranger’s presence.
a few moments later a group of several persons appeared from the direction of les lices. the night was magnificent, and the moon brilliant. marouin recognised bonafoux, and went up to him. the captain at once took him by the hand and led him to the king, and speaking in turn to each of them—
“sire,” he said, “here is the friend. i told you of.”
then turning to marouin—
“here,” he said, “is the king of naples, exile and fugitive, whom i confide to your care. i do not speak of the possibility that some day he may get back his crown, that would deprive you of the credit of your fine action.... now, be his guide—we will follow at a distance. march!”
the king and the lawyer set out at once together. murat was dressed in a blue coat-semi-military, semi-civil, buttoned to the throat; he wore white trousers and top boots with spurs; he had long hair, moustache, and thick whiskers, which would reach round his neck.
as they rode along he questioned his host about the situation of his country house and the facility for reaching the sea in case of a surprise. towards midnight the king and marouin arrived at bonette; the royal suite came up in about ten minutes; it consisted of about thirty individuals. after partaking of some light refreshment, this little troop, the last of the court of the deposed king, retired to disperse in the town and its environs, and murat remained alone with the women, only keeping one valet named leblanc.
murat stayed nearly a month in this retirement, spending all his time in answering the newspapers which accused him of treason to the emperor. this accusation was his absorbing idea, a phantom, a spectre to him; day and night he tried to shake it off, seeking in the difficult position in which he had found himself all the reasons which it might offer him for acting as he had acted. meanwhile the terrible news of the defeat at waterloo had spread abroad. the emperor who had exiled him was an exile himself, and he was waiting at rochefort, like murat at toulon, to hear what his enemies would decide against him. no one knows to this day what inward prompting napoleon obeyed when, rejecting the counsels of general lallemande and the devotion of captain bodin, he preferred england to america, and went like a modern prometheus to be chained to the rock of st. helena.
we are going to relate the fortuitous circumstance which led murat to the moat of pizzo, then we will leave it to fatalists to draw from this strange story whatever philosophical deduction may please them. we, as humble annalists, can only vouch for the truth of the facts we have already related and of those which will follow.
king louis xviii remounted his throne, consequently murat lost all hope of remaining in france; he felt he was bound to go. his nephew bonafoux fitted out a frigate for the united states under the name of prince rocca romana. the whole suite went on board, and they began to carry on to the boat all the valuables which the exile had been able to save from the shipwreck of his kingdom. first a bag of gold weighing nearly a hundred pounds, a sword-sheath on which were the portraits of the king, the queen, and their children, the deed of the civil estates of his family bound in velvet and adorned with his arms. murat carried on his person a belt where some precious papers were concealed, with about a score of unmounted diamonds, which he estimated himself to be worth four millions.
when all these preparations for departing were accomplished, it was agreed that the next day, the 1st of august, at five o’clock, a boat should fetch the king to the brig from a little bay, ten minutes’ walk from the house where he was staying. the king spent the night making out a route for m. marouin by which he could reach the queen, who was then in austria, i think.
it was finished just as it was time to leave, and on crossing the threshold of the hospitable house where he had found refuge he gave it to his host, slipped into a volume of a pocket edition of voltaire. below the story of ‘micromegas’ the king had written: [the volume is still in the hands of m. marouin, at toulon.]
reassure yourself, dear caroline; although unhappy, i am free. i am departing, but i do not know whither i am bound. wherever i may be my heart will be with you and my children. “j. m.”
ten minutes later murat and his host were waiting on the beach at bonette for the boat which was to take them out to the ship.
they waited until midday, and nothing appeared; and yet on the horizon they could see the brig which was to be his refuge, unable to lie at anchor on account of the depth of water, sailing along the coast at the risk of giving the alarm to the sentinels.
at midday the king, worn out with fatigue and the heat of the sun, was lying on the beach, when a servant arrived, bringing various refreshments, which madame marouin, being very uneasy, had sent at all hazards to her husband. the king took a glass of wine and water and ate an orange, and got up for a moment to see whether the boat he was expecting was nowhere visible on the vastness of the sea. there was not a boat in sight, only the brig tossing gracefully on the horizon, impatient to be off, like a horse awaiting its master.
the king sighed and lay down again on the sand.
the servant went back to bonette with a message summoning m. marouin’s brother to the beach. he arrived in a few minutes, and almost immediately afterwards galloped off at full speed to toulon, in order to find out from m. bonafoux why the boat had not been sent to the king. on reaching the captain’s house, he found it occupied by an armed force. they were making a search for murat.
the messenger at last made his way through the tumult to the person he was in search of, and he heard that the boat had started at the appointed time, and that it must have gone astray in the creeks of saint louis and sainte marguerite. this was, in fact, exactly what had happened.
by five o’clock m. marouin had reported the news to his brother and the king. it was bad news. the king had no courage left to defend his life even by flight, he was in a state of prostration which sometimes overwhelms the strongest of men, incapable of making any plan for his own safety, and leaving m. marouin to do the best he could. just then a fisherman was coming into harbour singing. marouin beckoned to him, and he came up.
marouin began by buying all the man’s fish; then, when he had paid him with a few coins, he let some gold glitter before his eyes, and offered him three louis if he would take a passenger to the brig which was lying off the croix-des-signaux. the fisherman agreed to do it. this chance of escape gave back murat all his strength; he got up, embraced marouin, and begged him to go to the queen with the volume of voltaire. then he sprang into the boat, which instantly left the shore.
it was already some distance from the land when the king stopped the man who was rowing and signed to marouin that he had forgotten something. on the beach lay a bag into which murat had put a magnificent pair of pistols mounted with silver gilt which the queen had given him, and which he set great store on. as soon as he was within hearing he shouted his reason for returning to his host. marouin seized the valise, and without waiting for murat to land he threw it into the boat; the bag flew open, and one of the pistols fell out. the fisherman only glanced once at the royal weapon, but it was enough to make him notice its richness and to arouse his suspicions. nevertheless, he went on rowing towards the frigate. m. marouin seeing him disappear in the distance, left his brother on the beach, and bowing once more to the king, returned to the house to calm his wife’s anxieties and to take the repose of which he was in much need.
two hours later he was awakened. his house was to be searched in its turn by soldiers. they searched every nook and corner without finding a trace of the king. just as they were getting desperate, the brother came in; maroum smiled at him; believing the king to be safe, but by the new-comer’s expression he saw that some fresh misfortune was in the wind. in the first moment’s respite given him by his visitors he went up to his brother.
“well,” he said, “i hope the king is on board?”
“the king is fifty yards away, hidden in the outhouse.”
“why did he come back?”
“the fisherman pretended he was afraid of a sudden squall, and refused to take him off to the brig.”
“the scoundrel!”
the soldiers came in again.
they spent the night in fruitless searching about the house and buildings; several times they passed within a few steps of the king, and he could hear their threats and imprecations. at last, half an hour before dawn, they went away. marouin watched them go, and when they were out of sight he ran to the king. he found him lying in a corner, a pistol clutched in each hand. the unhappy man had been overcome by fatigue and had fallen asleep. marouin hesitated a moment to bring him back to his wandering, tormented life, but there was not a minute to lose. he woke him.
they went down to the beach at once. a morning mist lay over the sea. they could not see anything two hundred yards ahead. they were obliged to wait. at last the first sunbeams began to pierce this nocturnal mist. it slowly dispersed, gliding over the sea as clouds move in the sky. the king’s hungry eye roved over the tossing waters before him, but he saw nothing, yet he could not banish the hope that somewhere behind that moving curtain he would find his refuge. little by little the horizon came into view; light wreaths of mist, like smoke, still floated about the surface of the water, and in each of them the king thought he recognised the white sails of his vessel. the last gradually vanished, the sea was revealed in all its immensity, it was deserted. not daring to delay any longer, the ship had sailed away in the night.
“so,” said the king, “the die is cast. i will go to corsica.”
the same day marshal brune was assassinated at avignon.
