Marianne and The Masked Prince

address.'

Marianne sighed. Unless he showed himself, Francis was now about as easy to trace as a needle in a haystack. And yet he must be found at all costs. But to whom could she turn when Fouche confessed himself beaten?

As though he had read her thoughts, the minister gave her a thin smile and bowed to take his leave.

'Do not look so downhearted, Marianne, my dear. You know me well enough to know that I dislike admitting defeat. And so, without echoing Monsieur de Calonne's words to Marie-Antoinette: 'If it is possible, it is done already, if impossible, it shall be done,' I will be more modest and merely advise you not to lose hope.'

***

In spite of Fouche's soothing words, in spite of Napoleon's kisses and assurances, Marianne spent the next few days in a state of gloom and ill-temper. Nothing and no one could please her and herself least of all. Tormented, day and night, by the fires of jealousy, she prowled about her great house like a trapped animal. Yet she dreaded going out even more. At that moment she hated Paris.

The capital was a hive of preparations for the imperial wedding. Everywhere was festooned with garlands, streamers and fairy lights. On every public building, the black eagle of Austria nestled alongside the gold eagles of the Empire with a familiarity that raised growls from the veterans of Austerlitz and Wagram. With the aid of endless buckets of water and vigorous wielding of brooms Paris put on her holiday dress. The coming event hung over the city, fluttered in the depths of its innumerable streets, echoed through barracks and drawing-rooms to the music of fanfares and violins, filled shops and stores where the imperial portraits presided over piles of food and bales of silks and laces, brooded over tailors' and barbers' shops and dawdled with the idlers along the quais beside the Seine, where preparations for firework displays and illuminations were already under way. Most of all, it filled the sentimental hearts of the Parisian working girls for whom the Emperor had been suddenly transformed from the invincible god of battles to a Prince Charming. To Marianne, so much fuss made for a wedding which brought her nothing but grief seemed shocking and only depressed her more. Paris, which had lain at her feet a moment before, was now making ready to purr like a great, tame cat for the benefit of the hated Austrian, and she felt doubly betrayed. She preferred to stay shut up indoors, waiting for she knew not what: perhaps for the peals of bells and salvoes of guns that would tell her the worst had happened and the enemy was inside the city?

The court had left for Compiegne where the Archduchess Marie-Louise was expected on the twenty- seventh or twenty-eighth of March but the round of parties still went on. Marianne, now one of the most sought- after women in Paris, was showered with invitations which nothing could have persuaded her to accept. She would not even go to Talleyrand's, in fact there least of all because she could not bring herself to face the subtle irony of his smile. On the pretext of a non-existent cold, she stayed obstinately at home.

Aurelien, the porter at the Hotel d'Asselnat, had strict instructions: with the exception of the Minister of Police or anyone sent by him and of Madame Hamelin, his mistress would see no one.

For her part, Fortunee Hamelin disapproved strongly of this behaviour. With her insatiable love of amusement, she was at a loss to understand her friend's voluntary retreat from the world merely because her lover was about to contract a marriage of state. Five days after Marianne's historic recital, she renewed her attack on her friend.

'Anyone would think you had been widowed or deserted!' she declared roundly. 'When in fact your position is a most enviable one. You are the adored and all-powerful mistress of Napoleon, yet without being a slave to him. This marriage releases you from the yoke of fidelity. Good God, you are young and ravishingly lovely, you are famous… and Paris is full of attractive men asking nothing better than to help you while away your solitude! I know at least a dozen who are wild for you. Shall I tell you their names?'

'No need,' protested Marianne, who found herself both shocked and amused by Fortunee's complete absence of moral principles. 'No need. I do not want to meet any other men. If I did,' she added, pointing to a small rosewood writing-table on which was a pile of letters, 'I would only have to answer some of those.' The post brought them every day, along with great masses of flowers.

'Don't you even open them?'

Fortunee swooped on the pile and, using a slender Italian stiletto for a paper-knife, slit open several of the letters and, after a rapid glance at the contents, found the signatures and sighed.

'This is pitiful! My poor dear, half the Imperial Guard is in love with you! Look here: Canouville… Tobriant… Radziwill… even Poniatowski! Flahaut, the exquisite Flahaut himself is your slave! And you sit by the fire sighing at the clouds and the rain while his majesty rides to meet his Archduchess! Do you know who you remind me of? Josephine!'

The name of the repudiated Empress managed to get through the wall of bad temper with which Marianne had wilfully surrounded herself. Her green eyes flickered for a moment to her friend's face.

Why should you say that? Have you seen her? What is she doing?'

'I saw her last night. She is still in a wretched state. She should have left Paris days ago. Napoleon has given her the title of Duchess of Navarre and the vast estates around Evreux that go with it… on the unspoken understanding, naturally, that she withdraws there when the wedding takes place. But she has returned to the Elysee and is clinging to it like a drowning woman. Day after day goes by and Josephine is still in Paris. Yet she must go in the end, so why delay?'

'I think I understand her,' Marianne said with a melancholy smile. 'And isn't it hard to take her house away from her and send her away to a strange place, like an object one has no further use for? Surely he might have left her Malmaison when she loves it so?'

'Too close to Paris. Especially when the daughter of the Austrian Emperor is arriving. As for understanding her,' Fortunee continued, 'I don't know that you should. Josephine is clinging to the shadow of what she was – but she has already found consolation for her bruised heart.'

'What do you mean?'

Madame Hamelin burst out laughing, displaying the brightness of her small, sharp teeth. Then she sank into a chair beside her friend, enveloping them both in an overpowering scent of roses.

'That she has done what you should do, my pet, what any woman in her right mind would do in her case – and in yours. She has taken a lover!'

Too dumbfounded to answer, Marianne merely stared at Fortunee, making the gossip-loving Creole almost purr with satisfaction.

'You need not look so shocked,' she said. 'In my view, Josephine was quite right. Why should she be forced to spend her nights alone, which was already her fate for the most part at the Tuileries? She has lost a throne and found love. And if you ask me, it is no more than justice.'

'Perhaps. Who is he?'

'Count Lancelot de Turpin-Crisse, a magnificent, golden-haired Greek god of about thirty. He is her chamberlain which makes it more convenient.'

Marianne was forced to smile at her friend's sally.

'Novels are not always right, you see,' Fortunee went on. 'Why don't you do the same? Find someone to console you. Wait, I'll help you —' She was making for the writing-table again but Marianne stopped her with a gesture.

'No. It is no good. I don't want some young man muttering inanities into my ear. I love him too much, don't you see?'

'What does that matter?' Fortunee persisted. 'I adore Montrond but if I had to remain faithful to him all the time he is in Anvers I should have gone mad by now.'

Marianne abandoned the attempt to make her friend see her point of view. Fortunee's warm-blooded nature made her more in love with love than with men. The tale of her lovers was endless, the latest being the financier Ouvrard who, if his looks were inferior to those of the handsome Casimir de Montrond, amply made up for this deficiency by a vast fortune in which Madame Hamelin was revelling with innocent enjoyment.

Marianne said with a sigh: 'In spite of this marriage, I would not break with the Emperor.' Thinking that this would be an argument Fortunee could understand, she added quickly: 'He would be sure to hear of it and would never forgive me. Besides, let me remind you that somewhere I have a husband who may reappear at any