remain here for a few days, to put all in order, as he said, and for three days he shut himself up here putting all his secret files, all the dossiers compiled by his agents, all his correspondence, even the Emperor's letters, into the fire! Indeed, it was this which made his Majesty so angry.
Monsieur Fouche is now exiled to Aix and he had to move quickly to escape the Emperor's righteous anger, while I am left trying to rebuild the machine which he has smashed. That is why I am asking people to come and see me. I am making contact with all who have been thought to have some dealings with this house in the past.'
A deep flush, part anger and part shame, mounted to Marianne's cheeks. She understood now. Faced with an almost impossible task, this man was ready to do anything to prove to his master that his worth was at least as great as that of Fouche the Fox. If he thought that she was going to fall into the clutches of any policeman again, even a minister, he was mistaken. However, in order to make her own position perfectly clear, she asked quietly: 'You are quite certain that the – the invitation which was pressed on me at the Fontainebleau guard post has nothing to do with the Emperor?'
'Nothing in the world, my dear princess! Only my own desire to make the acquaintance of someone who has been the talk of Paris for fifteen days past led me to give orders which, I see now, have been greatly misconstrued, for which I hope you will forgive me.'
He had eased his chair very close to Marianne's and now took her hand, imprisoning it between his own. At the same time his velvet eyes took on a languorous heaviness that made Marianne wary. She knew that Savary was accounted successful where women were concerned, and there was nothing to be gained by raising false hopes. Gently withdrawing her hand, she asked:
'So everyone is talking about me?'
'Everyone! You are the heroine of the hour.'
'I am honoured indeed. Does everyone include the Emperor?'
Savary flung up his hands in horror. 'Oh, madame! His Majesty stands alone!'
'Very well,' Marianne said sharply. 'So the Emperor has said nothing to you concerning me?'
'No, I promise you! What else did you expect? I do not believe there is at present any woman in the world who could engage his Majesty's attention. The Emperor is deeply in love with his young bride and devotes all his time to her. There never was a more devoted couple. Indeed —'
Marianne got up quickly, unable to listen to any more. It seemed to her the interview had lasted long enough. If this nincompoop had brought her here merely to listen to him describing the Emperor's wedded bliss, he was even more of a fool than she had thought. Was he ignorant of the talk which had linked her name with Napoleon's? Fouche would never have been guilty of such clumsiness, or not without good reason.
'With your permission, sir, I leave you. I am, as I have already told you, very tired.'
'Yes, yes, by all means-very natural, I am sure. I will see you to your coach. My dear Princess, you cannot conceive how delighted…' His voice wandered on, losing itself in compliments which only served to increase Marianne's irritation. She could see only one reason for them: Napoleon no longer cared for her, for if he had Savary would not have permitted himself such liberties. She had been prepared for his anger, had been prepared for some shattering act of revenge, even to be thrown in prison, persecuted, but nothing of the kind had happened. He had merely listened, with one ear no doubt, to the gossip about her, and she had been brought here solely to indulge the curiosity of a raw new minister, eager to make contacts. Her heart swelled with anger and disappointment, there was a furious roaring in her ears through which she was vaguely conscious of Savary saying that his wife was at home on Mondays and would be most happy to entertain the Princess Sant'Anna to dinner one of these days. The last straw!
'I hope you have invited Madame de Chastenay also?' she said with irony as he stood waiting to hand her into her coach. The minister's eyes met hers with an expression of innocent surprise.
'But of course. Why should you ask?'
'Oh, curiosity merely. It is my turn, wouldn't you agree? Good evening to you, Duke. I too have been delighted to meet you.'
The coach moved off and Marianne sank back among the cushions, torn between the impulse to scream with rage, to burst into tears and shout with laughter. Was there ever anything so absurd? Tragedy that ended in farce! She had imagined herself, like a heroine of romance, going to meet a tragic fate, and instead she had received an invitation to dine!
'I am so glad to see you again, madame,' said Agathe at her side. 'I was frightened when that man brought us here.'
Marianne glanced at her maid and saw that the girl's cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes swollen.
'And you thought I should come out under an armed guard, in chains, on my way to Vincennes? No, my poor Agathe, I am not so important. I was sent for merely for the sake of seeing what I looked like. We must resign ourselves, my child, we are no longer the Emperor's beloved mistress! We are only a Princess.'
And Marianne promptly demonstrated her resignation by bursting into tears and thus completing poor Agathe's bewilderment. She was still crying when the coach entered the forecourt of the Hotel d'Asselnat but her tears ceased abruptly at the sight that met her eyes. The old house was lit up from the basement to the handsome mansard roof.
Candlelight blazed in every window, most of which were open, revealing rooms filled with flowers and an elegantly dressed assembly moving about to the strains of violins. Marianne stared in amazement, recognizing the notes of a piece of ballet music by Mozart. It even occurred to her to wonder if she had not mistaken the house, but no, it was her own house, her own house with a party going on inside, and those were her servants lining the steps in splendid livery with branches of candles in their hands.
Every bit as flabbergasted as his mistress, Gracchus had brought the horses to a standstill in the middle of the courtyard and was staring with bulging eyes, incapable of bringing the coach up to the steps, or even of dismounting from the box. However, the clatter of hooves and iron-shod wheels on the cobbles must have penetrated through the music. From somewhere in the house, there came a shout.
'Here she is!'
In a moment, the entrance was packed with ladies in ball gowns and men in evening dress and, in their midst, the smiling, pointed face, goatee beard and bright black eyes of Arcadius de Jolival himself. But it was not he who came forward to the coach. Instead, a very tall man, dressed with great elegance, detached himself from the group and came down the steps, a man with a slight limp who leaned on a gold-knobbed stick. The haughty features and the cold blue eyes were illumined by a smile full of warmth and Marianne watched stupefied as Monsieur de Talleyrand put aside the footmen with a gesture and, advancing to the coach, himself flung wide the door and held out his gloved hand to her, saying in a loud voice as he did so: 'Welcome to the home of your ancestors, Marianne d'Asselnat de Villeneuve, and welcome also among your friends and your peers! You have returned from a journey longer than you know, but all of us are assembled here tonight to tell you of our sincere rejoicing.'
Marianne gazed at the brilliant crowd before her. Her face had gone suddenly very pale and her eyes dilated. She saw Fortunee Hamelin, laughing and crying at once. She saw, too, Dorothee de Perigord, in white, and Madame de Chastenay in her mauve taffetas, waving to her. There were other faces, as well, which had been scarcely known to her until now but which she knew belonged to the greatest names of France: Choiseul-Gouffier, Jaucourt, La Marck, Laval, Montmorency, La Tour du Pin, Baufremont, Coigny, all those whom she had met in the rue de Varennes when she was merely a humble companion to the Princess Benevento. It came to her in a flash that Talleyrand had brought them here tonight, not only to welcome her home, but also to restore her at last to the position which by birth was rightfully hers and which she had lost only through misfortune.
The vision of pale gowns and glittering jewels was strangely blurred. Marianne placed her fingers, which seemed to be trembling suddenly, in the waiting hand. She stepped out of the coach, leaning heavily on that friendly arm.
'And now,' Talleyrand cried, 'make way, friends, make way for her Serene Highness, the Princess Marianne Sant'Anna, and allow me, in all our names, to wish her every happiness in the future.'
With the whole of society looking on and clapping, he kissed Marianne warmly on both cheeks and then bowed over her hand.
'I knew you would come back to us,' he whispered in her ear. 'You remember what I said to you, one
