Read Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase Online
Authors: David Nevin
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical
Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (45 page)
BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
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“Oh?” Dolley had wormed from her the story of playing footsie with Merry right at the president’s table. “Given your escapade, I’d have thought—”
“Oh, Dolley, really! I wasn’t so bad. I had no idea he would take it so seriously. It was just a small flirtation. Not many men in this city would have reacted so. And I was a little attracted to him, at first, you know. And it was such a dull dinner! I thought he’d like a diversion.”
Well, it was not nice treatment of a decent young man who obviously found relations with women difficult, but they had been over it at length. With a pensive look, turning her wineglass in her fingers, Anna said she thought the captain would be perfect for the expedition.
“Imagine, setting out to walk two thousand miles where no one has gone before. Oh, I know Indians live there, but if I understand it, they don’t travel the whole distance. What he may find!—mountains too steep to climb, wild animals unknown in the civilized world—and how do they keep from getting lost? Why they could starve or break down and get sick or go mad in that awful wilderness. Oh, it’s just stunning to think of. But you know, no one would be better equipped to do it. There’s a power in him, you have the feeling he could crush you if he wanted to—not physically, you know, he’s quite the gentleman with women, awkward, though, clumsy, two left feet and his tongue tied in a knot, but this power, he can go and do and be whatever he wants and you’d better not get in his way.”
Dolley was amazed. Her little sister was less fluff-headed than she had supposed. “You seem to have analyzed it—”
“You get that power turned on you, you notice it. It’s a bit overwhelming. Well, honest to goodness, it’s frightening; you have the feeling he’ll carry you immediately into deep water where you don’t know if you can swim with him or not. And you just smiled and flirted a little—playing the game. Poor Merry—he is nice, but—”
Dolley emptied the bottle into their glasses. Anna sighed and said, “You know what that man needs? He needs an older woman, someone experienced who can measure him and deal with him and live with that power. But he looks at girls. Poor fellow.”
Jimmy was snoring lightly when Dolley entered the bedroom, candle lantern in hand. She told him to turn over; he did so without awakening. Well, she still felt wide awake. She lighted a candle in the alcove where she had left a new novel on her chair. It was from France and she had read enough already to see it was mannered if not effete. The night was still and very dark. She sat in her chair, book unopened, and drummed her fingers on the arm. Then she remembered Jimmy had brought home Mr. Livingston’s latest letter. He’d been irritated, as usual, because once again the gentleman from New York had reported no progress. Jimmy was strikingly fair minded, forever catching up her rhetorical excesses, and she considered his distaste for Mr. Livingston slightly irrational, more product of his own frustration than a reasoned critique. He knew how she felt so they stepped around the topic; but for all that, Jimmy did value her insights and judgments on people, and he’d formed the habit of privately letting her read the ambassador’s letters.
She drew the letter from his shoulder case and settled in the alcove. She’d seen a half dozen by now, and they often had a peculiar effect. Her memory of the man and his capacity to express himself in ways that sharply defined his personality somehow combined with her own imagination to let her see clearly the events he described. She had read so many novels set in Paris, with its fairyland palaces and awesome cathedrals, that the setting was fondly familiar in her mind’s eye. Of course, living distant scenes was just a game; but especially, when she was tired, it could produce a metamorphosis that seemed almost alchemical in its intensity.
And so, reading the small, steady hand written on the sort of fine paper you’d expect from an old-line New York land baron the memory of Mr. Livingston took hold, his strong face with its multitude of planes, his low, pleasing voice, his profound dignity, and even more, his unshakeable assurance,
that sterling sense of his own worth that could have been offensive in a man of less character. Indeed, she supposed only his simple honesty absolved him of the sin of pride.
that sterling sense of his own worth that could have been offensive in a man of less character. Indeed, she supposed only his simple honesty absolved him of the sin of pride.
Soon the pages engrossed her, scenes unfolding in her mind’s eye as if painted on a screen, the little brig on which they had crossed the Atlantic rolling and plunging in heavy seas, the sheep and hogs and cow with calf he thought it wise to take with him bawling in their pens, his wife and both his daughters seeking refuge in the coach lashed to the deck that served them as sitting room, Livingston on the quarterdeck studying the horizon through his own glass. She saw the long, trailing clouds sweeping in from the southwest as they approached France, powerful winds driving them toward the rocks of Belle Isle, his two sons-in-law tearing off their coats to seize lines as the crew set and reset the great square sails, the women huddled on deck that they might die in the open, rocks up ahead like the teeth of a monster snapping from the sea—
But Mr. Livingston has not come so far in life to die on some unnamed rock off a French island he’s never heard of, and he seizes the captain’s arm and tells him to get hold of himself—and the wind swings to the north and, with all sails full, they run out of danger. Mr. Livingston never doubted that the problem would solve itself appropriately.
General Lafayette awaits them at L’Orient when they arrive; Lafayette, the great friend of America who only through American intervention had himself escaped the Terror when the Revolution crashed into excess and paved the way for Napoleon. Their carriage, their livestock, the twenty wagons needed to carry their baggage will come on later; now they race toward Paris in two large coaches, six-horse teams often changed, drivers cracking their whips with ostentation that quite pains Mr. Livingston as windows are thrown open and women gape in wonder. Through Nantes at a gallop, iron tires thundering on cobblestones, and on to Paris. All quite unnecessary, the democratic master of Clermont feels; when he goes to town for his mail or to Albany or even New York City, he conducts himself like any other
citizen—at least, any other prominent citizen. But Lafayette tells him the imperial age is upon them.
citizen—at least, any other prominent citizen. But Lafayette tells him the imperial age is upon them.
And into Paris as it formed in Dolley’s imagination, cobbled streets wide and grand with circles marked by arches and statues, over the fabled Seine on an arched bridge of hewn stone, fine town houses on broad avenues with spiked fences of iron and imposing gates, and then they plunge into narrow streets where houses are four or five stories of brick and stone lodging any number of families over a bewildering variety of shops, wash fluttering from balconies above. He sees urchins, bootblacks, newsboys, baker and butcher apprentices with trays overhead, drays and carriages competing with cracking whips and cries of rage, men mincing along in fine dress, women on their arms with great sweeping hats with ostrich feathers, musicians in bandstands filling the plazas with melody, catching that kinetic spark that flashes between male and female at all ages. Mr. Livingston is entranced; immediately he loves this place.
They go to the Tuileries, the palace Napoleon has made his own, where an apartment is reserved for them until they shift to their embassy. From the windows they see the great man himself as he reviews his palace guard, the troops moving with exaggerated pomp to music rather too imperial for Mr. Livingston’s taste. And there is the little dictator, fatter than Mr. Livingston had expected, in a gorgeous red coat festooned in gold, on a white horse with flowing mane, hoofs blacked and polished, black saddle and bridle chased with gold—but this is a display horse, unfortunately light in the barrel to Mr. Livingston’s practiced eye. Give out after the first few miles, a useless beast altogether too beautiful.
Then in rushes Francois Barbe-Marbois, Mr. Livingston’s old friend from the days when the faulty original American government was in New York and he was charge, speaking for the French government. Now he was gray and looked rather haggard, which Mr. Livingston took as the cost of staying alive in a highly fluid situation. Dolley remembers meeting Marbois once when he was the charge; now he is minister of finance, testimony to his agility. He sweeps Mr.
Livingston into warm embrace, bows gracefully to the women, and rather casually tells Mr. Livingston that the first consul will receive him within the hour. The gentleman from New York leaps into what must pass as a democratic version of court dress, more elaborate than anything he’d wear at home but plain plumage beside the bright birds of the French palace.
Livingston into warm embrace, bows gracefully to the women, and rather casually tells Mr. Livingston that the first consul will receive him within the hour. The gentleman from New York leaps into what must pass as a democratic version of court dress, more elaborate than anything he’d wear at home but plain plumage beside the bright birds of the French palace.
He supposes it will be an audience and wonders if Monsieur Bonaparte will be on a throne. Hastily he informs Marbois that he will not kneel, he is from a free nation, he’ll bow, yes, that’s common courtesy, but—and Marbois chuckles and assures him all will go well. They enter a huge room in which two hundred people mill about. Dolley can see it clearly in her mind’s eye: sweeping red drapes at windows that reach to the twenty-foot ceiling from which crystal chandeliers hang, plaster walls shaped into the images of kings and princes and grand dames of the court. The crowd grows more dense, moving in a swirling pattern, buzz of voices rising and falling, men in ruffles and lace with rapiers at their sides, women in lavish gowns that reveal as much as they hide, whom even Mr. Livingston, naive though he doubtless is, understands are as likely to be mistresses as to be wives. Slipping through the crowd are servants in extraordinary uniforms with exquisite morsels on trays and tall glasses of champagne. Mr. Livingston suspects his stomach won’t handle the morsels, but seizes the champagne gratefully. It is the best he has ever tasted, though surely not superior to the best produced in New York State. Not at all.
A stir: Napoleon has entered the room. Marbois touches Mr. Livingston’s arm: hold here—he will come to you. Slowly the center of all attention circles the room, men quivering with eagerness for a word, women jostling to touch him, their eyes inviting. He glances here and there, smiles faintly, allows his hand to be kissed, moves on. When he’s close Mr. Livingston sees that he’s a small man, pale, suety, only superficially handsome, though he moves with an intensely physical, catlike grace; in his face and eyes Mr. Livingston sees a hardness that says immediately that he is a
dangerous man. Cold; if thousands or scores of thousands must die to accomplish his ends, so be it. After a glance Mr. Livingston has no trouble imagining the wild rages that are said to terrify those around him. Yet this instantly produces a resistance in the gentleman from New York; in this room he stands alone as representative of the United States of America, a member in full standing of the family of nations, and nothing will intimidate him.
dangerous man. Cold; if thousands or scores of thousands must die to accomplish his ends, so be it. After a glance Mr. Livingston has no trouble imagining the wild rages that are said to terrify those around him. Yet this instantly produces a resistance in the gentleman from New York; in this room he stands alone as representative of the United States of America, a member in full standing of the family of nations, and nothing will intimidate him.
Marbois’s whisper identifies the smallish man beside and one step behind the dictator: Talleyrand. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, foreign minister; the bishop of Autun though hardly religious, a chameleon able to assume the visage of whatever government is in power, a man so valuable for his brilliant ability that his absence of discernable belief in anything but himself doesn’t matter, corruption set deep in a face that once was gorgeous, growing stout now, walking with a limp carried from childhood for which he demands payment from God and fate and mankind with a legendary appetite for bribes. He is the man with whom Mr. Livingston must deal.
Mr. Livingston’s French is adequate but not polished, and his hearing is poor. An interpreter stands by. Napoleon pauses before him and Marbois presents him. All the earlier impressions are doubled: This is a deadly man, unshakeable, implacable, a man of range far exceeding that of anyone in the room, anyone Mr. Livingston knows. Which is not to say that the gentleman from New York feels in the least lessened.
He bows, as befits his station; the first consul nods and asks if he has been in Europe before. No, sir, he has not had that pleasure. Ah, Napoleon says, you have come to a very corrupt world. He turns and says something to Talleyrand that Mr. Livingston misses; later he learns that the ruler simply said to tell the American that the Old World is very corrupt and added with a sneer that his foreign minister knew something about that, didn’t he? At the moment Mr. Livingston sees from Talleyrand’s face that something cruel has been said—and understands from Talleyrand’s burning
glance of hatred that America will pay a price for that witticism.
glance of hatred that America will pay a price for that witticism.
It’s a month before the foreign minister deigns to see him. His audience lasts three minutes, he isn’t invited to sit down, Talleyrand delivers in rapid French a series of cutting little sarcasms that lower Mr. Livingston’s opinion of Talleyrand but not of himself, and scarcely having said a word he is escorted out. He returns a dozen times; a dozen times the foreign minister waves a careless hand and tells him Louisiana is a dead subject: There is no treaty, no plans, no dealings, no nothing, so there is naught to discuss. And good day, Mr. Ambassador … .
And so he struggles. He goes to every reception hoping for the moment with the great man when he can slip in the crucial word. He sits late at night at his desk in the embassy overlooking the silent garden below, composing memoirs that he knows will disappear forever into the bottomless pit that represents his dealings with M. Talleyrand. The foreign minister no longer bothers to deny what everyone in Paris seems to know, that France has a wondrous new American empire.
In answer to Jimmy’s tense demands for information on Santo Domingo, Mr. Livingston reacts with some surprise. Yes, Santo Domingo is well understood here as the logical step in the reacquisition of an American empire. The first consul doesn’t care a whit for the island, actually; it all has to do with the American breadbasket and its capacity to feed Napoleon’s conquering armies. Of course, no one expects peace with England to last, and there is much talk that they should just get on with bringing all Europe under their dominion. Which, he adds dryly, quite forgets Admiral Nelson and the British fleet.
BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
3.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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