The Sultan's Daughter (57 page)

They called at Damietta, where Zanthé went ashore with two of the Mamelukes to buy more palatable provisions, fruit and various other things. On her return Roger dictated to her a letter to Bonaparte, which they later sent ashore to the garrison Commander, General Menou, for forwarding. In this letter Roger reported his misfortune and narrow escape from death, then said that he proposed to convalesce in Alexandria at the villa of his friend the Greek banker, Sarodopulous.

On June 14th they reached Alexandria. It was now two and a half weeks since Roger had been smitten with the pestilence and the past week spent at sea had done him a lot of good; but, even so, he was still so weak that he could not walk without assistance and had to be carried in a litter by the Mamelukes out to Sarodopulous's villa.

He had lost so much flesh that his face was gaunt and his clothes hung loose about him. For a moment Madame Sarodopulous failed to recognise him; then, greatly shocked by his appearance, she gave him a most friendly welcome which was fully endorsed by her brother-in-law and son when, that evening, they returned from their counting house in the city. Roger had already been put to bed and it was Zanthé who, while dining with the family, gave them a full account of the grim time he had been through since he had been taken prisoner three months earlier outside Acre.

Next day Roger signed a chit empowering the banker to
draw for him his arrears of pay from the French Paymaster in Alexandria and asked the Greek to have the blades of six fine scimitars engraved. Each was to be inscribed with the name of the Mameluke concerned and the words: ‘Member of the guard that conveyed Her Highness Princess Zanthé safely from Acre to Alexandria during the great retreat in the year of the Hegira 1177. For courage and fidelity, from Colonel Breuc, aide-de-camp to General-in-Chief Bonaparte.'

When the scimitars were ready Roger asked Zanthé to present them. Then, giving each of the Mamelukes a handsome present of money, he thanked them for all they had done and ordered them to proceed to Cairo and rejoin their regiment. Overwhelmed by such kindness, these simple but magnificent fighting men kissed Zanthé's feet and, with tears in their eyes, took leave of Roger.

Roger had been helped down to the terrace for this little ceremony and it became his routine to spend most of his time there dozing, talking or walking up and down leaning on Zanthé's arm, for gradually more lengthy periods. The Saro-dopulouses could not do enough for them. Nowhere could Roger have been provided with more nourishing fare to restore his vitality. Breasts of quail, chicken livers
à la brochette
, curried lobster, gazelle meat stewed in wine, soups made from pressed wild duck and the finest fruits succeeded one another to tempt his appetite. The Sarodopulouses displayed the greatest admiration for Zanthé's courage in having nursed Roger through the pestilence and, without servility, showed how honoured they felt at having as their guest a Princess of the Imperial House. Madame Sarodopulous insisted on replenishing Zanthé's wardrobe with many beautiful garments and her son Achilles made himself her slave, endeavouring to anticipate her every wish and thinking up all sorts of pastimes to amuse her.

Even Zanthé's efforts to save Roger's life might have proved unavailing had it not been for his splendid constitution. For many years he had frequently ridden long distances at the utmost speed possible. Whenever he had had no serious matter to attend to, he had always spent an hour or more a day in a fencing school and, when shooting game, had been capable of walking many miles without feeling fatigue. In
consequence, his health had been excellent and his muscles as strong as whipcord. Now, his splendid physical condition before he caught the pestilence stood him in good stead. With every comfort, the most nourishing food and no worries, he began to put on flesh and feel like his old self again.

For the first few days Roger remained too lethargic to think of much besides his miraculous preservation, Zanthé's love and her devotion to him, the kindness of the Sarodopulouses and the joy of having his recovery aided by security, quiet and lazing in the shade of the terrace watching little green lizards darting from place to place along the sunlit balustrade. But, as his mental faculties returned to him, he began again to enjoy speculating with his host on the course of the war.

As usual, Sarodopulous's agents had kept him well informed; so he was able to tell Roger of the major events that had taken place in Europe up till about eight weeks earlier.

Austria had dragged her feet in the matter of actually committing her Armies to the new war of the Second Coalition. Although already negotiating an offensive alliance with Russia, Turkey and Britain in the winter, she had allowed both Piedmont and Naples to be overrun by the French without lifting a finger, and in the early spring had still shown great reluctance to take positive action. At length it had been forced upon her through the entry of a Russian Army into Austria, under the late Catherine the Great's famous Commander, General Suvóroff. The French had demanded that, within eight days, the Russians should withdraw from Austrian territory; the Emperor had ignored the demand and it had then been tacitly accepted by the two countries that a state of war existed between them.

The Directory, made over-confident by the long series of victories won by Bonaparte in Italy, had, regardless of numbers, instructed its principal Commanders—the Republican veteran Jourdan on the borders of Austria, and Masséna in Switzerland—to assume the offensive at once.

Apparently the strategy of the French had been based on the idea that, if they could secure the bastion of the Alps, they would at any time be able to emerge from it and dictate the situation in the neighbouring plains; so they had given little
attention to the upper reaches of the Danube or the Rhine. On March 1st Jourdan crossed the later and on the 6th Masséna moved into the Grissons to expel the bands of anti-French Swiss there, who were eagerly awaiting Austrian support.

Jourdan, meanwhile, advanced into the Black Forest between the source of the Danube and Lake Constance; so the war seemed to have opened well for the French. But, during the uneasy peace, the Austrian Emperor had been extremely active in reorganising his Army, calling up and training reserves and making every sort of preparation against another outbreak of war. In consequence, he had been able to put into the field two hundred and twenty-five thousand well-equipped troops, which far outnumbered those with which the French could oppose him.

The first fruits of this numerical superiority were seen on March 21st, in the first collision of the Armies. Jourdan's thirty-six thousand French clashed head-ón with some seventy-eight thousand Austrians under the Emperor's most capable General, the Archduke Charles. The French fought courageously, but were forced to give way and retire on the village of Stockach.

The village was of considerable strategic importance, because the roads from Switzerland and Swabia met there. Rallying his forces there on the 25th, Jourdan decided to advance and give battle. The Archduke also advanced troops in that direction, intending only to make a reconnaissance in force. Confused fighting resulted, which later developed into a most desperate conflict involving both armies fully. Although Jourdan had Lefebvre and St. Cyr among his Divisional Commanders, the French were heavily defeated and a large part of their Army fled in terrible confusion across the plain of Liptingen.

Jourdan retired with the remnants of his force into the Black Forest, while Masséna's offensive had been checked and he was being hard pressed in Switzerland by another Austrian Army. At the same time the Allies launched a third powerful Army, consisting of thirty-six thousand Austrians and Suvóroff's eighteen thousand Russians, into northern Italy. They were opposed there by General Scherer, who had
one hundred and two thousand men under him. But the French were widely scattered and Schérer, one of the old-type Republican Generals, was incapable of co-ordinating his forces effectively. The French were driven back over river after river until they were behind the Adda, and there Schérer was relieved of his Command by Moreau.

Yet even that hero of many victories could not hold the enemy. Suvóroff's Russians, fighting like tigers, forced the bridge at Cassano and on April 27th captured General Sérurier with three thousand men. The French had already had to leave the great fortress of Mantua to be besieged and now the Allies entered Milan.

In southern Italy also the French had suffered a severe blow. Called on for help, General Macdonald left strong garrisons in the three great castles at Naples then marched north with thirty-six thousand men. The withdrawal of his Army at once resulted in a peasant rising, led by a militant Cardinal named Ruffo, and in April there ensued the massacre of the Neapolitans who had collaborated with the French. To complete this tale of woe for the Republic, although their garrison on Malta continued to hold out, Corfu was captured from them by a combined Russo-Turkish Fleet towards the end of April.

Another matter about which Sarodopulous told Roger was the ending of the Conference of Rastatt, and how the manner of it had excited indignation in every Court in Europe. Ever since the late autumn of '97 the French plenipotentiaries had remained at Rastatt, negotiating with Austria and a horde of German and Italian petty Sovereigns, on the final clauses to be inserted in the Treaty of Campo Formio. By that treaty, the Austrians conceded to the French the Germanic territories up to the left bank of the Rhine and recognised the Cisalpine Republic, which embraced the greater part of northern Italy. The object of the Conference had been to compensate such Princes as had been dispossessed of their territories by giving them others.

The plenipotentiaries chosen by the Directory had been the most vulgar, brutal type of die-hard revolutionaries. Making capital out of Bonaparte's recently concluded victorious Italian campaign, they had behaved with the utmost arrogance
and had acted throughout like bullies rather than diplomats. On several occasions the Austrian plenipotentiaries had withdrawn in disgust, but the French had kept the Conference going with the Princes and Grand Dukes on the excuse that their future status could not be left unsettled. After sitting for a year the Conference became a complete farce, for by then a French Army was besieging the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein on the Rhine and, when it surrendered, the Emperor decided that no possible good could come of continuing the negotiations.

But the French plenipotentiaries refused to depart. Even when Austria and France became openly at war, and after the Archduke Charles's victory at Stockach, they still remained there, chaffering with the Princes and seeking to undermine the Empire by tempting them with offers of territories which were to be taken from the Church lands ruled by the German Prince-Bishops.

At last, on April 8th, the Emperor formally decreed the Conference at an end and annulled all its acts. The Germans withdrew but the French protested violently and stayed on until a military force was sent to turn them out. On the evening of April 28th they left with their families, in three coaches. Just outside the town they were set upon by a regiment of Szekler Hussars and dragged from their coaches. Two of the plenipotentiaries were murdered in the presence of their horrified wives and the third escaped only because he was left for dead after a terrible beating. That the men themselves had been brutal ex-terrorists was beside the point, and on all sides Austria was condemned for this shocking breach of the immunity always accorded to diplomatic representatives.

By the end of June Roger was still very much an invalid physically, but sufficiently alert mentally to give some thought to his future and that of Zanthé's. Since their brief conversation on the morning after they had escaped from Acre, neither of them had mentioned marriage; but he had introduced her to the Sarodopulouses as his fiancée and he felt sure that she expected him to make her his wife as soon as he was fully recovered.

His recollections of her as a mistress were such that,
although his health debarred him, for the time being, from resuming his role of her lover, he had begun to long for the time when they could again share a divan. Even so, being no callow youth and having been the lover of a number of beautiful women, he could not help wondering for how long the passionate attraction between them would last. Through the years Georgina had never failed to rouse him, but hers was a case apart. Moreover he knew there to be a great deal in her contention that their continued physical desire for one another was largely due to the fact that they had never lived together for more than a few months at a time, and even then at long intervals.

In Zanthé's case, although he reproached himself for thinking of it, there was a special reason why her attraction for him should decline more swiftly than would that of other beautiful women he had known. When he had met her ten months ago she had been seventeen but by European standards looked to be in her early twenties. She was now eighteen, but in England would not have been put down as less than twenty-five. The cause was her half-Eastem blood and her wholly Eastern upbringing. Eastern women aged much more swiftly than Europeans and Zanthé also had the normal Eastern woman's love of rich foods and sweetmeats. With a true fatalist's disregard for her figure, she ate Rahat Lacoum, sugared nuts and preserved fruits by the pound. It would have been as agonising for her to deprive herself of them as it would have been for a Frenchman to deny himself wine; so the odds were that by the time she was thirty she would, like most upper-class women of that age in the East, be able only to waddle.

There was also the factor that, unless Georgina would change her mind and have him, Roger had not wanted to marry again; at least, not for another few years and then only should he find someone to whom he was greatly attracted and who would also make a suitable step-mother for his little daughter Susan. And how could Zanthé, with the best will in the world, be expected to bring up a young English girl fittingly and launch her in Society?