Free Three Emperors (9780062194138) by William Dietrich Page A

duelist’s grin. Even in the middle of a lightning campaign in foul November weather, the general was a peacock. He wore a shako hat with ostrich plumes, a pelisse of wolverine fur on one shoulder to ward off sword blows, a tunic stiff as a breastplate from its excess of braid, a diamond-hilted saber, and red Moroccan boots. Skintight cavalry breeches showed off his muscled legs, and epaulets exaggerated the width of his shoulders. It is the eye of other people that ruins us , Franklin said. If I were blind I would want neither fine clothes, fine houses, or fine furniture.
    Murat carried a black riding crop in his white-gloved left fist and maneuvered his gigantic horse to block my way. What truly arrested me, however, was not Murat’s size but his expression. The habitual swagger was spoiled by desperation. His eyes betrayed worry and, at the sight of me, hope.
    Which is the last thing I wanted.
    He turned to staff officers reining up around us. “Look! This man has been a spy for Napoleon; I knew him at Abukir. If the American electrician has been sent by our emperor to lend wizardry, maybe this day isn’t as confounding as I feared.”
    Confounding? Despite myself, I was curious. “You just conquered the Austrian capital, did you not?”
    He leaned down to whisper. “And been scolded by Bonaparte for doing so. I swear he hectors me more as brother-in-law than he did as general.”
    â€œIt’s hard to stay on Napoleon’s good side,” I commiserated. Powerful generals are more tractable if you can address them as equal. “But I hear you’re doing well. I’d chat, but I’m in something of a hurry.”
    I’d first met Murat when he campaigned with Napoleon in Egypt and the Holy Land seven years before. He’d taken a bullet through his cheeks at Abukir while sabering off the fingers of a pasha, and grew his whiskers to hide the scar. His mouth had been open and shouting at the time—Murat had a reputation for seldom shutting up, especially about himself—and the ball had passed through without clipping either teeth or tongue.
    â€œIt’s the first time he opened it to good purpose,” Napoleon quipped. The emperor thought his marshal had the force, and intelligence, of a cannonball.
    The twin pockmark scars, just barely visible, only added to Murat’s dangerous allure. He had acrobat muscles, bedchamber eyes, and a prodigious sexual appetite requiring satisfaction every time he camped. He’d probably sired a dozen illegitimate offspring during this campaign alone. This roguish reputation had only intrigued Napoleon’s sister Caroline, who’d fallen in love with a man fifteen years her senior when she was still a child. When it had come time to marry, she passed over the general Bonaparte preferred—the quietly competent Jean Lannes—and chose the flamboyant Murat, whose fierce ambition matched her own. The emperor’s brother-in-law earned the nicknames “Golden Eagle,” from his men, and “Don Quixote,” from Napoleon.
    â€œDoing well?” he replied to me now. “I’m a grand admiral!” He laughed at his own absurd fortune. Murat wouldn’t know an anchor from a rudderpost and had been miserably seasick on the voyage to Egypt. The title was bestowed as another excuse to shower the royal couple with money. Napoleon spoiled while lecturing, hoping to buy love at the same time he tried to shame into respect. His sister and brother-in-law responded with manipulation. The rumor was that Murat and his wife believed they’d be a better emperor and empress than Napoleon and Joséphine, or at least handsomer ones. Caroline pouted and wept until her brother proclaimed her a princess. This made Murat not just a marshal in charge of a cavalry corps but a prince.
    By contrast, Bonaparte had done little but make me a fugitive. I know life isn’t fair, but it’s irritating to be