’Yes, yes, I will come.  Our carriages will follow yours.  See the ladies into the berline, Constant.  Have you ordered the embarkation of the troops, Berthier?  Come here, Talleyrand, for I wish to describe my views about the future of Spain and Portugal.  Monsieur de Laval, you may escort the Empress to Pont de Briques, where I shall see you at the reception.’

CHAPTER XV

THE RECEPTION OF THE EMPRESS

Pont de Briques is but a small village, and this sudden arrival of the Court, which was to remain for some weeks, had crammed it with visitors.  It would have been very much simpler to have come to Boulogne, where there were more suitable buildings and better accommodation, but Napoleon had named Pont de Briques, so Pont de Briques it had to be.  The word impossible was not permitted amongst those who had to carry out his wishes.  So an army of cooks and footmen settled upon the little place, and then there arrived the dignitaries of the new Empire, and then the ladies of the Court, and then their admirers from the camp.  The Empress had a chateau for her accommodation.  The rest quartered themselves in cottages or where they best might, and waited ardently for the moment which was to take them back to the comforts of Versailles or Fontainebleau.

The Empress had graciously offered me a seat in her berline, and all the way to the village, entirely forgetful apparently of the scene through which she passed, she chatted away, asking me a thousand personal questions about myself and my affairs, for a kindly curiosity in the doings of everyone around her was one of her most marked characteristics.  Especially was she interested in Eugenie, and as the subject was one upon which I was equally interested in talking it ended in a rhapsody upon my part, amid little sympathetic ejaculations from the Empress and titterings from Madame de Remusat.

‘But you must certainly bring her over to the Court!’ cried the kindly woman.  ’Such a paragon of beauty and of virtue must not be allowed to waste herself in this English village.  Have you spoken about her to the Emperor?’

‘I found that he knew all about her, your Majesty.’

’He knows all about everything.  Oh, what a man he is!  You heard him about those diamonds and sapphires.  Lefebvre gave me his word that no one should know of it but ourselves, and that I should pay at my leisure, and yet you see that the Emperor knew.  But what did he say, Monsieur de Laval?’

‘He said that my marriage should be his affair.’

Josephine shook her head and groaned.

’But this is serious, Monsieur de Laval.  He is capable of singling out any one of the ladies of the Court and marrying you to her within a week.  It is a subject upon which he will not listen to argument.  He has brought about some extraordinary matches in this way.  But I will speak to the Emperor before I return to Paris, and I will see what I can arrange for you.’