The prison bells were still ringing out across the city, signalling that something was amiss. Several people had stepped out of their houses to discover the cause. One even asked me as I rode past, but I merely shrugged in reply. Fortunately, the wet weather kept all but the most curious inside. We changed directions several times over the next quarter of an hour, and I had thoroughly lost my bearings when we emerged into a small quiet square. I took the opportunity to ride up to the carriage window and found a pale face in a straw bonnet staring back at me.

  “Who…who are you?” asked Lavalette. He looked terrified and no wonder as a church bell had now started ringing nearby to add to the cacophony of alarm spreading across Paris.

  “A friend of Marshal Ney,” I told him. Then I grinned as I saw that he had only managed to pull the dress halfway up his chest, where it had become stuck. “Do you need help with that?” I asked in amusement.

  “Please, I could not bear to be caught in it.” Perhaps he too had imagined facing the guillotine in a frock. I dismounted and stepped up into the carriage. Normally, I have little difficulty in removing a dress, but Emilie had taken precautions to ensure the dress fitted her husband. Beneath the cloak it had been cut at the back to enable him to get in it. Then she had laced the gap tightly to ensure it stayed on. It took a couple of minutes of sawing at the strings with my fruit knife before the garment was free. As I worked, I saw that a set of men’s clothes were ready on the seat, including a wide-brimmed hat.

  “Where are we going?” asked Lavalette as I worked.

  “We have a safe house ready for you,” I assured him. Not for the first time since I had picked up that sedan chair, I wondered just how safe it really was if Fouché was involved. I had not cared when I thought the escape was doomed but now, without knowing it, all of the plotters were in the hands of their most hated enemy.

  As soon as Lavalette was out of his dress, it and the bonnet were handed to me and I dropped them over a basement railing. A minute later and he looked a respectable gentleman about town sitting in his carriage on his way to the theatre. We set off once more, this time at a sedate pace, heading towards the Rue de Grenelle, Baudus and I riding along behind.

  Over the next five minutes we were passed by two troops of gendarmes galloping in the opposite direction, heading towards the clarion call from the prison. At the next crossroads we found a company of National Guardsmen forming up. “They will have roadblocks soon blocking routes out of the city,” warned my companion. “We are not far now; we should finish the journey through the back streets on foot.”

  We tied our horses to the back of the carriage and the driver, Chassenon, whispered “Bonne chance,” to us as he led them away. As the sound of hooves receded Baudus led Lavalette and I into a rain-soaked, muddy alley. We hardly saw another living soul after that and certainly none in uniform. A couple of curtains twitched as we went past, but this was an area where people knew to mind their own business. All the same, I kept one hand on the butt of a pistol in my coat pocket. We emerged onto one of the main thoroughfares of the city and hurried across and round a corner. A few hundred yards on, Baudus came to a halt in front of a large government building and looked at me expectantly.

  “Why have we stopped here?” I asked, puzzled.

  “This is the Rue de Grenelle, the address you gave me. Did you not know it?” There was suspicion in his eyes now.

  I took in the flag at its top and a uniformed doorman sitting in a shelter near the entrance to the courtyard. “But this looks like a government ministry,” I said hesitantly.

  “It is a building owned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Lavalette informed me, before adding helpfully, “The duke de Richelieu’s ministry.”

  “Who gave you this address?” added Baudus sharply.

  A great many thoughts passed through my head in the next couple of seconds. I remembered Dubois boasting that the safe house would be one of the last searched. As the ministry of the kings favoured courtier and minister, he was not wrong there. Richelieu was likely to be organising the efforts to recover Lavalette. The last thing he would expect would be to find the fugitive under his own roof. But could Dubois be trusted? Perhaps he had followed his master’s example and changed sides? Was I about to deliver Lavalette to a search party that had not even set out yet to find him?

  After a moment’s reflection, I decided that this was unlikely. Fouché had calmly told me how he had someone murdered just six months before; he would never forgive such treachery. He might be out of office, but he still had a myriad of contacts, spies and agents to do his bidding. Dubois knew better than anyone that it would be fatal to betray his master. Fouché wanted to damage Richelieu and Lavalette’s escape would do that. Hiding the fugitive in his enemy’s ministry was the kind of twist that I imagined would amuse the old schemer.

  “I cannot tell you who gave me the address,” I stated, knowing that they would both have been aghast if I had. “But I do trust him. He has his own reasons to help and the best place to hide is the last place anyone will look.”

  “You take him in, then,” insisted Baudus grimly. “I will distract the porter.”

  He went across the street and started to argue with the doorman about a package he was to collect. I took a final glance up and down the street. I could see no sign of people waiting to pounce and so led Lavalette over the road too. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could feel eyes burning into my back. Was Dubois watching our approach from a nearby window? I wondered what else his master might be plotting. Baudus had the doorman leafing through papers in his shelter, so that he did not notice us as we went through the courtyard entrance. Then to my immense relief, I saw a green door beyond the archway, just as Dubois had described. “Quickly,” I whispered as I led Lavalette through it. As I had hoped there was a staircase behind it. I led the way right to the top.

  We found a corridor, but it was pitch black. I was just reaching for my tinder box when a door opened ten feet away. A glow from candles inside lit the passage before the silhouette of a woman stepped into the gap. “Come this way, monsieur,” she called quietly. “You will be quite safe now.”

  Lavalette gave a little sob of relief and then grabbed me in a tight embrace. “Thank you, my new friend. I do not even know your name, but you have done me the greatest service.” He pulled himself a way and then added urgently, “If you can get word of what punishment for my escape they inflict on my poor Emilie, I would be most grateful.” With that he turned and disappeared into the room, the woman closing the door behind them. I was left again in the dark with a feeling of disquiet. Getting our fly into Fouché’s web had been easy enough, but just how hard would it be to get it out again?

  Chapter 6

  Over the next few days I spent time with Wilson, Jemima and their family as we celebrated Christmas together. While we exchanged gifts, nothing gave me greater pleasure than watching the court and its officials react to events. You cannot begin to imagine the chaos one man’s escape created in Paris. To convict him, the royalists had described a vast network of Bonapartist agents plotting the emperor’s return, with Lavalette at its centre. That this ‘mastermind’ had escaped on the eve of his execution only served to prove their propaganda. Many were convinced that another coup was imminent, which could only be stopped by recovering the prisoner.

  The ambitious Duke of Richelieu took the lead. He ordered that thousands of posters with Lavalette’s image and offers of reward be displayed all over the city, along with dire warning of prosecution for anyone who assisted him. For those who could not read, news sheet vendors down every boulevard yelled of the escape, as well as of the bounty and punishments. Lavalette told me later that he could hear them from his hiding place. As a result, hundreds of bald men were seized and arrested until their identities could be confirmed. All roads out of Paris were blocked and every vehicle was searched for the fugitive. Dozens of wild rumours spread across the city. Some even claimed that Ney had not been executed and a criminal shot in his place. Others insisted that the Royal Navy was sending its Mediterranean fleet to St Helena, to stop a Bonapartist flotilla determined to spring the emperor from his new home.

  No one would believe it was simply the act of a desperate wife. Emilie Lavalette found herself trapped in her husband’s cell, undergoing endless interrogations. The jailors, having learned from their previous mistake, did not allow any visitors, even her daughter, and so we knew very little of her fragile state of mind. Yet every day she was questioned must have brought a small smile to her lips, for it confirmed that her husband was still at large.

  The Lavalette home was ransacked in a search for its owner. The Ney residence was searched again as was the one owned by the sister of the princess, where she was staying. Anyone with even the slightest association with the Bonapartists was now under suspicion. I was not surprised, then, when a few days after the escape, I found four policemen at my door. They were polite but insistent that they search my rooms as I had been a witness for the defence at Ney’s trial. De Briqueville, Baudus and all the conspirators had their properties searched, but of course they found nothing.

  After a week had passed with no sign of the fugitive, the authorities became even more desperate. Richelieu had vowed that Lavalette must be taken alive and that he would personally witness the treacherous villain’s execution. Companies of the National Guard began street searches, going from house to house, disturbing the festive celebrations. If anything, all they succeeded in doing was generating more resentment of the royalists. Of course, government ministries were excluded from such inspections and so Lavalette was one of the few not to be disturbed.

  Of the conspirators, only Baudus and I knew precisely where the wanted man was. His wife had insisted that she not be told in case she was tortured and gave her husband away. I went nowhere near the Rue de Grenelle, but after around ten days Baudus returned there. Ostensibly this was to bring Lavalette up to date on what was happening, but I suspect he wanted to see who our mysterious benefactors were. It was the family of one of the junior ministry officials who had an apartment on the top floor of the building. Heaven knew what leverage Fouché had on them, but they seemed genuinely keen to help. Like many people, they knew that the prisoner had been framed for a crime he had not committed.

  Lavalette was desperate for news of his wife, insisting that he would not leave the city until he knew she was safe. Baudus wisely told him that she had been released from the Conciergerie and lodged comfortably in the apartments of the Prefect of Police; he did not think it prudent to tell the man that she was still in solitary confinement. After our early hopes that search efforts would wind down after a few days proved unfounded, attention had turned to how we could get this now notorious fugitive out of the city. He could not stay in the ministry indefinitely. He had told Baudus that the whole family he was staying with had been brought in on the secret as had some of their servants. The quiet attic room he was using was supposed to be empty, but the floorboards creaked alarmingly, so they had to be told. It was only a matter of time before some unguarded remark put him in danger.

  A Bavarian regiment was due to leave the city and our first thought was that he could be disguised among their ranks, but the National Guard was far ahead of us. They warned all its officers that they faced arrest for helping Lavalette. Then at the city barrier all soldiers were forced to remove their headwear. Bald soldiers would then be sent for inspection by a jailer from the Conciergerie to check for an imposter.

  Chassenon knew of a Russian general returning to St Petersburg, who, for eight thousand francs in gold was willing to conceal a man under the seat of his carriage. That is until he discovered who the stranger was and then he refused. He insisted that if the tsar learnt of his involvement, he would be sent to Siberia. At least the Russian’s staff would not be humiliated with searches, however, which gave me an idea.

  “I know of a British major general who might be willing to help,” I told Baudus, “although his wife will probably kill me for getting him involved.” I left it a couple of days to see if any other options presented themselves and then, reluctantly, went to visit my old friend. I was not concerned that he would refuse, it was exactly the madcap type of scheme that he would relish. My worry was that he would be too reckless, endangering us all. To my astonishment he told me that another Englishman in Paris, Michael Bruce, had already suggested his involvement.

  “But Bruce does not have the first idea where Lavalette is,” I protested in annoyance. I was irritated beyond measure that Bruce was interfering at all. He was a friend of Cam Hobhouse, and if you have read my previous memoirs that information should be damning enough. The man was an oily parasite, living off others, particularly his father, who owned a bank. The last time I had visited the princess, I had been disgusted to see that he was buttering her up like a royal crumpet. The marshal’s corpse was barely cold and he was clearly trying to get his knees under the table.

  “Do you know where Lavalette is?” asked Wilson, his eyes suddenly alive with excitement.

  “Of course I do. I was one of the bloody fools who carried him from the prison in his sedan chair.”

  My friend laughed with delight. “My God, Flash, you are a dark horse. I had no idea you were involved.”

  “That was the idea,” I said coolly. “But seriously, Robert, not a word to that pompous idiot Bruce and think carefully about this. The French would not dare harm a British officer, but Wellington could use this to end your career if we are caught. I do not want Jemima coming at me with her cane the next time we meet.”

  “Oh, I have thought about it,” he assured me. “It will be revenge for Ney and if we are going to do it, we must do it properly. I will persuade the embassy to give us a genuine passport for a fictitious officer so that his papers are in order. Hutchinson will also help us.”

  “Hutchinson!” I repeated, appalled. “Don’t tell me his lordship is in Paris. He won’t help; he will have our balls on a roasting spit for getting involved.” We had both served under Lord Hutchinson in Russia and were all too familiar with his scathing criticism.

  “Not Lord Hutchinson, his nephew, John Hely-Hutchinson. He is a captain in the Guards here and will add to our cover. Mind you, if Lavalette is to pose as a Guards officer, he will need a properly tailored uniform to look the part. Can you get his clothes measurements?”

  The next few days were filled with preparations. Wilson brazenly lied to the British ambassador about a friend in need of a passport. I visited several wig shops for the most realistic grey hairpiece I could find. Meanwhile Baudus returned to the ministry to take Lavalette’s measurements. The military outfitter was less than impressed with the results. “Whoever took these is clearly not a tailor,” he sniffed, but he set to work regardless and the garments were ready in a day.

  On the eve of the escape, Chassenon’s carriage pulled up outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While the porter was called to collect his dinner, Lavalette appeared in workmen’s clothes and hurried across the street. In a moment the most wanted man in Paris was out of sight and on his way to the apartment owned by Baudus. It was a risk as the rooms had been searched by the National Guard twice in the previous fortnight, but I felt happier with the fugitive away from Fouché’s clutches. In any event we could not set off from the Rue de Grenelle: people were bound to notice a British colonel emerging from the attic of the foreign ministry.

  The fugitive was pale and decidedly jumpy when he arrived. Wilson was there with me and, much to my annoyance, he had brought the odious Bruce with him. This louche lothario insisted on giving a grandiose speech of welcome as though he had personally organised the entire escape. Deceived by this bombast, Lavalette muttered a few words of thanks and insisted he would forever be in our debt. Then he asked for a pistol to keep on his person. Shuddering with emotion, he swore to us all that he would not allow himself to be taken alive. Determined not to incriminate us in his escape, he also could not bear the thought of returning to the Conciergerie and the gruesome death that awaited. Then, in a bitter irony, he turned to Bruce and begged him to reassure his poor Emilie should such circumstances arise. “She must be told how much I have valued the extra life she has given me, even if our endeavours fail.”

  Clearly the poor fool had not heard how Bruce was trying to comfort Ney’s grieving spouse. The Englishman insisted he would do all in his power to give her succour, then as evidence of his devotion, announced he had to leave. “The Princess of Moscow is relying on me to help her through this evening,” he intoned as though he were a surgeon caring for the grievously ill.

  Maliciously, I took Bruce to one side as he was putting on his coat. “Have you heard these rumours that a convict was executed instead of Ney?” I asked quietly with a look of concern.

  “Yes,” he scoffed, “but they are nonsense. Do you not think the princess would know if her husband were still alive? Anyway,” he frowned, “were you not there to witness the marshal’s execution?”

  “I was,” I confirmed trying to keep a straight face. “And that is what disquiets me. The troops kept us well back and so I am not certain, but the man they shot had the shadow of several days’ beard growth, while I am certain the marshal had been clean shaven when I saw him the day before.”

  “Surely you are mistaken. You said yourself you could not see clearly.” Bruce was not smiling now, and the first furrow of anxiety appeared on his brow.

  “I am sure you are right, and he would tell his wife if he could…unless…well, the marshal is, I mean was of course, very protective of his wife. He might be trying to shield her from any conspiracy.” I shrugged, “It is probably rumour as you say and with you looking after the princess, I am sure there is nothing to fear.”

 

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