Chapter 3: A Conversation Between Grandfather and Grandson

Having received the old Marquis’s permission, Charles opened the bedchamber door and stepped inside, a sense of filial duty mingling with a quiet affection.

The Marquis’s bedchamber, when Charles entered, revealed itself to be a place of surprising, almost spartan, simplicity. There were no remarkable decorations to speak of, only a few age-worn cabinets standing sentinel against the walls, their varnish chipped and peeling like old memories. A bed, draped with a plain white sheet that seemed to glow faintly in the dimness, dominated one side of the room. Upon a sturdy teak bedside table, a single oil lamp burned, its wick carefully trimmed, casting a soft, flickering glow that bathed the intimate space in an atmosphere of shifting shadows and quiet contemplation.

The old man, half-reclining against a bolster at the bed’s headboard, his nightshirt immaculate, watched Charles enter with eyes that, despite the weariness of age, still held a keen spark. He raised a frail, blue-veined hand and gestured with a familiar grace towards a simple chair beside the bed. “My grandson,” he said, his voice a low rasp, yet imbued with an undeniable warmth, “sit you there. Come, tell old Victor everything that weighs upon your heart and mind…”

Charles recounted the day’s experiences, detailing the substance of the secret meeting with a precision that bespoke both his sharp memory and his understanding of the gravity of their undertaking. He omitted no crucial detail, including the unsettling incident of the subsequent gunfire that had so abruptly punctuated their clandestine gathering.

The old Marquis listened to his grandson’s narrative with an unwavering, intense concentration, his gaze never leaving Charles’s face. He offered no interruption, yet the slight, thoughtful furrowing of his brow, the almost imperceptible tightening of his lips, indicated the keen, analytical workings of his mind as he absorbed every word.

“So,” he finally asked when Charles had concluded, “it would seem that this later… disturbance… this unfortunate eruption of violence, had no direct connection with your assembly?”

“From what I could ascertain, Grandfather, and from the direction of the sounds, that appears to be the case,” Charles nodded, choosing his words with care. “Paris, as you know, has been rather unsettled of late. I suspect it was merely the city guard in pursuit of some common thieves or perhaps a band of desperate brigands. Such encounters are not, alas, entirely uncommon in certain quarters.”

For reasons of security, a grim necessity in their perilous endeavor, the Bonapartists invariably chose to hold their clandestine meetings in the more densely populated and generally impoverished districts of the city – areas like the seventeenth arrondissement, where their recent gathering had taken place. Such quarters were notorious for being a veritable melting pot of society’s less savoury elements, where bandits, vagrants, and other lawless individuals often roamed with a brazen impunity. Thus, an outbreak of gunfire in such a locale, while unsettling, was not, in itself, particularly surprising or necessarily indicative of a compromise of their own secrets.

Although the old Marquis seemed inclined to share Charles’s assessment, with the ingrained, almost instinctual caution that came with a long life lived on the precarious edge of political intrigue, he continued to probe for further details, asking numerous pointed, insightful questions before he finally seemed satisfied, a measure of the tension visibly easing from his shoulders.

Then, the old man gently rubbed his hands together, a familiar, almost comforting gesture that Charles had known since childhood. He raised his right hand to his forehead, lightly smoothing his short, impeccably neat white hair – though his facial expression remained largely impassive, these small, unconscious movements, especially in the presence of someone as dear to him as Charles, betrayed the undercurrent of suppressed excitement that now stirred powerfully within him.

“So,” he said at last, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, yet charged with a potent, suppressed energy that belied his age, “they have truly resolved to make their move this time? The die is to be cast?”

“I believe it will be soon, Grandfather,” Charles affirmed with a solemn nod, his own heart quickening at the thought. “The current dynastic government, as you well know, commands precious little genuine loyalty from the people. Its foundations are built on sand.”

“This government,” the old man retorted, his voice suddenly laced with a cold, bitter disdain that Charles knew well, “has commanded little true loyalty from its very first day upon the throne! And yet, by cunning and by force, it has managed to cling to its ill-gotten existence until now. The survival of a regime, my boy,” he fixed Charles with a knowing, world-weary gaze, “depends not so much on how much it is loved, but on how profoundly it is feared. France, alas, has always shown a perverse, almost masochistic, fondness for governments that wield the whip with a firm and unhesitating hand.”

Charles was momentarily silenced by the old man’s sharp, almost cynical, yet undeniably astute, pronouncement. It was a truth that resonated with the harsh realities of their nation’s tumultuous history.

The Marquis continued, his voice gaining a resonant strength, fueled by decades of suppressed indignation, “However, on this occasion, I find myself in complete accord with their assessment. The present moment is indeed an opportune one! That collateral sprig of the Bourbon line,” he spat out the reference to King Louis-Philippe, who hailed from the Orléans branch, a cadet line of the Royal House of Bourbon, with undisguised contempt, “now possesses little of the vigour, little of the cunning, required to safeguard this France he schemed so assiduously, so unscrupulously, to acquire. And Soult, that old, unprincipled scoundrel, is now decrepit and failing – were it not for that villain’s past vigilance, we would have sent the King packing back to Germany, or England, long ago! Who remains behind them, Charles? Who else is there of any consequence to prop up this tottering, corrupt regime?”

Charles nodded again, his expression serious, in quiet agreement with his grandfather’s fervent, impassioned words.

“Those who now sit perched so arrogantly atop the pinnacle of France,” the Marquis declared, his voice sharp with a profound, aristocratic scorn, “they, much like their equally inept predecessors in that other, not-so-distant era of folly, look down their noses with disdain at ministers of humble birth, at men of talent who lack ancient lineage. Yet, they themselves, these supposed paragons of the nation, are utterly incapable of siring sons of sufficient calibre, of sufficient intellect or courage, to become ministers worthy of the name! And when the inevitable crisis finally breaks upon their unsuspecting heads,” his lip curled in a sneer, “their first, their only, thought is to disguise themselves as serving wenches or common washerwomen and flee for their very lives! The decline of France, my boy, the erosion of her honour and her strength, began with such men.”

This was a pointed, and historically accurate, reference to the unfortunate Comte de Montmorin, one of Louis XVI’s most trusted ministers, who had served with distinction as Foreign Minister. In the perilous days of 1792, he attempted to escape the revolutionary tribunals by disguising himself as a woman but was apprehended. He was sent to the guillotine in September of that year. Shortly thereafter, his cousin, the Marquis de Montmorin, the esteemed head of the Montmorin family, met the same tragic fate.

Such words! They could have been uttered by a fiery orator of 1789, a passionate advocate of revolutionary change! It was almost inconceivable to hear them issue from the lips of a scion of ancient nobility, a man whose very name was synonymous with the Ancien Régime. The accumulated bitterness of years of political suppression, of being cast aside by lesser men and left to languish in enforced obscurity, now poured forth from the old Marquis, raw, potent, and unrestrained.

Due to the deep, festering well of frustration born from years of unfulfilled ambition and a profound sense of perceived injustices, the Marquis de Tréville often expressed himself with a fiery, almost explosive rhetoric and an impassioned, uncompromising vehemence on certain sensitive subjects. While these pronouncements were invariably met with enthusiastic, almost fervent applause amongst his fellow Bonapartists, who saw in him a kindred spirit and a symbol of their own frustrated hopes, they were undoubtedly viewed as treasonous sedition, as dangerous incitement, by those currently in power in post-Imperial France. Such outbursts only served to further solidify their resolve to keep him marginalised, to ensure that his potent voice remained unheard in the corridors of influence.

Charles allowed his grandfather to vent these long-suppressed emotions, his own heart aching in sympathy. He merely watched him with gentle, understanding eyes, his hand lightly, reassuringly, grasping the old man’s. He knew that beneath the fierce words lay a deep love for France, a love as profound and unwavering as his own.

The old man, having momentarily exhausted his scathing critique of the current regime, suddenly turned his gaze back to Charles. The fire in his eyes softened, his expression transforming into one of deep, almost fierce, paternal affection. His smooth, still remarkably ruddy, complexion seemed to glow with a mixture of heartfelt tenderness and solemn, unwavering pride.

“But you, my grandson,” he declared, his voice now imbued with a deep, resonant conviction that seemed to fill the quiet room, “you are different from them, Charles. You are cut from a finer cloth. I can swear this before God Almighty, as I hope for salvation – you are one of the finest, most promising young men in all of France.”

To be praised so effusively, with such evident sincerity, by this man whom he loved and respected above all others, caused even Charles, who was not usually prone to easy blushes or outward displays of emotion, to feel a tell-tale warmth creep into his cheeks. His thoughts, for a fleeting, disloyal instant, wondered what she might think, were she to hear such words spoken of him.

“Others may say that I am merely boasting, that it is the foolish pride of an old man speaking. Bah! Let them say what they will!” The Marquis dismissed such imagined criticisms with an imperious wave of his hand. “Old Victor never indulges in idle exaggeration. You possess knowledge, Charles, true learning. You have refinement, the manners of a gentleman. And more importantly, you have the will, the quiet determination, to achieve great things. How many such young men, I ask you, can be found in all of France today, in this age of mediocrity and self-interest?”

“Grandfather…” Charles protested weakly, his face now distinctly flushed, his gaze dropping for a moment as if to hide his embarrassment, though a quiet pleasure warmed him.

“Very well, very well,” the Marquis chuckled, the stern lines of his face melting away into an indulgent, affectionate smile. He saw the blush, and it pleased him. “My dear grandson, tell me, how old are you now? The years slip by so quickly, I sometimes lose count.”

The abrupt change of subject, so typical of his grandfather’s mercurial temperament, caught Charles slightly off guard. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts and reply, “I am twenty, Grandfather.”

“Twenty years… Can it truly have been twenty years already!” the old man sighed, a wistful, faraway look entering his eyes, as if he were gazing back across a vast, irretrievable expanse of time. “It seems only yesterday, a mere heartbeat ago, that you were a babe, a little cherub, crawling about my feet here in this very room, tugging at my boots. How swiftly, how cruelly, the years fly!”

Then, the Marquis gently withdrew his hand from Charles’s grasp and reached out, his touch surprisingly tender, to lightly stroke his grandson’s cheek, a gesture of profound, unspoken affection. “And tell me, Charles,” the Marquis’s eyes twinkled with a gentle, teasing light, a knowing spark that made Charles’s heart beat a little faster, “have the demoiselles of Paris, with their discerning eyes, begun to cast their admiring glances your way, eh? With your handsome countenance, your fine bearing, you quite put me in mind of my own youth – though perhaps,” he added with a soft chuckle, “you possess a shade more becoming seriousness than old Victor ever did at your tender age!”

Charles’s blush, which had begun to subside, deepened once more, a warmth spreading not just across his cheeks but through his very being. He thought of a particular pair of eyes, a certain smile, and found himself momentarily flustered. “No, Grandfather,” he managed to stammer, “not… not yet, precisely.”

“Then you must not be so reserved, my boy! A little boldness, in matters of the heart as in matters of war, often carries the day!” the Marquis declared with a flourish. “When a young lady of quality, one who touches your heart and stirs your spirit – and I trust your heart, Charles, to guide you wisely in such matters – captures your fancy, you must pursue her with the honour, the ardour, and the unwavering devotion befitting a Tréville! Do not let the old cavalryman’s spirit be shamed by a timid, hesitant grandson! Carpe diem, my boy, seize the day!” The old man gave Charles’s shoulder a light, encouraging pat, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of reminiscence and hopeful anticipation.

“But Grandfather,” Charles ventured, his voice still a little unsteady, his natural modesty asserting itself, “she… she must also find me… acceptable, must she not? One cannot simply… command affection.” He thought, with a familiar pang, of their family’s diminished fortunes.

“My grandson, unacceptable to whom?” the Marquis scoffed, a proud, almost indignant, light flashing in his eyes. He drew himself up straighter against his pillows. “You possess such a fine appearance, a noble bearing. You have talents, intelligence, a good heart. And you bear the name of Tréville, a name that has echoed with honour through the annals of France for centuries! Is there any woman in this land, however exalted her station, whom you are not worthy of? Bah! Why, even a princess of the royal blood, were she possessed of sense and discernment, would count herself fortunate to win your regard!”

“Grandfather, please, you… you truly embarrass me…” Charles finally protested, his voice a mixture of genuine discomfort and undeniable, secret pleasure at his grandfather’s unabashed, almost blind, adoration.

“I merely speak the plain, unvarnished truth, my boy, as I see it,” the Marquis insisted, though a softer smile now played about his lips. “In truth, Charles, you possess almost everything a young man of spirit and ambition could desire in this world – save, perhaps,” his voice suddenly faltered, the light in his eyes dimming perceptibly, the proud confidence momentarily deserting him, “save for a wealthy estate, a substantial fortune…” And then, his eyes clouded over with a familiar shadow of regret, the light within them dimming almost to extinction. He repeated, his voice barely a whisper, heavy with the weight of unspoken sorrows, “But we have no money, Charles. We have no money.”

A bitter, rueful smile touched Charles’s own lips. In this era, in this relentlessly pragmatic society, was there any greater, more crippling misfortune for a young man of noble birth and aspiring ambition than to be without substantial wealth?

The most terrifying consequence of the Great Revolution – or perhaps, depending upon one’s political persuasion and personal circumstances, its most glorious and liberating achievement – was that, in its tumultuous, blood-soaked wake, all Frenchmen, even those of the most ancient and exalted nobility, had come to understand, with a chilling, irrefutable clarity, a stark and immutable truth: God, or fate, or whatever power governed the affairs of men, did not ordain some individuals to be inherently noble, inherently superior to others. Without power, tangible power – the power of arms, the power of influence, and increasingly, the power of money – to buttress it, lineage, however ancient, however illustrious its pedigree, was ultimately, heartbreakingly, worthless.

When Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, had perished beneath the cold, indifferent blade of the guillotine, when their innocent son, the Dauphin, had died miserably of cold, hunger, and disease in some squalid, forgotten prison, everyone in France, from the highest aristocrat to the lowliest peasant, realized with a visceral shock that even the most exalted bloodline, the most sacred royal heritage, could not render a neck stronger than the guillotine’s remorseless, democratic steel. And so, the ingrained reverence, the almost unquestioning obedience, that the French people had once shown towards their former aristocrats and feudal lords had vanished, evaporated like morning mist under a harsh, unforgiving sun. Even the nobles themselves, in the secret, honest chambers of their hearts, no longer truly believed in their divinely ordained, inherent right to rule France.

Moreover, in this new, more cynical age, even the very word “nobility” was now devalued, its currency debased, its lustre tarnished.

Although the Bourbon monarchy had, with the indispensable aid of foreign bayonets and the shifting tides of European politics, managed to reclaim the throne of France, they could not, by any means, turn back the relentless, transformative march of time. They were forced, however reluctantly, to acknowledge that France had been irrevocably, profoundly changed, and they had no choice but to recognize, at least in part, the new elites, the men of talent and ambition, who had risen to prominence during the turbulent years of the Revolution and the subsequent glories of the Empire. Most of the nobles created by Emperor Napoleon, those marshals and ministers raised from humble origins, were allowed to retain their titles, their legitimacy grudgingly acknowledged. Some, indeed, who had astutely and opportunistically switched their allegiance at the right moment, were even elevated by a pragmatic Louis XVIII into the newly constituted French Chamber of Peers.

When men who had once been simple peasants, hardworking fur traders, common soldiers, or even, as was often whispered with a mixture of awe and disdain, outright bandits and adventurers, could acquire noble titles and brazenly, confidently, take their seats in the august Chamber of Peers, how much genuine, unfeigned reverence for the traditional concept of aristocracy could possibly remain in the hearts and minds of the French people?

Bloodline, an impeccable pedigree, had once been the undisputed, essential passport into the exclusive echelons of high society. Without a distinguished surname, a name that resonated with centuries of history and inherited privilege, a man, however talented or ambitious, could live his entire life without ever hoping to gain entry into those famed Parisian salons, those exclusive, influential circles where fortunes were made and lost, where reputations were forged and shattered, where the destiny of the nation itself was often subtly shaped. A newly created duke, however vast his wealth, commanded far less genuine, intrinsic respect than an earl whose lineage stretched back unbroken for centuries. But now, in this new, more materialistic era, money, cold hard cash, had supplanted birth and ancient lineage as the pivotal axis around which society revolved. Everything, it seemed, now turned upon the glittering, seductive power of gold. A noble family with a pedigree stretching back for hundreds of years, a name synonymous with the glories of old France? Ah, yes, a most commendable heritage! Congratulations on having so skilfully navigated the treacherous storms of the Revolution; it was no small feat to have kept your head upon your shoulders, to be sure! But, pardon me for the indelicacy of the question… do you have money?

The old man fell silent for a long moment, his gaze lost in some distant, sorrowful reverie. Then, with a sudden, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all his past disappointments, the bright, defiant light in his eyes seemed to flicker and dim, almost to the point of extinguishment.

“If only I had been more prudent in my youth,” he murmured, his voice barely audible, laden with a profound, almost unbearable regret. “If only I had saved something, invested wisely, built up some kind of substantial estate for you, for the future of our house… But in those days, those heady, glorious days of the Empire, I thought only of living for the moment, of honour on the battlefield, of pleasure and fleeting glory! Ai, that is the folly of men, is it not? We only learn to truly regret our past misjudgments when we are old, when it is too late to change what has been done…”

Charles reached out and gently, firmly, took the old man’s trembling hand again, his gaze fixed upon his grandfather’s beloved, careworn face, his eyes filled with a profound and tender warmth that sought to dispel the shadows of regret.

“No, Grandfather,” he said softly but with an unwavering conviction that came straight from his heart. “Do not say such things. The love and guidance you have given me, the honour of your name, the example of your courage – these are more precious to me than any inheritance, any worldly fortune, you could possibly leave.”

The old man stared back at his grandson, his lips trembling slightly, and for a moment, Charles thought he saw the unmistakable glint of unshed tears shimmering in those aged, proud eyes. “Old Victor,” the Marquis murmured, his voice thick with an emotion that threatened to overwhelm him, “has been blessed by God beyond all measure, beyond all deserving, to have such a grandson, such a granddaughter, to comfort him in his twilight years!” Then, as if by a supreme act of will, the indomitable spirit that had carried him through so many trials reasserted itself. The fire returned to his eyes, his gaze becoming sharp, focused, and fiercely resolute once more. “But mark my words, my grandson,” he declared, his voice regaining its former strength, ringing with a sudden, passionate conviction, “old Victor will see to it that you have everything you deserve! We shall have money, Charles! We shall reclaim our honour, our rightful place! We shall take back France!”

Yes, take back France. This had been the unwavering, all-consuming, almost sacred desire of the Bonapartists since the devastating fall of the Empire in 1815, a dream nurtured in secret, a hope that refused to die.

After the July Revolution of 1830, King Louis-Philippe, in a pragmatic attempt to consolidate his own somewhat precarious hold on power, had adopted a policy of limited tolerance towards the Bonapartists, a calculated departure from the overtly repressive measures of the previous Bourbon regime. He had hoped thereby to win over some hearts and minds, to unify the deeply fractured nation to the greatest extent possible under his Orléanist banner.

The zenith of this policy of cautious conciliation had been the politically symbolic return of Emperor Napoleon’s mortal remains from British custody on the desolate island of Saint Helena in 1840, and their subsequent re-interment with full, spectacular military honours in a magnificent tomb beneath the dome of Les Invalides in Paris. It had been a moment of profound national emotion, a fleeting illusion of unity.

However… what the true, committed Bonapartists craved was not mere tolerance, nor even posthumous honours for their fallen Emperor, however grand and theatrical. What they wanted, what they yearned for with every fibre of their being, was France itself – they wanted power, the reins of government, the restoration of the Imperial destiny. And this, of course, was something the Citizen King, Louis-Philippe, could never, under any circumstances, concede. Consequently, the suppression of any perceived Bonapartist agitation, any hint of conspiracy or organized dissent, continued with an unrelenting, often brutal, severity.

In 1926, during the final, desperate, twilight days of the crumbling Russian Empire, the beleaguered Tsar Nicholas II had issued a manifesto to his rebellious subjects, his words almost a poignant, desperate plea: “You desire freedom, and I shall grant it to you. You desire freedom of the press, of speech, of assembly – I shall grant you all these things. Everything… except my power.”

And the revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin’s reply, stark and uncompromising, had been brutally, chillingly simple: “Except for power, all else is illusion.”

For the Bonapartists of 1847, as for dedicated political factions throughout the long, bloody tapestry of history, before their time and long after, the answer was, and would always be, fundamentally, unalterably, the same.

They must take back France!