Steve Berry - The Paris Vendetta

Yet something blocked the doors.

He did not want to attract the attention of the woman below, or employees one floor above in the relief map museum. “Force them,” he said. “But quietly.”

T HE F RENCH FRIGATE LA BELLE POULE ARRIVED AT S T . H ELENA IN October 1840 with a contingent led by Prince de Joinville, the third son of King Louis Philippe. The British governor, Middlemore, sent his son to greet the ship and Royal Naval shore batteries fired a twenty-one-gun salute in their honor. On October 15, twenty five years to the day since Napoleon first arrived on St. Helena, the task of exhuming the emperor’s body began. The French wanted the process managed by their sailors, but the British insisted that the job be done by their people. Local workmen and British soldiers toiled through the night in a pouring rain. Nineteen years had passed since Napoleon’s coffin had been lowered into the earth, sealed with bricks and cement, and reversing that process proved challenging. Freeing the stones one by one, puncturing layers of masonry reinforced with metal bands, forcing off the four lids to finally confront the sight of the dead emperor had taken effort .

A number of people who’d lived with Napoleon on St. Helena had returned to witness the exhumation. General Gourgaud. General Bertrand. Pierron, the pastry cook. Archambault, the groom. Noverraz, the third valet. Marchand, and Saint-Denis, who’d never left the emperor’s side .

The body of Napoleon was wrapped in fragments of white satin that had fallen from the coffin’s lid. His black riding boots had split open to reveal pasty white toes. The legs remained covered in white britches, the hat still resting beside him where it had been placed years before. The silver dish containing his heart lay between the thighs. His hands-white, hard, and perfect-showed long nails. Three teeth were visible where the lip had drawn back, the face gray from the stubble of a beard, the eyelids firmly closed. The body was in remarkable condition, as if he were sleeping rather than decomposing .

All of the objects that had been included to keep him company were still there, crowded around his satin bed. A collection of French and Italian coins minted with his impassive face, a silver sauceboat, a plate, knives, forks, and spoons engraved with the imperial arms, a silver flask containing water from the Vale of Geranium, a cloak, a sword, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of water .

Everyone removed their hats and a French priest sprinkled holy water, reciting the words from Psalm 130. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.”

The British doctor wanted to examine the body in the name of science, but General Gourgaud, heavyset, red faced with a gray beard, objected. “You shall not. Our emperor has suffered enough indignities.”

Everyone there knew that London and Paris had agreed to this exhumation as a way to reconcile differences between the two nations. After all, as the French ambassador to England had made clear, “I do not know any honorable motive for refusal, as England cannot tell the world that she wishes to keep a corpse prisoner.”

The British governor, Middlemore, stepped forward. “We have the right to examine the body.”

“For what reason?” Marchand asked. “What purpose? The British were there when the coffin was sealed, the body subjected to autopsy by your doctors, though the emperor specifically left instructions for that not to occur.”

Marchand himself had been there that day, and it was clear from his bitterness that he hadn’t forgotten the violation .

Middlemore lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Very well. Would you object to an outer inspection? After all, the body is, would you not say, in remarkable condition for being entombed for so long. That demands some investigation.”

Gourgaud relented, and the others agreed .

So the doctor felt the legs, the belly, the hands, an eyelid, then the chest .

“Napoleon was then sealed in his four coffins of wood and metal, the key to the sarcophagus turned, and everything made ready to return him to Paris,” Eliza said.

“What was the doctor really after?” Thorvaldsen asked.

“Something the British had tried, in vain, to learn while Napoleon was their prisoner. The location of the lost cache.”

“They thought it was in the grave?”

“They didn’t know. A lot of odd items were placed in that coffin. Someone thought maybe the answer lay there. It’s believed that was one of the reasons why the Brits agreed to the exhumation-to have another look.”

“And did they find anything?”

She sipped her wine. “Nothing.”

She watched as her words took root.

“They didn’t look in the right place, did they?” he asked.

She was starting to like this Dane. “Not even close.”

“And you, Madame Larocque, have you discovered the right place?”

“That, Herre Thorvaldsen, is a question that may well be answered before this day is completed.”

MALONE FOUND THE NAPOLEONIC EXHIBITS AND EXAMINED relics of both the emperor’s triumph and his fall. He saw the bullet that wounded the general at Ratisbon, his telescope, maps, pistols, a walking stick, dressing gown, even his death mask. One display depicted the room on St. Helena where Napoleon died, complete with folding cot and canopy.

A scraping sound echoed through the hall.

The metal doors a hundred feet behind him were being forced.

He’d settled one of the construction pallets against the doors, knowing that he would soon have company. He’d watched as Ashby had left the church and calmly walked into the Invalides. While Ashby and his entourage stopped to admire the Court of Honor, he’d hurried inside. He was assuming that Ashby was privy to the same sort of inside information Stephanie had provided him. He’d called her last night, after leaving Thorvaldsen, and formulated a plan that accommodated her needs while not compromising his friend.

A juggling act. But not impossible.

The pallet guarding the metal doors scraped louder across the floor.

He turned and spied light seeping into the dim hall.

Three shadows broke the illumination.

Before him, resting inside a partially opened glass case were some silver cutlery, a cup used by Napoleon at Waterloo, a tea box from St. Helena, and two books. A small placard informed the public that the books were from Napoleon’s personal library on St. Helena, part of the 1,600 he’d maintained. One was Memoirs and Correspondence of Joséphine read, the placard informed, by Napoleon in 1821, shortly before he died. He’d supposedly questioned its veracity, upset by its content. The other was a small, leather-bound volume, opened to pages near its center that another placard identified as The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 A.D. , from the same personal library, though this book had the distinction of being specially identified in the emperor’s last will and testament.

A click of urgent heels on hard floor echoed through the hall.

ASHBY LOVED THE CHASE.

He was always amused by books and movies that depicted treasure hunters as swashbucklers. In reality, most of the time was spent poring through old writings, whether they be books, wills, correspondence, personal notes, private diaries, or public records. Bits and pieces, here and there. Never some singular piece of proof that solved the puzzle in one quick swoop. Clues were generally either barely existent or undecipherable, and there were far more disappointments than successes.