Napoleon stared at the scene, thin-lipped and silent.Then he turned abruptly to the admiral and said in a low voice, ‘Put an end to this charade, at once. Send the men back to their bivouacs and order the ships back into harbour.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Magon swallowed and forced himself to continue.‘As soon as they have finished picking up survivors from the sea.’

‘What? Yes . . . yes, of course. Take over here, Admiral. But I want a full report on this mess, first thing in the morning. Find out which of your officers were responsible for the shambles and discipline them.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Napoleon did not return the admiral’s salute, but stalked away, head down and hands clasped behind his back. He could sense the fear of the officers and gave thanks for that small mercy at least. None would dare to confront him over the affair, and he would have Fouché see to it that the Paris newspapers made little of the event. Back in his private quarters Napoleon cast off his wet clothes and ordered his manservant to prepare a bath. Then, as he lay up to his chin in the steaming water, he closed his eyes, folded his hands over his chest and began to reflect on the day. There was no question of it. The navy was woefully unprepared to carry out the vital duty of conveying the invasion army across the Channel. The officers vacillated over every decision, and the men had little opportunity to train and carry out exercises, thanks to the vigilance of the British navy patrolling just off the coast.

Napoleon felt a surge of rage sweep through him. Barely thirty miles from where he lay were the shores of Britain. No more than a day’s hard marching. And yet it might as well be three hundred miles, or three thousand, thanks to the wretched stretch of ocean that guarded the country like a moat. As things stood, there was only an outside chance that Britain would ever be invaded. Accepting the point, he suddenly gritted his teeth and thumped the side of the bath.Very well, then. Even if there was no invasion, he would keep an army here, and fill the ports and harbours along the coast with transport ships, just to keep the fear of invasion alive in the minds of the British.That at least would help to divert them from intervention elsewhere. Which was as well, since Napoleon’s thoughts were already turning towards a more pressing situation to the east.

The gale blew itself out overnight and in the rosy glow of dawn the sea was calm and a gentle swell rolled in towards the beach. A few battered launches had survived, washed up amid a tide of fragments from the other boats and the bodies of soldiers and sailors who had been lost the previous day. Small parties of men dragged the bodies up from the surf and laid them out in rows where they could be counted and identified.

Berthier entered Napoleon’s quarters as the Emperor was hurriedly eating his breakfast. Napoleon glanced up, chewing furiously on a slice of ham, and gestured to a chair on the other side of the table before he raised an eyebrow and stabbed his fork towards the sheaf of papers Berthier was carrying.

‘The morning roll call of the division chosen to demonstrate the landing, sire,’ Berthier explained. ‘It appears that we lost over two thousand men yesterday. Of course, some might have been swept up the coast and may yet report back to their battalions. But they won’t amount to many.’

Napoleon swallowed, and took a quick swig of water to clear his mouth. ‘That doesn’t matter now. I summoned you for another reason.’

‘Sire?’

‘I’m calling the invasion off. If Villeneuve ever arrives, he can still take on the British navy.Who knows, by some miracle he may even beat them. Be that as it may, the invasion army is to be reduced to one corps. As for the rest of the army, they must be prepared to march.’

‘March, sire?’ Berthier’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘Where to?’

‘To the Danube, Berthier. It is time to confront Austria.’

Chapter 7

Paris, September 1805

‘Not a very satisfactory state of affairs,’ Napoleon muttered as he eased himself down into the bath. He sighed as Josephine leaned forward on her cushioned stool and stroked his hair. ‘I leave Paris for two months, and that fool Mercurier turns a blind eye while his officials make off with a fortune from the National Treasury. As if that was not enough, Fouché tells me that thousands of those men called up to join the army have taken to their heels and are hiding in the countryside.’ He frowned for a moment and then continued. ‘Well, they’ll soon learn the price of defying their Emperor.’

‘Oh?’ Josephine arched her eyebrows.

‘I have ordered Fouché to track down those who stole from the treasury, and the deserters who betray their country.They’ll be tried and shot, the lot of them.’ Napoleon nodded vehemently. ‘And good riddance. I do not need such distractions on the eve of a new war. I must leave Paris in a few days, a week at the most.’

‘So soon?’ Josephine pouted as she looked down at Napoleon.

He nodded. ‘My dear, we should never have stayed in Paris this last month. It was never my intention.’ He yawned. ‘By now I had hoped we would have been with the headquarters at Strasbourg.’

‘Strasbourg . . .’ Josephine repeated vaguely. ‘A nice enough city, I suppose, but it is not Paris. I sometimes wonder how those provincials cope with such lack of stimulation.’

Napoleon glanced at her with an amused smile. ‘Sometimes you are such a snob, my dear. Not everyone enjoys your privileges. And it is not as if all this finery is something you were born into.’ He gestured round the ornately decorated sleeping chamber with its heavy purple curtains, gold-leaf mouldings and thick carpets. ‘Nor was I, for that matter.’

He stared at the room for a moment in thought. In truth he felt little for all these luxurious trappings. The Corsican streak in him tended to value the practical over the ostentatious, but the panoply of the imperial household was necessary to bolster the legitimacy of the new regime and set it on a level with the other ruling houses of Europe. It was a sad truth, he reflected, that men were so easily swayed by baubles. But a useful truth. Surround a man with the trappings of a king and he would be treated as one, even though he was of the same flesh and blood as those who bowed to him. That was why the moment he became Emperor Napoleon had insisted that all the old protocols of the deposed Bourbon household be consulted to ensure that the imperial court appeared authentic and traditional, and not spirited out of thin air. To be sure, the palaces, servants and procedures looked the part, but there was some nagging doubt in his mind and he looked at Josephine again.

‘Do you think we are carrying it off ?’

She raised a plucked brow at him. ‘What do you mean, my darling?’

‘All this.’ He waved a hand at the room and then continued,‘And us. Emperor Napoleon and Empress Josephine.’

She shrugged.‘What does it matter?You are the Emperor. By law and by the will of the people. That’s all that matters, surely?’