Fire and Sword by Simon Scarrow

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