Blood and Fireflies

In memory of Dorothy Carrington (1910 – 2002) to whom all English-speaking students of Corsican history and lore owe so much Dramatis PersonaeIn 1797 the French republic still maintained the revolutionary terms citoyen and citoyenne as alternatives to monsieur/madam, or titles of nobility. In the army, and in the fledgling republics of north Italy, these terms were used simultaneously, hence Citoyen general, or Citoyen le Comte.The Investigators.Felix Gracchus. Retired Commissaire of police and disillusioned revolutionary.Lieutenant Dermide Vanderville. Aide-de-camp of General Dumas.The Bonaparte family.Letizia Buonaparte. Widowed matriarch of the family.Napoleon Bonaparte. Commander-in-chief of the French Army of Italy.Josephine Bonaparte. Scion of Parisian society. Recently married to Napoleon.Fortune. Josephine’s pug dog.Joseph Fesch. Commissary officer in the Army of Italy. Half-brother of Letizia.Elisa Bonaparte. Eldest daughter of Letizia.Paolette Bonaparte. Second daughter of Letizia.The Army of Italy.General Alexandre Berthier. Chief of Staff to the Army of Italy, second-in-command to Napoleon.General Alexandre Dumas. General of the Army of Italy.General Leclerc. General of the Army of Italy. Fiancé of Paolette.Captain Pasquale Bacciochi. Officer of the Army of Italy. Fiancé of Elisa.Lieutenant Hippolyte Charles. Officer attached to the staff of the Army of Italy.Lieutenant Pietro Piotr. Officer in the Polish Legion.Lieutenant Joseph Damingué Hercule. Officer of Guides de Bonaparte.The Mombello Household.Comte René Mombello. Franco-Italian noble. Friend of the Bonaparte family and their host at Mombello.Lieutenant Alexandre Marbeuf. Officer of Guides de Bonaparte. Nephew of Comte Mombello.Francesco Leonardi. Comte Mombello’s cook and head of kitchen.Supporting characters.Fortunée Hamelin. Friend of Josephine.Comtessa Francesca Gheradi. Friend of Josephine.Marquesa Giuseppa Visconti. Friend of Josephine.Antoine-Jean Gros. Painter patronised by Josephine. Prologue20 August 1794, Year three of the RepublicThe magistrate hauled himself up the tower staircase of the citadel in Fort Carrè. He was struggling with his leg despite the walking cane and regretted having brought the bundle of files containing his research on the prisoner. The climb proving troublesome, he stopped at one of the casement windows to rest and admire the view over the bay. A finer day never shone over Antibes.The fortress walls falling away below were dotted with pink rose leaves and yellow broom blossoms, but their smell could not reach the heights. Beyond the walls, the surrounding sea lapped on white sand where soldiers were bathing. As the sun struck the surface, it was refracted through the water, lending the waves a blue tinge as of the lambent flame of burning spirit. The effect of the sunlight was that the swimmers in the water appeared clad, as it were, in glistening silver scales.The magistrate blinked and pushed his green spectacles further up his nose. He was surprised the prisoner was entitled to enjoy such a view. Condemned men were more often made to sit starving in the lower cells while the smells of the fort kitchen wafted cruelly past, as was so common for French fortresses in those days.Sucking the sauce from a chicken leg retrieved from that very kitchen, he regarded the spiralling stair ruefully. The sympathies of the garrison for the prisoner were apparent; he was confined not in a cell, but an eyrie. The magistrate sighed, tucked the greasy chicken leg carefully into the paper files, put those under his arm, and continued the climb upwards.The sentry outside the cell was on the verge of open rebellion and trod heavily on the magistrate’s foot with his nailed boots while opening the door. The calculated discourtesy was amplified by their disparity in footwear. The magistrate’s opinion was that the best passport to the south was a pair of canvas hemp-soled shoes. Not only were they of extreme utility and comfort upon the stony footpaths which are found between the vineyards, but they inspired the inhabitants with respect for the wearer as not a stranger at least to one of their customs. Gingerly assessing his insulted foot for injury, he ducked into the cell.The prisoner’s room was sparsely furnished with a low bed and rude table spread with maps and half-finished appeals. The only ornaments on the walls were the three windows which drenched the fore part of the room in converging shafts of light. The prisoner sat on the single chair behind the table so that the only shadow was over him, his face partially concealed behind the lank curtains of long dark hair that hung over his temples in the prevailing Muscadin style currently favoured by the young firebrands of the Revolution.The magistrate tossed his bundle of papers on the table and, as an afterthought, topped them with his magistrate’s hat and rubbed his cropped head with relief. The greasy portion of chicken plopped unceremoniously onto the maps that littered the table. As he stood for the visitor the prisoner moved the ink well carefully aside, and they surveyed one another warily.The cell’s inhabitant was emaciated, ill looking and decidedly ugly, as if he had been confined for years, not mere weeks. He hardly seemed to grow as he came to his feet, which he accomplished just slowly enough to convey disrespect. By contrast, the magistrate was tall and well-fleshed, his waistcoat buttons straining for pre-eminence against the evidence of good living. He was not a good-looking man either, and behind his spectacles, his eyes betrayed a glint of intellectual vanity.As each performed the slightest of bows, the prisoner’s a mere inclination of the chin, the magistrate’s foot encountered the edge of an uncollected night bucket under the table. Deploying a handkerchief to his nose he moved towards the nearest window. From it, he observed that across the bay the flag on the telegrafo still sagged at half-mast. Whether it marked the end of the Committee of Public Safety’s iron reign, the death of Robespierre, or an anticipation of the fate he conveyed for the prisoner confined here he did not know, but it was decidedly unorthodox and would have to be addressed.He blinked through his spectacles as he swivelled back to the prisoner, who had morosely lowered his meagre frame back into the chair and was trying to conceal the fact that he was reading