Sitting down together, they dismissed the lady-in-waiting with instructions to gather together the few proved friends who still remained to them, and then set themselves to the preparations for their departure. An hour or more they spent together, and then Murat emerged, his head high, and his face alight from the contact with his splendid wife. His Ministers had assembled, and with them he arranged such of the affairs of the kingdom as admitted of arrangement, and placed them in such a shape that the Bourbon could not help but keep them so, for his own sake, and every last one of his acts and thoughts was directed towards the future welfare of his people. Nothing else appeared to have any place in his mind at all. He was cool, quiet, cheerful, and collected, heartening those around him, and as freehanded to the French who were leaving him, and the servants whom he was leaving, as though he were taking the Crown instead of laying it down.
He had regained the priceless possession of hope. Napoleon’s star was still shining. France had taken him to her arms. Without the shedding of a single drop of blood he had regained the throne and, though all the world might be in arms against him, he had faith in himself, the faith that moveth mountains. Murat had resolved to go and join him, and, when the world war was over, and Napoleon’s foot was again upon the neck of his enemies, to return to Naples and drive Ferdinand into the sea and under it.
Caroline knew of his intention, for she let him go alone, and his instructions to Carrascosa (before the latter departed to the little house, three miles out of Capua, where Lord Burghersh, Bianchi, and Neipperg waited to arrange the terms of the treaty of Casa Lanza) show her hand plainly, for Carrascosa was told to stipulate that the property sold or given away by Murat must be guaranteed to its possessors, in order, as Joachim said, to leave him the character of a good king and that the Neapolitans might cherish his memory. He knew, and so did Caroline, exactly how long it would take Ferdinand to make himself loathed and abominated by the people whose yoke Joachim had lifted.
That these did not trust Ferdinand’s eloquent vow to abstain from retaliation against those who had served Murat was made plain in the very beginning of the negotiations, for they refused to take his personal word for the fulfilment of any part of the treaty, and demanded the guarantee of the Emperor of Austria. It was little security enough, in all conscience, for the guarantees of Francis had been the jest of Europe for years past, but they seemed to think that it might bind the hands of the “Butcher King” for awhile.
On the same evening that the treaty was ratified Joachim departed incognito for Pozzuoli. From there he went on to Ischia, where he was received with all the respect due to a monarch, and on the 22nd he sailed for France with a few friends. Caroline, as regent, still remained in the palace, and the Neapolitan populace in the absence of the troops went off their heads. They had been hard held lately, and now they made up for it. They broke open the prisons and committed atrocities that do not bear writing about. Even the presence of 300 marines from the British fleet could do little to control the mob, but they produced a temporary calm, during which Caroline embarked on one of the British men-of-war with Macdonald and two others.
CHAPTER XVI MURAT’S LAST DAYS
No sooner was Caroline on board than the city broke out again and anarchy reigned, until the Austrians sent in some troops in answer to the frantic appeals of the magistrates, and these, with the British Marines, set upon the mob, killing a hundred or more of the worst of them before order was restored.
The riot and the subsequent slaughter had apparently no effect upon the people’s feelings, for on the very next day they illuminated the city gorgeously, and the sound of their merriment could be heard out at sea. All the ships in the harbour were dressed, even that one which sheltered Caroline and her followers, and on the 23rd the Austrians entered with Crown Prince Leopold of Bourbon at their head, who graciously acknowledged the howls of the crowd. Everything that suggested Murat—flags, statues, pictures—was destroyed, and Caroline, from the deck of the British ship, watched the general jubilation over her husband’s fall.
Joachim, passing Gaeta, saw his standard still flying from that fortress, and, even then, would have landed and joined the garrison had he been permitted to do so, but the port was blocked up with vessels and he was forced to proceed on his way.
He reached Fréjus on May 28; but as the shore became clearer and the outline of the coast grew into the horizon, the hopes with which he had left Caroline began to weaken, and he became oppressed with a sense of helplessness, seeming to feel that he was struggling against hopeless odds. The sight of the country he had once served so well, and where his name had been a household word—he was known as “the Achilles of France”—struck chill upon his heart. He had loved his mistress, and had never counted the cost, but he had sided against her too, and, as he well knew, a country, like a woman, forgets a thousand acts of devotion in the face of one affront. He had no friends there any more save, perhaps, his brother-in-law; but Napoleon had a woman’s memory for past wrongs too, and though his letters had been full of affection while the issue of his own attempt was still problematical, now that he had succeeded he could repay to the uttermost farthing.