Napoleon's Exile by Patrick Rambaud Read Free Book Online

rolled up to the elbows. He led them into his studio in the half-cellar, a vaulted room that smelled of ink and was lit by oil lamps, which he hurried to turn up.
    â€˜The text?’ he asked Michaud.
    â€˜Here it is,’ said Morin, unrolling Sémallé's sheet, which he took from his pocket.
    â€˜There’s no time to lose.’
    â€˜How many could you print off in an hour?’
    â€˜About four hundred.’
    â€˜Is that all?’ asked Octave.
    â€˜What? I haven’t got a steam-driven machine like they have in London, Monsieur! I’m a simple craftsman, and I can’t afford to go any faster.’
    â€˜I know,’ replied Morin.
    â€˜Have you had any cause to complain of my services?’
    â€˜Come now! Let’s have no bickering,’ La Grange interrupted impatiently.
    While Octave kept watch on the street through a grilled basement window, the printer began to set the text, taking the characters one by one from their wooden boxes.
    â€˜Is there anything we can do to help?’
    â€˜Absolutely not,’ grunted Michaud. ‘It’s a craft.’
    He inked the letters with a brush, and sheet by sheet he worked his machine, its noise amplified beneath the vaulted ceiling in the calm of dusk. La Grange picked up the first poster and read it in a murmur by the light of a lamp:
    Â 
    People of Paris, the hour of your deliverance has come.
    May a feeling stifled for many years find voice in the cry,
    repeated a thousand times over:
Long live the King!
    Long live Louis XVIII! Long live our glorious liberators!
    Â 
    â€˜Shut up!’ Octave said suddenly, nose still pressed to the basement window.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Be quiet, I tell you, I can see a pair of gaiters approaching.’
    â€˜It’s nothing,’ said Michaud, pushing down on his manual press. ‘We’re behind the Banque de France, and the National Guard are just patrolling as normal.’
    â€˜This isn’t a normal evening,’ insisted Octave, and they’ve stopped by the door, they’re talking to each other ...’
    The sound of a musket-butt striking the door finally made them fall silent and Michaud sighed:
    â€˜Don’t move, I’ll go. I know the local Guards.’
    He climbed the three steps, leaving the communicating door half open so that the conspirators below could follow his conversation with the officer of the National Guard, formerly a fashionable tailor.
    â€˜There’s a lot of noise going on for the time of night!’
    â€˜I’m late with a piece of work.’
    â€˜In spite of events?’
    â€˜Because of them. I haven’t got an assistant, so I’m doing it myself, and I’m up against it.’
    â€˜All on your own?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Surely not,’ said another voice, ‘I’m convinced there was an unusual amount of activity in here, I saw it with my own eyes.’
    â€˜I was having some paper delivered.’
    â€˜Can I take a look at your studio?’
    â€˜Of course, but why would you want to? Come on, I’ll give you a bottle to help you get through the night!’
    There was laughter, the sound of backs being slapped and then footsteps, followed by the front door closing. Michaud returned to his press: ‘They’ll be back, I’m sure of it, you should leave discreetly . . .’
    â€˜But what about our posters?’ asked Morin.
    â€˜There are about thirty already printed,’ Michaud told him. ‘Take those, I’ll go on working and everything will be ready for our bill-stickers tomorrow morning.’
    â€˜But if the guards come back,’ said Octave, ‘they’ll read our prose.’
    â€˜Don’t worry, I’ll tell them I’m doing some printing for a theatre that’s about to reopen. I’ll put older posters on top of what we’ve printed ...’
    He showed them a pile of posters announcing a vaudeville by