Extract:
The first members of the party were mounting the dais at the end of the street, just inside the Neumarkt square. Staff officers in blue, with plumed cocked hats: a few local dignitaries, drab by comparison with the martial splendour around: the King of Saxony, a very tall old man, unsteady on his feet, in dull grey uniform: the rest of the Saxon royal family, mostly women in gay dresses: last of all, with the faithful Berthier in attendance, the familiar figure, by now slightly podgy, clad in the green and white uniform of the Chasseurs of the Guard.
He stood before the dais, about a yard in front of anyone else, looking straight ahead. Momentary silence, then the roll of drums.
‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’
Temporarily forgetful of his own danger, Karelius took the rifle from the sill and weighed it in his hands. For the next two or three minutes the life of the French Emperor would be in his hands. He raised the gun to his shoulder and leaned out. Whoever had planned the assassination had judged well. The gunman’s position was not perfect, but with the target no more than a hundred yards down the street to the left, it was an easy shot for a right-handed man. Napoleon stood motionless. Karelius estimated that even lacking recent practice, his chance of wounding him fatally was ninety-five per cent. He laid his head on the polished cheek-rest.
‘ … l’étandard sanglant est levé …’
And now the Emperor was in his sights. His elbows rested on the sill; his hand was steady. Ninety-nine per cent, thought Karelius, feeling pleased with himself. He moved his index finger to the trigger. The muzzle moved a shade, then steadied. A couple of lines from Milton came into his head:
‘And over them triumphant death
His dart shook; but delaid to strike …’
The Marseillaise was scarcely halfway through. There was plenty of time. The end of the barrel did not deviate one iota. He could shoot the Emperor in the left temple any time he chose. It occurred to him to wonder why the imperial staff had sited the rostrum in the one place where it would form a perfect target. He also reflected that if the French were to burst into the room at that moment, they would unhesitatingly have arrested him for the attempted murder of Napoleon Bonaparte, and he would have had no defence.
And yet they would have been wrong. For he had never had the slightest intention of moving his trigger finger the half-inch which would have blasted the Emperor into oblivion and himself into eternal infamy. Before raising the weapon he had said to himself – not aloud, but positively and emphatically, the single word, No. And he had meant it. If I live to be an old man, he mused, which doesn’t seem very likely at the moment, no-one will ever believe me, if I tell them that at about twenty minutes to noon on Sunday the eighth of August 1813, I, Richard Karelius, could have killed Napoleon Bonaparte, but chose to let him live.
Dramatizing oneself was dangerous, none the less. Nervous tension might stray into momentary insanity. Like those revolutionaries who had gone mad at the trial of Louis XVI and cried: ‘Vive le Roi!’ With an effort he tossed the rifle on to the bed and thought grandly: ‘I am no assassin.’ Finally in a successful attempt to bring himself back to earth, he laughed and said aloud, ‘You’re a bloody fool, you are, Karelius.’
‘ … Abreuve nos sillons!’
The Emperor remained standing for a moment, then descended and moved forward into safety.