‘But you would not cause harm to me.You would not dare.’

‘What makes you so certain?’ Napoleon asked curiously. ‘I have sent far better men than you to their deaths and slept well for it.’

There was a long pause. At last, Napoleon produced a statement Fouché had copied earlier in a fair hand. ‘Sign this.’

‘What is it?’ Ferdinand asked suspiciously.

‘Your announcement that you are returning the crown to your father with immediate effect, and your apology for having wrongfully usurped the throne.’

Ferdinand laughed. ‘You are not serious! I cannot sign that. I will not.’

‘You must.’

‘No.’

‘Sign it!’ Napoleon snapped.‘Sign it now, or suffer the consequences.’

He flipped the lid of the inkwell open, dipped the pen in and thrust it towards Ferdinand. ‘Sign it! Or I swear you will suffer.’

Ferdinand sat quite still for a moment, his face fixed in an agonised expression as he stared at the pen, and then at Napoleon as if beseeching him to change his mind. But Napoleon held firm and said nothing, and returned his look with cold, hard eyes. At length Ferdinand hesitantly reached out and took the pen. Leaning forward, over the statement, he began to sign in a slow, trembling hand.As soon as he had raised the pen from the paper, Napoleon took the document away and laid it on the floor next to his chair to allow the ink to dry.

‘It is done. Now you may go.’

Ferdinand bit his lip. ‘You guarantee that there will be no revenge taken by my father?’

‘I can guarantee it.’

‘I have your word on that?’

‘You have my word.Your father will not cause you, or any of your supporters, any harm.’

Ferdinand nodded, and rose from his seat.‘Very well, then. I bid your majesty good night.’

He turned away and paced wearily across the room, and closed the door quietly behind him. Napoleon’s lips slowly curled into a smile, then he reached down and picked up the signed statement. Turning towards a partion doorway, he called out, ‘Fouché!’

The door opened at once and Fouché entered the room.

‘You heard?’

‘Every word, sire.’

‘He crumbled more quickly than I had anticipated. A disappointing young man, in almost every respect. Still, we have all we need now.Take this confession and have it published along with Charles’s attack on his son, and his abdication, in every newspaper in Paris and Madrid.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Fouché took the proffered document. ‘Will that be all?’

‘Yes. It is done. So falls the Spanish house of Bourbon,’ Napoleon said with quiet satisfaction.

Chapter 41

Chapter 41