This provoked another roar of laughter from his audience, and he held his hands up to quieten them down. ‘So I stroll right in and give the uppity bastard a bollocking for not having his superiors there to negotiate. Meanwhile Lannes has marched up to the fuses on the mine and ripped them out and thrown them in the river. And while I’m bawling at the colonel, Lannes tips his hat to the grenadiers and they come on at the double. Soon as the Austrian gunners see ’em they make ready to fire.“Not so bloody fast!” I shout at ’em.“What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is an armistice!” And I shove them away from the guns. By the time they’d recovered their wits the grenadiers were already across and disarming them.’ Murat puffed out his chest and concluded, ‘And that, my friends, is how just two men of the Grand Army took a bridge across the Danube from a whole brigade of Austrians.’

At once the officers burst into wild applause and Murat made a few stage bows to them in return. Napoleon stepped out of the shadows into the room and pushed his way through the rearmost officers. As soon as the crowd realised that the Emperor was present, a path opened for him as if by magic and he strode forward towards the beaming Marshal Murat.

‘Sire! I bring you great news. We have Vienna!’ Murat was taken aback by the frigid expression on the Emperor’s face, and continued in a blustering tone. ‘Vienna, I tell you. The enemy’s capital is ours. The Austrians declared it an open city and bolted away to join their Russian allies. Left the place undefended. As I was telling our friends here, we even captured a bridge over the Danube.’

‘So I heard,’ Napoleon replied flatly. ‘I would speak to you, Marshal Murat. In my office.’

‘Of course, sire. But first join us, and toast the capture of Vienna.’

Several officers cheered the suggestion, but others had become aware of Napoleon’s mood and stayed silent, watching warily. Napoleon shook his head. ‘Now, Murat, if you please.’

Murat stared at him, half smiling, and then glanced round the room looking for moral support, but all the other officers had fallen silent and lowered their glasses. Napoleon turned away and strode through the crowd to the back of the farmhouse where the kitchen now served as his office, its long table covered with maps and notebooks.As he entered the room Napoleon saw a clerk busy updating one of the notebooks filled with the strength returns of the Grand Army’s units.

‘Out.’

‘Yes, sire.’

The clerk lowered his pen at once and hurried from the room, squeezing to one side of the doorframe as Murat followed the Emperor inside.

‘Close the door.’