Front Cover

Half-Title Page

Title Page

For Luka,
boy wonder

. . . but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their place.

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

FORTUNE

Book I

BOOK I

ALWAYS BEGIN WITH THE FACTS

The little man was riding a beautiful white horse, they say, the day he marched into Berlin. Of course he was. Who’d sit Napoleon on a mule?

But, really, it doesn’t matter. Time sullies every truth. History can’t tell you a thing for sure. Well, maybe the date.

It was 27 October 1806.

L’ENTRÉE DE NAPOLÉON À BERLIN

Johannes Meyer was there, in the crowd gathered along Unter den Linden, as cool late-afternoon shadows fell from the buildings and the victorious Grande Armée followed their emperor through the Brandenburg Gate. He was a young man of eighteen years and no particular talent, was like other young men of his generation, those who tended towards romantic poetry, aimless walks in the woods, passionate ideals debated until dawn in the smoky din of coffee houses. Their heroes were Goethe and Schiller and Humboldt, and they could recite passages by heart. They had no money and the future was a bright dream of unbounded freedom and promise. Their mothers worried and their fathers thought them useless.

Johannes Meyer had no parents to contend with, but no matter how hard he pushed, he simply couldn’t get through the crowd to catch even a glimpse of Napoleon Bonaparte.

‘Hey, leave off!’ the man in front of him said and thrust back with his elbow, catching the boy in the ribs. ‘Want me to knuckle you, son?’

His friends were all gone, they’d managed to slip through, but Johannes remained caught at the rear, a lonely leaf in the swirling current.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS, ALL THE TIME

The crowd was vast. They’d come to see the most famous man on earth, the most feared, the most powerful, the man who’d just crushed mighty Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, each a mere afternoon’s work. The man who’d sacked the kings and bishops, the man who’d made the Creole an empress. Often, people were disappointed seeing him up close (Bonaparte could always tell and it made him cranky and cruel) but on a white horse at the head of his men, triumphant, surrounded by his preening maréchals and générals, all jostling their mounts to be nearer, eager for reflected glory, the Emperor was all that could be imagined, and more.