And so it was, in March 1795, when to add to all this chaos there was a shortage of bread on the Paris streets, that Dr. Blanchard was able to obtain permission to remove Sophie de Cygne from the Temple tower into his safekeeping, in order that she might safely have her child. After all, as he pointed out, it was one less prisoner to find bread for. And when the boy was born, no one bothered to object when he removed the baby and his mother quietly to the family château in the valley of the Loire.

Sophie called the baby Dieudonné—the gift of God. And truly, it seemed to Blanchard, that was what the baby was.

For a time, in the years that followed, Émile Blanchard and Sophie kept in touch. He was rather proud of the fact that it was he, Blanchard, to whom the noble family of de Cygne owed their continued existence. For her part, she was determined to bring up her son away from Paris, which she had come to fear. And this the doctor could well understand. Dieudonné de Cygne was brought up in the quiet of the country, therefore, and there could not possibly, Blanchard thought, be any harm in that.

Not that life in Paris was so bad. The Revolution had learned a lesson from the Terror. Gradually, a legislature with two chambers emerged, themselves subject to election and law. There were problems. Members of the Convention dominated the legislature. There were riots, effectively put down. But for four years, the new system, with a small Directory acting as a cabinet government, brought some order to the land.

Émile kept meaning to go down and visit Dieudonné and his mother, but somehow other business always intervened.

For his own life in Paris kept him very busy indeed. His practice thrived. He treated a number of politicians and their families. But perhaps the most important patient he ever acquired was a charming lady, a widow with two children, who was the mistress of Barras, one of the members of the Directory.

In itself, this was a most useful contact, but it was to lead further than Blanchard could have imagined.

For when Barras decided that it would be a good idea if Joséphine transferred her attentions to a rising young general, who was proving most useful to him, and who was clearly fascinated by her, Blanchard found himself the friend of young Napoléon Bonaparte.

“And from then on,” he would tell the younger members of his family in years to come, “I never looked back.”

For whatever the faults of the future consul and emperor of France, Napoléon was a loyal friend. Having decided that the doctor attending Joséphine was an honest and capable man, he sent patients to him throughout his reign. Often they were powerful and rich. Blanchard was well rewarded.