At once he recalled the convoy of carriages behind them and pushed down the handle of the door. It swung open and Napoleon scrambled down into the street and stared back along the convoy. The cart and barrel on which the two children had stood to greet Napoleon had vanished.The street was filled with the bodies of people and horses and the shattered remains of carriages. Every window as far as Napoleon could see had been shattered and the buildings immediately around the point of the explosion had collapsed. An officer from the Consular Guard ran up and took his arm.

‘Sir! Get back in the carriage.We have to get you out of here!’

‘Leave me alone.’ Napoleon gestured towards the blackened figures stirring amid the carnage. ‘Help those people!’

The officer stared at him briefly and then nodded, turning to his men. ‘Follow me!’

‘My God . . .’ Josephine mumbled.

Napoleon looked round and saw that she had followed him down from the carriage. She stared past him, and then thrust her gloved hand to her mouth as her eyes widened in terror. ‘My children! My children . . . My Eugène. Hortense. Where are they?’

She brushed past him and ran back towards what was left of the following coaches and Napoleon went after her, his heart heavy with dread. Only a miracle could have spared those caught in the full blast of the explosion.

Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Napoleon followed Josephine as she went from the remains of one carriage to the next, picking her way over rubble, fragments of wood, shattered limbs, and the carcasses of horses. Some of the bystanders and men of the Consular Guard had found some torches from further up the street and moved over the scene in their search for the survivors.

‘Mother!’ a voice cried out and Josephine snapped towards it.

‘Eugène! Is that you?’

A shape waved to them in the gloom. ‘Yes, over here.’

Napoleon and Josephine clambered across a pile of rubble from one of the collapsed buildings and found that the carriages towards the rear of the convoy were still intact. The horses and driver of Eugène’s carriage had all been killed by flying masonry and splinters from the carriage ahead of them.The door hung on one bent hinge and Eugène beckoned to them desperately. ‘In here. Quickly.’

When they reached the carriage Napoleon and Josephine looked inside and saw Eugène cradling his sister in his arms. There was a livid streak of blood down the silk material of her dress and she looked up with a dazed expression at her mother and stepfather.