L’ETAT C’EST MOI
MARK BUDMAN
When Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte first discovered me behind his ear, he had just finished making love to Josephine. So as not to raise her suspicion—she already had been after him because of that Polish countess Maria—he asked me in Italian, “What the hell you are doing here?”
“My name is Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, your majesty,” I answered in French, squirming under the royal fingernails. “I’m an invisible but not inconsequential imp. No one but you can hear or see me but everyone can feel my wrath. I came here to advise you on the upcoming Russian campaign.”
“It’s your majesté,” Napoleon corrected me, switching to French. “Why the hell do I need your advice?”
“Why are you correcting my pronunciation?” Josephine asked. “Firstly, I didn’t say anything. Secondly, I speak better French than you do. Thirdly, you do need my advice.”
“It’s a matter of State, amore mia,” Napoleon said.” So shut up and go to sleep now.”
“Amore-shmamore,” Josephine said but went to sleep.
“So, why do I need your advice, imp?” Napoleon asked again, when his wife began to snore delicately.
“Because I’ve spent the last ten years behind the ear of Alexander I, the tsar of Russia,” I said. “I know all his secrets.”
“What do you want in return?” the Emperor asked.
“Just the French citizenship. I’m tired to be the subject of the tsar. And a promise that you will never scratch behind your ear.”
I couldn’t tell him that the Russians bath more often than the French and, as the result, several of my friends and relatives had been already drowned in soapy water of a Russian banya.
“Deal,” the Emperor said.
“Let me give you my first piece of advice,” I said. “Josephine knows about Maria Walewska.”
“I wouldn’t never guess,” the emperor said. “You are worth your weight in invisible gold, my invisible friend. But tell me, how’s Alexander’s French?”
“His French is better than yours,” Josephine said. She apparently only pretended to sleep. “And he’s a real chevalier.”
“Who gives a merde?” Napoleon said. “I crashed so many chevaliers that it’s not even funny.”
“Parvenu. Soldier boy. Shorty.”
“Tell her, ‘One more word, and I’ll divorce you and marry Marie Louise, the Austrian princess’,” I whispered.
“Now you’re talking,” the emperor said and scratched me behind the ear. “I’ll listen to you from now on.”
Yet he never did. History proved that the Russian campaign was Napoleon’s greatest disaster. No wonder.
The victorious Russians still continue bathing excessively, so I stayed in France and advised King Louis le Désiré, Talleyrand, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, and lately Macron on matters of philosophy, love, culture and war. When they listened, they succeeded, so I could proudly say, “L’état c’est moi,” or using the words even Wellington could understand,” I am the State.”
Except that they never listened. I guess it’s the French way.
Mark Budman is a first-generation immigrant. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Witness, Five Points, Guernica/PEN, American Scholar, Huffington Post, Mississippi Review, Virginia Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is publisher of the flash fiction magazine Vestal Review. His novel My Life at First Try was published by Counterpoint Press. http://markbudman.com