Angels

Andre and Eveline were raised Roman Catholic by their parents – a fact which earned Napoleon the most grudging, minute and irritated sliver of respect when the man signed the Concordant of 1801, restoring the privileges of the church and once again making Roman Catholicism the predominant religion in the country.

Because of this, Andre’s view of angels comes from a religious point of view rather than a romanticised one. These are the warriors of God – the ones who rain down the fire on His bequest. He does not see them as sweet cherubs who float over shoulders and look out for people but rather as an organized hierarchy of supernatural entities who can be looked to for guidance, but never for answers.

He believes in angels and in saints, and carries on his person two artifacts of his faith. One is an old woodcut print of the first chapter of the ars moriendi ( the art of dying; the first chapter is to console and remind men that death is nothing to fear ) that used to belong to his father. It rests folded within a silver locket that his mother gifted him before he left for the military, alongside portrait miniatures of the family.^x

The other is a rosary which has lost its cross ( the cross was withdrawn from the rosary by Andre, to give to comfort a young soldier who was dying; the cross stayed with the boy when it was time to march onward. ) In its place is a medal adornment of Saint Michael, and Andre is as likely to invoke the archangel as he is to invoke Saint Denis in his prayers.