The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon's Court

by Michelle Moran

“Do you have them?”

  She glances at me warily. “Twenty—at least.”

  “I would like to see them, to know if this man has ever loved anyone but himself.”

  She hesitates. “They are love letters, Your Majesty. Some of them are very … detailed.”

  “Did your mother ever read them to her suite?”

  “All the time. There’s nothing she kept private.”

  This is what I wanted to know.

  “Does Your Highness truly want—”

  I nod, and she rises. “Ten minutes,” she promises. “They’re locked away.”

  I call for more tea while Hortense is gone, and when she returns, she is holding a small leather box. She places it in front of me, and I run my hands over the carving of Venus.

  “My mother asked me to keep it for her. She wanted to make sure a few letters survived in case anything happened to hers.”

  I open the lid and stare at the envelopes bundled inside. I glance up to be sure that Hortense still approves, and she nods for me to continue. “The twenty-ninth of December, 1795,” I read aloud. That was fifteen years ago, before Egypt, or Austria, or the throne of France.

  I awake all filled with you. Your image and the intoxicating pleasures of last night allow my senses no rest. Sweet and matchless Joséphine, how strangely you work upon my heart.

  Are you angry with me? Are you unhappy? Are you upset? My soul is broken with grief and my love for you forbids repose. But how can I rest any more, when I yield to the feeling that masters my inmost self, when I quaff from your lips and from your heart a scorching flame? Yes! One night has taught me how far your portrait falls short of yourself!

  You start at midday: in three hours I shall see you again. Till then, a thousand kisses, mio dolce amore! but give me none back for they set my blood on fire.

  The intoxicating pleasures of last night allow my senses no rest. I try to imagine Adam writing these things to me … to put them in a letter for any prying eyes to see. “Was she his first lover?”

  “I believe so.”

  I take out another letter and read, this time to myself.

  Your letters are the joy of my days, and my days of happiness are not many. Junot is bringing twenty-two flags to Paris. You must come back with him, you understand?—hopeless sorrow, inconsolable misery, sadness without end, if I am so unhappy as to see him return alone. Adorable friend, he will see you, he will breathe in your temple; perhaps you will even grant him the unique and perfect favor of kissing your cheek, and I shall be alone and far, far away. But you are coming, aren’t you? You are going to be here beside me, in my arms, on my breast, on my mouth? Take wing and come, come!

  A kiss on your heart, and one much lower down, much lower!

  I am shocked. “Are they all like this?”

  Hortense looks terribly embarrassed. “Not all. But … many.”

  “He was passionate,” I point out.

  “He was twenty-seven then, Your Highness, not forty.”

  “And now he’s turned his passions elsewhere.”

  “Yes. To war.”

  “Are you not upset that your husband will lose his crown?” In the space of a single day, she’ll descend from queen of Holland to a princess of France.

  “I’m not the queen of Holland in any true sense,” she replies. “I don’t speak their language, I don’t know their customs. I’m the granddaughter of a man who ran a sugar plantation. I’m not like you.”

  “But you were born an aristocrat,” I remind her.

  “No. My father liked to pretend, which is why he went to the guillotine. He was born in Martinique, the same as my mother. He was less royal than Pauline’s dog.”

  I laugh out loud, in spite of myself. Then she covers her mouth with her hands, and we both laugh together. I like Hortense.

  “Speaking of which, I hear they’re bringing your chien from Vienna.”

  I stare at her. How can she possibly know this? “He just told me,” I say, amazed.

  She gives me a private smile. “Nothing is secret at this court, Your Majesty. When you discover that you’re pregnant, half of France will know before the day is out.”

  “Is that how it was for you?”

  “Yes.” She takes a long sip of her tea, and an awkward silence fills the chamber. “Even two years later it’s unbearable to think about,” she whispers.

  My mother buried three of her children, and she told me that the loss never disappears, only the intensity of the pain you feel about it. I reach out to cover Hortense’s hand with mine. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I wonder if I will have just as many sorrows in seven years’ time.

  She wipes her eyes quickly. “The emperor disapproves of emotions. That’s how men are.”

  I think of my father, who was sick with grief when my mother died, and of Adam, who was beside himself when Ferdinand broke his arm on a horse that he gave him, and I know this isn’t true. But I don’t contradict her. “And your other sons?”

  “In Holland,” she replies, “with their father.”

  She is too distressed for me to ask how this came about. So instead I say firmly, “We should do something cheerful.”

  “Would you like to stroll through Fontainebleau before we pack?” she offers.

  I smile. “Why not?”

  So we wander the halls of the château together, and the courtiers’ eyes go wide when they see us: the daughter of Joséphine and the nineteen-year-old second empress of France.

  “Do you think they’re staring?” I whisper.

  She giggles. “I can guarantee it, Your Majesty.”

  We stop in each major room, and Hortense is able to recall the history of every gilded chamber. There’s the salon Pauline seduced her latest lover in, and Louis XIV’s antechamber, where his mistress hid behind the tapestries as the queen paid an unexpected visit.

  “Is there anyone at this court who has actually bedded their spouse?” I ask.

  Hortense leans against a pillar and thinks. “The Gauthiers,” she says earnestly. “They met when they were children and are still in love.”

  I stare at her, and when she realizes how her answer appears, she blushes. “Well, it’s true,” she replies.

  “But what about loyalty for the good of your children?”

  She looks at me curiously and obviously wants to speak.

  “Say it,” I urge her, since we are alone.

  “Will you remain loyal to Napoleon?” she asks.

  I think of Adam, and my eyes begin to burn. But why is she asking me this? I search her face, and suddenly she inhales. “I would never spy for him. Never.” When I don’t say anything, Hortense continues.

  “I promise you, Your Majesty, it was an innocent question. When Napoleon first told me about your arrival, I wished to be your Mistress of the Robes as much as you wished for a crippling disease.”

  “So not at all.” We look at each other for a moment, and I believe her.

  “You see, we’re in similar situations,” she says quietly. “We’re both living at the whim of the emperor.”

  We continue through the richly paneled ballroom, and I think about her question. What if Adam were here? What if I could see his face and touch his skin? Would I be loyal to my marriage? Yes. However great the pain, I would have to turn him away. This is what it is to be a queen. My great-aunt married at fifteen years old. Her husband was a dauphin who had no interest in anything but locks—fixing them, forging them, building them. But when she met Axel von Fersen, the great love of her life, she did not begin an affair. Instead, she pined for him from afar. This was her duty to France.

  I look at the paintings of the goddess Diana on the walls and wish that I, too, were mythical. Or a work of art, with no family, or loyalty, or duty to one’s kingdom. I am about to ask Hortense why this ballroom is filled with images of this goddess when a sudden noise makes us both turn.

  “Monsieur Moreau,” I say, and Pauline’s chamberlain makes a sweeping bow from the doorway.


  “Your Majesties.” He crosses the room and stands before us. He truly is an extraordinary-looking man, with skin of bronze and eyes of the deepest green. “The emperor wishes to see the queen of Holland in his library.”

  Hortense glances at me, then looks to Paul. “Now?”

  “As soon as possible, Your Highness.”

  “I won’t be long,” she promises me. She hurries across the ballroom, and Paul remains, standing beneath an image of Diana.

  “Do you know who had all of these painted?” I ask.

  “François I, in honor of his mistress Diane de Poitiers, Your Majesty. An entire ballroom dedicated to his mistress.” He turns up his palms. “Les Français.”

  We begin to walk the length of the room and stop before one of the high, arched windows that look out over the landscaped Gardens of Diana. Only twenty years ago Marie-Antoinette walked these paths. I imagine my great-aunt in her flowing chemise, and I wonder if she can see me now, dressed in a similar muslin gown with ribbons around my waist and silk shoes on my feet. An entire revolution left half a million people dead, and for what? This ballroom is just as lavish, this court just as full of greed and excess. Nothing has changed except the name of France’s ruler, and now, instead of an L on the throne, there is a golden N.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” I ask quietly.

  “My Taíno ancestors believed in Mabuya, the presence of spirits in the human world. But I’ve never seen one. I find it hard to believe in something I’ve never seen. And Your Majesty?”

  “It’s not Catholic to believe in ghosts,” I say.

  “But has Your Majesty ever seen one?” Paul asks.

  I look up at him. He’s one of the few men at this court who is taller than me. “I don’t know.”

  “I suspect this palace would be filled with ghosts, if they exist.”

  I THINK ABOUT my poor, doomed aunt all throughout my packing, and even when we are boarding the coaches in front of the steps of Fontainebleau, I imagine that I can see her face in the mist.

  “Six-thirty,” Napoleon is raging. “I said six, and right now it’s six-thirty!”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” Hortense soothes him. She settles in beside me, across from Napoleon and Méneval. “We all thought Metternich and Queen Caroline would come. But if Caroline is pregnant—”

  He turns in my direction and fixes me with his steel-gray eyes. But he doesn’t say anything, and I assume I’m supposed to look as desperate for a child as Joséphine was. When I arrange my features into a look of perfect blankness, his neck turns red. “Drive!” he shouts so that the coachman can hear him, and the horses pass through the gates of Fontainebleau at a gallop.

  “I wish to dictate,” Napoleon announces immediately.

  “Certainly, Your Majesty.” Méneval searches for his bag. He takes out a quill and ink, then produces a wooden writing board with paper. And for the next three hours, we are treated to a litany of things the emperor wishes to accomplish on our honeymoon. There will be visits to wells and granaries. Forts and monasteries are also on the list. Then tomorrow, at precisely four in the morning, we’ll be touring St. Quentin’s cotton mill. Four in the morning.

  “And that is all,” Napoleon says at nine-thirty.

  “Have we scheduled breakfast in all of this?” I ask.

  Hortense gives me a warning look, and Méneval quickly glances away.

  “We do not eat breakfast while traveling.”

  I frown. “Does the same apply to lunch?”

  “A woman should not have to eat!” Napoleon thunders. “Look at you! You’re not exactly starving.”

  Hortense gasps, and Méneval looks as if he might faint. We ride through the morning in total silence, and when our procession of carriages stops for lunch, Napoleon shouts to the driver, “Keep going!”

  But the young man is sure he’s heard wrong. It’s been five and a half hours since we’ve left Fontainebleau, and none of the courtiers or servants have eaten. “Your Majesty?”

  Napoleon opens the door and climbs the steps to the driver’s seat. “What is he doing?” I exclaim, and Hortense covers her mouth in shock. He’s taken the poor boy’s whip and is thrashing him with it.

  “Stop!” I scream from the carriage. “Please, stop!”

  A half-dozen men rush to see the commotion. “Your Majesty!” someone shouts, and the boy jumps from the carriage and begins to run.

  “I don’t want to see you again!” Napoleon cries after the boy’s fleeing figure. “Do you understand?” He throws down the whip and descends the steps, eager for a fight.

  A group of horrified courtiers, braving the weather, have made a half-circle around our carriage, and now everyone steps back as the emperor says, “The Duchesse de Montebello.”

  The old woman curtsies respectfully.

  “I believe I saw you in that dress last week. I hope you plan to change into something with taste when we reach St. Quentin.”

  She lowers her gaze. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Where is the Duc de Bassano?”

  The courtiers look around, then a voice rises from the back of the growing crowd, and the people part to let the duc through. He’s a tall man, with broad shoulders and a tanned soldier’s complexion. He wears a green and gold cockade in support of the Bonapartes, and the ribbon is fastened to his hat.

  “Exchange places with Méneval,” Napoleon instructs. “We have plans to discuss from here to St. Quentin.”

  “Will we be stopping for food?” the duc asks bravely. “The men in my carriage are near dead with hunger.”

  There are several seconds of uncertainty: no one is certain how Napoleon will react. Then the emperor shrugs. “We’ll stop in the next town.”

  As the courtiers return to their carriages, I search for the young man who was driving our coach, but he’s disappeared. A replacement has been found and is making his way toward us. I was warned about Napoleon’s temper, but still I am shaken, now that I have seen it. We take our seats, and as the carriage rolls away, Napoleon opens his window, letting in the bitter wind and rain. No one says anything.

  THAT EVENING, as the carriages rattle through the streets of St. Quentin, Napoleon whistles a happy tune. “Here we are!” he announces when our long procession passes through the gates of a nobleman’s maison. As we descend from the coaches, he begins to sing, “Mort et convoi de l’invincible Malbrough.”

  Marlbrook the Prince of Commanders

  Is gone to war in Flanders, His fame is

  Like Alexander’s …

  “Dinner at seven o’clock,” he says, as if he’s never been in anything but a merry mood.

  In the privacy of our adjoining chambers, he is similarly cheerful. “A chessboard,” he exclaims when he enters my room, though I notice that he doesn’t offer me a game. He gives me a slow, meaningful smile and says, “Undress.”

  CHAPTER 14

  PAULINE BORGHESE

  Aix-la-Chapelle May 1810

  HE’S BORED? HIS BRIDE ISN’T ENTERTAINING ENOUGH for him? I can’t believe it!” Paul puts down my brother’s letter, and I continue to feign shock. “But how could this be? She’s a Hapsburg princess. The blood of a thousand generations flows in her veins. Surely that’s enough for the emperor of France.”

  “Shall I read you the rest now?” Paul asks dryly.

  “Continue.” I lie back against my wide, silk cushions and wonder that more wealthy continentals don’t bring their own furnishings to these spas. What’s the point in coming to take the waters of Grannus if you’re going recline on stone benches and wooden chairs?

  Paul glances at two blond women floating in the thermal baths, and when they both stare back, I feel a sudden irritation. I’m here to find a cure for crippling pain, and he can’t keep his eyes on the letter.

  Then he begins:

  I miss speaking with you, Paoletta. There is no other here with whom I can have an intelligent discussion about Arrian’s account of Alexander the Great’s campaigns, and
their obvious implications to this empire.

  The countryside becomes more tedious every day, and the farther we roam from Paris, the more eager I am to return. There’s not a roadside inn anywhere in France this empress would refuse to eat in. If we could visit them all, she would consider it a successful journey.

  Write to me. I don’t care that you’re taking the waters of Grannus. It’s no excuse for silence.

  —Napoleon

  Paul returns the letter to me and picks up Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. But before he can begin, I see the muscles along his jaw tighten, and follow his gaze. Captain de Canouville is striding toward us in his swimming costume, and my God. He smiles widely, and every woman in Aix-la-Chapelle is watching him. But I’m the one he settles down next to.

  “Steam, water, the baking heat—how is it that none of this affects Your Highness? I swear, there is no vision on earth so beautiful as you.” He kisses my lips, and I badly want to pull him on top of me. It’s such a shame they allow children into these baths.

  Paul fans himself with his book. It is hotter than Egypt in here. “Would Your Highness like to take a break for lunch?” he asks. “You’ve had nothing but soup for three days.”

  Because I’ve been shaking and vomiting. Last night I did not fall to sleep until four in the morning. “Oh, who can eat food in this place?” I say lightly. “Do you think I’m a German, heartily eating my way through the Low Countries?” He frowns, but I turn to de Canouville. “I’ve had a letter,” I explain. “My brother is bored. Apparently the womb does nothing but eat.”

  “The entire world at his feet, and he chooses an Austrian. Where are they?” he asks.

  “Breda,” Paul says.

  “Breda?”

  This is where Charles II lived in exile. It’s a godforsaken place.

  “And he wanted us to join him,” I marvel. “Caroline, of course, found a way out of it. Pregnant,” I scoff.

  Paul looks at me curiously, but it’s de Canouville who says, “She isn’t pregnant?”

  “I should hope not. She already looks like a sow.”