Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  ‘I hope nothing has happened to him,’ I couldn’t help saying.

  ‘Is there nothing about Papa in the paper?’ Oscar wanted to know.

  Mademoiselle went once more through the report. ‘No, nothing,’ she said in the end.

  There was a knock on the door and Madame La Flotte put her charmingly made-up face into the room. ‘Your Highness, His Excellency, Monsieur Fouché, the Minister of Police, asks you to see him.’

  The church bells stopped. Fouché, did she say? He had never been before. Perhaps I had misheard the name. ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘Monsieur Fouché, the Minister of Police,’ Madame La Flotte repeated, full of agitation in spite of her obvious attempt to appear unconcerned.

  ‘Out with you, Oscar. I must get ready quickly. Yvette, Yvette!’

  Thank God, there was Yvette, holding the lilac-coloured dressing-gown ready for me. ‘Madame La Flotte, take His Excellency to the small drawing-room.’

  ‘I have taken him there already, Madame.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, go down and ask His Excellency to be patient a second. Tell him I’m just dressing. Or rather, don’t tell him that. Hand him the Moniteur to read.’

  A smile flitted across the pretty face of Madame La Flotte. ‘Your Highness, His Excellency reads the Moniteur before it is printed. It is one of his duties.’

  ‘Yvette, there’s no time to do my hair, give me the pink muslin scarf, put it round my head turban fashion.’

  Madame La Flotte and Mademoiselle disappeared. But I called Madame back: ‘Tell me, don’t I look like Madame de Staël in this turban? Madame de Staël, the banished authoress?’

  ‘Your Highness, Madame de Staël has a face like a dachshund and Your Highness could never—’

  ‘Thank you, Madame. Yvette, where is my rouge?’

  ‘In a drawer in the dressing-table. Your Highness uses it so rarely—’

  ‘Yes, I know, my cheeks are too red anyway. Princesses ought to be pale-cheeked by nature. But at this moment I’m a bit too pale myself. Is it really hot outside or is it only me?’

  ‘It is very hot, Your Highness,’ said Yvette.

  I went slowly downstairs. Someone once called Fouché everybody’s bad conscience. People are afraid of him because he knows too much. During the Revolution they called him ‘bloody Fouché’ because no one signed so many death sentences as Deputy Fouché. He was too bloodthirsty even for Robespierre. But before Robespierre could remove him Fouché exploded his plot against Robespierre, and Robespierre went to the guillotine, not Fouché. Under the Directory Fouché disappeared from sight. The Directors wanted to prove to the world that France was no republic of murderers. Fouché, however, knew all their secrets and they couldn’t get rid of him. He attended at Madame Tallien’s every day and he knew everything and everybody. When someone suggested firing at the hungry mob of Paris to quell a riot, he said: ‘Bernadotte will never do it. But what about that little wretch who keeps hanging round Josephine these days?’

  How did it come about that bloodthirsty Fouché got a job again after all? Director Barras used him first, sending him abroad as a French secret agent. Shortly before the overthrow of the Directors he became their most trusted support and they made him Minister of Police. The first thing he did as the new Minister was that he, the former president of the Jacobin Club, went to the clubhouse of his old comrades of the extreme Left in the Rue du Bac and closed it down for good, thus setting the official seal on the end of the Revolution. From then on he kept all ministries and offices, ministers and officials, officers and civilians of any importance under observation, an easy enough job when you have plenty of money to pay your spies. Who was his spy? Or rather, who was not his spy?

  On the day the Directors feared was the one chosen by Napoleon for his coup d’état, they relied completely on their Minister of Police. But that very day the Minister of Police had to spend in bed with a cold. And during the night following the coup d’état the warrant for the arrest which Jean-Baptiste and I expected to arrive any minute would have been signed not by the First Consul but by the Minister of Police he had just appointed, by Monsieur Fouché.

  ‘What does he want of me?’ I wondered again and again before entering the small drawing-room. ‘What did the mass murderer of Lyons want?’ That’s what people called him during the Revolution when they talked about the death sentences he imposed in Lyons. ‘Stupid to remember that just now,’ I thought. ‘He doesn’t look like a murderer, anyway,’ I told myself, ‘he is a very neatly dressed gentleman, strikingly pale probably because he is anæmic, and he speaks most politely and gently with half-closed eyes …’ The communiqué this morning did not mention Jean-Baptiste with so much as a syllable, and I felt that I knew what had happened. ‘But, Monsieur Fouché, I have nothing to hide, only my fear.’

  He jumped to his feet when I entered. ‘I have come to congratulate you, Princess. We have gained a great victory, and I read that the Prince of Ponte Corvo and his Saxon regiments were the first to get into Wagram. With seven to eight thousand soldiers your husband crushed the resistance of forty thousand men and took Wagram.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ I stammered as I asked him to keep his seat, ‘but that’s not in the paper.’

  ‘I only said that I read it, my dear Princess, but not where I read it. No, you would not find it in the papers, only in the Order-of-the-Day from your husband to the Saxon troops in which he praised their bravery.’

  He paused and took a little Dresden bonbon dish from the table between us and examined it with great interest. ‘Moreover, I also read the copy of a letter from His Majesty to the Prince of Ponte Corvo. In that the Emperor expressed outspoken displeasure at the Prince’s Order-of-the-Day and even goes so far as to state that this Order contains a number of inaccuracies. His Majesty states for instance that Oudinot had taken Wagram and that it would therefore have been impossible for the Prince of Ponte Corvo to have taken it first. Furthermore the Saxons could not have gained any distinction under your husband’s leadership simply because they never fired a single shot. For the rest, His Majesty wanted the Prince of Ponte Corvo to know that he, the Prince, had not distinguished himself in any way during the campaign.’

  ‘You, you mean that – the Emperor – wrote that to Jean-Baptiste?’ I asked, completely confounded.

  Fouché replaced the china bowl carefully on the table. ‘There is no doubt about that. A copy of the Imperial letter was added to a letter to me. I have been ordered—’ he looked me full in the eyes, but with an amiable expression – ‘I have been ordered to supervise the person of the Prince of Ponte Corvo and his correspondence.’

  ‘But, Monsieur Fouché, that is going to be difficult. My husband is in Austria with his troops.’

  ‘You are mistaken, Your Highness. The Prince of Ponte Corvo is due to arrive in Paris at any moment. After the correspondence with His Majesty he has resigned his command and asked for leave for reasons of health. This leave has been granted him for an indefinite period. I congratulate you, Princess. You have not seen your husband for such a long time, there will be a reunion for you very soon.’

  ‘May I think for a moment?’

  A smile of amusement flitted over his face. ‘Of what, Your Highness?’

  I put my hand to my forehead. ‘Of everything. I am not very clever, Monsieur Fouché; please don’t contradict me, I must try to make clear to myself what has happened. You say that my husband wrote that his Saxon troops had distinguished themselves, didn’t you?’

  ‘They stood like a rock. That at any rate is what the Prince wrote.’

  ‘Why then is the Emperor annoyed about the rock-like stand of my husband’s regiments?’

  ‘In a secret circular to all his Marshals the Emperor laid down that His Majesty is in personal command of all his troops and that it is solely up to him to single out some formations for special praise. Besides, he wants them to be quite clear about the fact that the French Army owes its victories to French and not to foreign sol
diers. Any other version the Emperor declares to be incompatible with our honour as well as with our policy.’

  ‘Someone told me only the other day that my husband had complained to the Emperor about allotting him nothing but foreign troops. Jean-Baptiste really did all he could to command French troops and to get rid of those poor Saxons.’

  ‘Why poor Saxons?’

  ‘Because the King of Saxony sends his subjects into battles which are no concern of theirs. Why did the Saxons fight at Wagram at all?’

  ‘They are France’s allies, Your Highness. But don’t you see yourself how wisely the Emperor acted in putting the Saxon regiments under the command of the Prince of Ponte Corvo?’

  I gave no answer.

  ‘They stood like a rock, Your Highness, under your husband’s leadership.’

  ‘But the Emperor says it isn’t true.’

  ‘No, all the Emperor said was that he alone had the right to praise individual Army contingents, and that it was impolitic and incompatible with our national honour to praise foreign troops. You did not listen to what I said, Princess.’

  ‘I have to get his room ready, he’s coming home,’ I thought. I got up. ‘You’ll excuse me, Your Excellency, I want to get everything ready for his reception. And thank you very much for your visit, though I don’t know—’

  He was standing right in front of me, a man of medium height, narrow-shouldered, a bit stooping. His long nose with its slightly distended nostrils seemed to sniff. ‘What is it you don’t know, Your Highness?’

  ‘What you’ve really come for. Did you want to tell me that you are putting my husband under observation? I can’t prevent you from doing that and it is a matter of complete indifference to me, but – why did you tell me?’

  ‘Can’t you guess, my dear Princess?’

  An idea occurred to me which at once made me choke with rage. But I collected my wits and said very emphatically and clearly: ‘If you, Monsieur Fouché, thought that I would help you to spy on my husband, you are mistaken.’ I wanted to raise my hand with a grand gesture and shout ‘Out with you’, only I am not very good at that kind of thing.

  He said calmly: ‘If I had thought that, I should have been mistaken. Perhaps I did think it, perhaps I did not. I really do not know myself now.’

  ‘Why all this,’ I asked myself, ‘why? If the Emperor wants to banish us he’ll banish us. If he wants to court-martial Jean-Baptiste he’ll court-martial him. And if he wants reasons his Minister of Police will supply them for him. After all, France is no longer a country where justice is done …’

  ‘Most ladies owe money to their dressmaker,’ he said in an undertone.

  ‘Monsieur, you have gone too far now.’

  ‘Our beloved Empress, for example. She is always in debt to Le Roy. Naturally I am at Her Majesty’s service whenever she wishes.’

  What did he mean? What was he hinting at? That he pays the Empress? For spying? ‘But that’s crazy,’ I thought. And yet I knew instantly that it was true.

  ‘Sometimes it is quite entertaining to control the correspondence of a man. One experiences surprises, surprises which are, shall we say, of less interest to me than to the man’s wife.’

  ‘Don’t trouble,’ I said, disgusted. ‘You will find that Jean-Baptiste has been writing to Madame Récamier for years and that he receives tender letters from her. Madame Récamier is a very intelligent and cultured woman, and it is a great pleasure for a man like my Jean-Baptiste to correspond with her. And now you really must excuse me, I shall have to get his room in order,’ I added, thinking that, all the same, I would give a lot if I could really have a look at those clever love letters from Jean-Baptiste to Madame Récamier.

  ‘One moment, please, my dear Princess. Would you kindly give the Prince a message from me?’

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  ‘The Emperor is at Schönbrunn Castle in Vienna. It is therefore impossible for me to get news through to him in time about the massing of English troops intended for landing at Dunkirk and Antwerp. My information is that they will march straight from the Channel coast to Paris. Therefore, on my own responsibility and for the safety of the country I shall call up the National Guard. I am asking Marshal Bernadotte to take over the command of these troops for the defence of France immediately on his arrival. That, Madame, is all.’

  I was stunned. I tried to visualise it all: invasion by the British, attack by the British, march on Paris by the British. All the Marshals were away with the armies abroad. We had hardly any troops in the country, and at that very moment Britain attacked France.

  Fouché was playing with the bonbon dish again.

  ‘The Emperor mistrusts him,’ I said, ‘and you – you want to give him the command of the National Guard to defend our frontiers?’

  ‘I myself am no commander of troops, Princess. I used to be only a teacher of mathematics, not a – Sergeant. Heaven sends me a Marshal to Paris, so I say thank Heaven for the Marshal! Will you give my message to the Prince?’

  I nodded and accompanied him to the door. Then I thought of something. Perhaps it was all a trap? This Fouché was such a cunning man.

  ‘But I don’t know,’ I said, ‘if my husband will really take on the command if His Majesty does not know anything about it.’

  Fouché was standing quite close to me. ‘You may rest assured, Madame, if it is a question of defending the frontiers of France Marshal Bernadotte will take on the command.’ And, after a moment he added, almost inaudibly: ‘As long as he is still Marshal of France.’

  He kissed my hand and left.

  The very same evening Jean-Baptiste arrived, accompanied only by Fernand. He had left even his personal adjutants behind.

  Two days later he set out again. For the Channel coast.

  Villa La Grange near Paris. Autumn 1809

  I have not enough time now to write anything in my diary. I have to be round Jean-Baptiste all day long now to try to cheer him up.

  Fouché had not exaggerated the danger on that day in July. The British really did land on the Channel coast and took Vlissingen. Within a few days Jean-Baptiste achieved the miracle of fortifying Antwerp and Dunkirk so strongly that not only were all British attacks thrown back but many prisoners and an enormous booty were captured from them. The British managed to reach their ships near Dunkirk by the skin of their teeth, and fled.

  These events agitated the Emperor at Schönbrunn dreadfully. In his absence a minister had dared to call up the National Guard and appoint as Commander-in-Chief precisely the one Marshal whom he, the Emperor, had put under police supervision. Publicly Napoleon could not but acknowledge that Fouché with the help of Jean-Baptiste had saved France. Without the mobilisation of the National Guard and the energy of a Marshal who turned untrained peasants whose hands hadn’t held a rifle for more than ten years into an army, France would have been lost. He made Fouché Duke of Otranto.

  Duke of Otranto, as romantic a name as Ponte Corvo! Fouché knows his duchy as little as I our Italian principality. The Emperor himself designed Fouché’s arms, a golden pillar round which a serpent is twisted.

  The golden pillar caused general amusement. The former president of the Jacobin Club, who used to confiscate fortunes indiscriminately by classing their owners as anti-Republican, is now one of the richest men in the country. One of his best friends is Ouvrard, the former lover of Theresa Tallien, arms contractor and, at the same time, banker who carries out Fouché’s deals on the Stock Exchange. Nobody, however, talks about the serpent round the pillar, though everybody seems to interpret it in one way only: Napoleon is indebted to his Minister of Police and uses the opportunity to tell him what he thinks of him …

  Everybody expected the Emperor to confer a distinction on Jean-Baptiste and entrust a new command to him. But he didn’t even write him so much as a letter of thanks. When I spoke to Jean-Baptiste about it he said: ‘Why should he? I don’t defend France for his sake.’

  We moved out from Paris to La Gran
ge, where Jean-Baptiste had bought an attractive big house. As to the house in the Rue d’Anjou, Jean-Baptiste never felt at home in it. Although I had all the rooms beautifully decorated he found too many ‘ghosts’ lurking in all the corners.

  ‘You agree, don’t you, to my placing Moreau’s bust in the hall?’ I asked him when he entered the house for the first time.

  Jean-Baptiste looked at me: ‘You couldn’t have found a better place for it. There it will tell every visitor at once that we do not forget whose house this used to be. Strange, my little girl, how you always guess my unspoken thoughts.’

  ‘Why strange? I love you,’ I said.

  I enjoyed every day of Jean-Baptiste’s disgrace, which made it possible for us to live quietly in the country. Julie kept me informed about events in the Imperial family. She and Joseph came back to Paris. The Emperor had sent Junot’s army to Spain to enable Joseph to enter Madrid at last. But Junot’s army was almost annihilated by the Spanish patriots, who had the assistance of the British. According to Junot this defeat was due to no one but Joseph, because Joseph had insisted that he, as King of Spain, would take over the command himself, and had not listened to Junot. Imagine Joseph as a commander in the field! Of course, he only did it to prove to Napoleon that he could conduct campaigns as well as ‘my little brother, the General’. I wondered whether Julie still had any illusions left about her Joseph.

  If Napoleon’s luck suddenly deserted him as it did that time in Marseilles, would they all desert him too? No, not all. Josephine would stand by him. And yet she is the one he wants to get rid of. He wants to divorce her, they say. I have been told that he intends to found a dynasty at last with the help of an Austrian Archduchess, a daughter of Emperor Francis. Poor Josephine, it is true she deceived him, but she would never leave him to his fate.

  We had a very surprising visit yesterday. Count Talleyrand, the Prince of Benevento, called. It was a ‘neighbourly’ visit, said the Prince, laughing, because the Duchy of Benevento adjoins the Principality of Ponte Corvo, and he was given it at the same time as we were given our present.