The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

by Sandra Gulland

  April 26.

  This morning, as is our custom, Alexandre and I went to the office to collect our parcel of clean linens. The turnkey checked off the items against a list ofthe contents. He was about to throw the list into the fire when Alexandre asked to see it. The turnkey looked at him suspiciously, but handed it to him nevertheless. Immediately I perceived it was in Eugène’s hand.

  “Thank you, Citoyen.” Alexandre handed the list back to the turnkey, his hand trembling only slightly.

  April 27.

  Every morning now there is a list with our parcel of linens. On one day it is in Eugène’s hand, on another in Hortense’s. I can sleep now.

  April 28.

  This morning, as I returned from breakfast (pickled herrings—again*), I heard yelping. Suddenly, at my feet, there was a runt of a dog.

  Fortuné!

  I picked him up. He must have slipped past the guards.

  “What is it? Is it a dog?” my companion asked uneasily.

  Fortuné had a big black ribbon around his neck; it had become entangled in his collar. With some difficulty I got him to hold still so that I could straighten it. Then I felt something. There, concealed under his collar, was a folded piece of paper.

  Quickly, I slipped the paper out, hid it in the folds of my skirt. “What an ugly dog. It looks like a rat—don’t you think?” I put Fortuné down, pushed him toward the gate, my heart pounding. “Go! Go home!”

  It wasn’t until Alexandre and I met in the private room that I had the courage to read it. It was a letter from Eugène. They are well—they send their love. I collapsed in tears.

  [Undated]

  Alexandre and I have reconciled.

  * Some prisoners believed they were fed human flesh.

  * Pickled herrings were given to the prisoners in great quantities, provided to the French government by the Dutch in lieu of payment on a debt.

  In which my worst fear is realized

  April 30, 1794.

  Citoyen Boyce Custine’s name has been called. Delphine fainted when she heard, falling onto the stone floor. We carried her to her pallet. There I cooled her brow. Then she opened her eyes and started screaming. The others became angry. A show of grief upsets everyone, and is considered selfish.

  I went to the rectory in search of Alexandre. “Delphine is beside herself,” I told him. “She is upsetting the others. I thought I might take her into the private room.”

  When I got back Aimée had her arms around Delphine, restraining her. “She was pounding on the wall,” Aimée said.

  “Come.” Together Aimée and I were able to control her. Once in the private room Delphine began to calm. I rocked her like a baby. All the while my tears flowed.

  May 3.

  Today, at last, Delphine ate some “bread”—a barley concoction that makes our throats ache. She accepted it without complaint. It has been three days.

  May 4.

  Delphine sat up this morning. “I will require black,” she said. She composed a note to her woman-in-waiting. By afternoon she had a newwardrobe, striking black robes, quite becoming against her fine blonde hair and light blue eyes.

  “You look like a princess,” I told her.

  “I prefer goddess.” She rolled her hair in the reflection of the water bucket.

  I take it her time of grief is over.

  May 9.

  Delphine has been composing verses which she reads to me each night. “But will Alexandre like it?” she asks anxiously when I assure her of its worth.

  Later.

  This afternoon, as I entered the garden, Delphine and Alexandre quickly moved. It was the briefest of movements, no more than a rustle, but Delphine’s ready smile told me there was more, told me everything.

  [Undated]

  Delphine cannot suppress her joy. She glows. She sighs. In the night she moans, moves with desire. I know of whom she dreams.

  May 11, a hot afternoon.

  Alexandre’s eyes follow Delphine’s every move, and I, the aged, lonely wife, must sit idly by and watch this passion unfold, this grand love. Jealousy possesses me.

  Jealousy, anger and loneliness—a lethal mix.

  May 12.

  It is unbearably hot. We lounge about the corridors in the most shockingstate of undress. The men rarely shave, for water is dear. The women let their hair down, forget modesty. In every dark corner there is a couple seeking the last consolation.

  I sit by the slits of windows, taking in air. From a shadow, under a stained bed cover, I see movement. I hear a woman moan, hear a man whisper endearments.

  I lean my head against the damp stone wall. Besoin d’être aimé.

  I shall die unloved. I shall die alone.

  May 13.

  Today, two newcomers: Madame Elliott, an English gentlewoman (the Duc d’Orléans’s mistress and a spy for the English, Aimée insists), and General Lazare Hoche—the hero of the revolution. I could understand why Madame Elliott had been arrested, but General Hoche …? A former stableboy, he had demonstrated brilliance on the battlefield. All the Jacobins sang his praise.

  “But if you don’t win the battles …” General Hoche made the gesture we have come to know too well: the quick movement of the fingers across the throat.

  He is an exceedingly comely young man—thin, tall and with thick black hair and well-defined features; all the women are in a faint over him. It doesn’t help that to get to his quarters he must pass through our dormitory. Tonight, as I was reading a journal out loud to the others, Aimée made a swooning gesture as he went by. I cautioned her, glanced up. General Hoche was standing on the stone landing, looking down at me. The sabre scar between his eyes gave him a quizzical look.

  May 14.

  This evening, coming through our sleeping quarters, Lazare Hoche glanced toward me. He made a small movement with his head.

  I looked over at Madame Elliott. “Going calling?” she asked, in English. She smiled and demurely looked away.

  I summoned the courage to stand. My cheeks were burning. Quickly Islipped up the stone stairs.

  At the top there was a narrow passageway leading to another door, heavily bolted. Lazare Hoche pushed it open.

  His chamber was small and very deep. At the top of a great wall there was a small window. “My dungeon,” he said, lighting a candle. He pulled a covering-sheet over the straw pallet. On a board was a bottle of whisky.

  “You have a private room,” I said.

  “Generals are allowed certain privileges—even in prison.”

  “Even in death?” Why had I said that?

  He took a battered metal camp cup out of a wood crate and filled it from the bottle. He offered me the cup. “May I call you Rose?” he asked.

  I took a sip and coughed. The liquor burned my throat. “I am older than you.” It was a stupid thing to say. But suddenly I felt so unsure. How old was he? Twenty-four, twenty-five? For all he had seen of the world, he seemed but a boy. And I? I felt as old as the earth.

  He finished the cup and set it down on the board. “I would like you to stay.”

  I did not answer. He approached me as one approaches a horse that might shy—firmly, but calmly, with confidence. His skin was rough; his touch gentle.

  [Undated]

  Every night some of our numbers are called. We fall into each other’s arms, embraces given, taken, as if they were the last. They are the last.

  I play out the cards. They say: This is Heaven, this is Hell. It is as one.

  May 16.

  I’ve become a night animal. I sleep through the days. Not eating, my body bone, I cleave to my lover, disappear into the stars I see fleetingly through the narrow metal grate.

  Lazare. Hold me!

  For I am dying.

  May 17.

  This night I went to his room. The door was open, the bedclothes in a bundle on the floor.

  Citoyen Virolle came to the door. “You could come to me.”

  “Where is Lazare?”

 
“Among the chosen,” Citoyen Virolle said, slurring. He was drunk.

  “Lazare’s name was called?” I retched onto the stones.

  May 19.

  Delphine has complained to the turnkey. My weeping keeps her awake. Duchesse Jeanne-Victoire d’Aiguillon has suggested I move into her cell. There is a vacancy now that her cellmate was called, a hammock of leather-strip webbing.

  “A hammock?”

  “So the rats won’t get you,” Jeanne-Victoire said.

  June 23.

  I am thirty-one today. I put on my best gown, in spite of my resolve to save it.* In the garden Alexandre presented me with a drawing he had made of the children, an excellent likeness.

  He told me to meet him in the private chamber. “It is not what you think,” he added.

  “The children—are they …?” Alarmed.

  “I dare not speak.”

  We stood in the private chamber facing one another, our backs against the stone walls. “There is a spy among us,” he said. “I have reason to believe I will be called.” He told me he would be sacrificed for his country, that he had come to accept his fate. He said he was prepared to die. He asked me to dedicate my life to clearing his name. He had only one wish, and that was to see the children one last time. “Delphine can arrange it.”

  “Oh?” I have become weary of Delphine.

  “One of the rooms upstairs overlooks the garden next door. There’s a little house there—a gardener’s house. Were the children to be taken there, and were we to stand in the window …”

  “But what if they were discovered? What if we were seen? It’s too dangerous, Alexandre! Surely—”

  “It has already been arranged.”

  I fell silent. It was hot in the little room.

  “I thought you’d be pleased.” He was irritated.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Tomorrow, at two in the afternoon.”

  June 24.

  Alexandre and I waited by the window looking out on the garden. After a short time, we noticed movement on the second floor of the little house. Hortense and Eugène stepped into view.

  We stared at one another without moving: parent to child, child to parent.

  They looked so very beautiful.

  Hortense cried out, held out her arms. I heard a guard shout, “Who goes there!” The children were pulled back into the shadows.

  It was over as quickly as that.

  July 9.

  Tonight eighteen names were called. So many! We are as sleepwalkers, numb. In the garden, Alexandre accused Citoyen Virolle of being an informer. The little man did not say a word. An hour later his body was found in the rectory. He had been strangled.

  July 17.

  Tonight it was announced: fifty names will be called.

  Fifty!

  Is it possible? Fifty of our number—to die?

  We begin to comprehend.

  We will all of us die.

  July 18.

  Two young men, brothers from Normandie, were the first names called. Hands joined, they leapt down the stone stairwell to their death.

  Two more names were added to the list.

  July 21.

  Names:

  Maurice Gigost,

  Louise Dusault,

  Armand-Thomas Paré,

  Alexandre Beauharnais.

  The sky darkens and the heavens break open with a violent crack. A stray cat trembles, seeks protection under a bench.

  A feeling of dreaminess has come over me. I lie in my hammock, swinging, humming a song from my youth. I can smell the sea.

  July 23.

  Alexandre has been taken to the Conciergerie to stand trial. On Delphine’s finger, his talisman—the stone I had given him. This does not matter.

  July 24.

  I have fallen ill. After supper, Jeanne-Victoire came with food, a little wine. There was no news, she said.

  “But there must be,” I insisted. “What happened at Alexandre’s trial? What happened at the Conciergerie?”

  “His trial has been postponed.” She turned to the window.

  [Undated]

  The ace of spades. Death. I slip it under my pillow.

  Turn and turn again, the flower turns to blood. Lovers touch and there is life. A name is called and there is death.

  They say I cry. They say I weep.

  There is no escape.

  [Undated]

  I rise from my hammock, trembling with fever heat. I go to the window, lean on the grate, press the cold metal bars to my forehead. I search the streets for a sign. “Someone knows,” I whisper.

  I wander into the halls. “Tell me.”

  Aimée turns her eyes away. “Sleep,” she says, guiding me back to my hammock. She spoons bitter wine between my lips, smooths my forehead with a damp grey rag. I hear coughing, voices, far away: “She is resting, now,” Jeanne-Victoire says. Resting, now.

  [Undated]

  In the dark I rise. Fever gives me the vision of a cat. I float through empty halls on cat paws, feel the damp cold of the stones, the air on my skin. All around me spirits hover, caressing.

  “I have to know,” I say. “Tell me.”

  They guide me to a paper hidden under a stone. They give me the strength to see. It is there, in the list of the dead, his name: Alexandre.

  * It was common for the women in the prisons to put aside their most elegant ensemble to wear on the day of their execution.

  In which Death calls, and I listen

  [Undated]

  Aimée slips a pair of rusty scissors into my hand. The metal is hot, hot.

  I know what has to be done. I set to work, hacking at my hair, clearing a path for the knife. Clean, clean, I sing, watching the pile grow.

  [Undated]

  Aimée comes to me. “Are you dead too?” I ask.

  “You are ill,” she says. “You have a fever, fever thoughts.”

  “I hear angels singing.”

  She puts her head on my bosom.

  “Your tears, my friend, anoint me,” I say.

  “Rose, your name was called,” she whispers. “The doctor told them you are too weak to go.”

  “Did he tell them I was dead?”

  She nods, coughs. “He told them soon.”

  “It’s better this way.” Better than the mob.

  “The angels sing one way or another.”

  I reach under my pillow, push the wad of hair into her hand.

  “For the children?”

  I nod. I dare not speak their names. Not with Death so close. Not with Death listening.

  “The card too?”

  The ace of spades. “No!” I grab it back.

  Her hand is cold on my arm. “Rose—don’t listen to the angels. …”

  I feel the air turn, the walls begin to crumble. A witch is at my side, her long fingers grasp my wrist. I cry out, pull away. It is the soothsayer, her old black face, her old white hair. I know her, know her …

  Remember what I said! she says.

  [Undated]

  The angels do not sing. The earth pulls me, the stench of the chamber pots, rotting food. I float in, out. Voices come, voices go. Hot hands, cold hands. Cold hands. Cold hands.

  Remember what I said! she says.

  July 26 (I believe).

  I sat up this morning. Jeanne-Victoire gave me her day’s wine. My lips are blistered, my face a mask. “Is it the pox?” I asked, feeling my cheeks. Even so, fear was not with me.

  “No, an ague,” she said. “We thought you would die.”

  “I did. Several times.”

  “Your name was called.”

  “Aimée told me.”

  I told you! the soothsayer hisses.

  I bat my hands about my ears. Go away! Go away, old woman!

  July 27.

  I am better today. “Don’t get up,” Aimée warns, “or they will call your name.”

  The prison seems almost empty, so many have been called. Even our turnkey has gone to the s
caffold, Aimée says. He was too kind to us. Poor drunk Roblâtre.

  Now we have Aubert, a Septembrist. He strangles stray kittens with his bare hands, for sport. Each night after supper, he locks us in. No matter.

  Outside, I hear drums, great cannonading, hurried footsteps on the cobblestones.

  “Something is happening,” Jeanne-Victoire says.

  Something is happening, the soothsayer whispers in my ear.

  I thought you were gone, old woman!

  July 28.

  At sunrise the turnkey came for my hammock. I stood by the window and watched him take it down.

  “But what will Citoyenne Beauharnais sleep on?” Jeanne-Victoire demanded.

  “I guess she’ll not be needing it any more.” He laughed.

  Jeanne-Victoire turned pale. As soon as he left she burst into tears.

  “Do not cry,” I told her.

  But she only wept harder. “Forgive me. I am so weak,” she said.

  Remember what I said!

  I remembered: I would be unhappily married. I would be widowed.

  There is more!

  “Look, you do not even tremble.” Jeanne-Victoire took my hand.

  Say it!

  I took a breath. “I will not die.”

  Jeanne-Victoire put her arm about my shoulder to comfort me.

  Say it—all of it!

  “I will be Queen,” I said. The words came from some other place in me.

  “Hush, Rose—there is no queen now,” Jeanne-Victoire said sweetly, as if to a child. But the look on her face was uneasy. She thought me mad.

  “And you will be my lady-in-waiting,” I said.

  “You are in a fever still.”

  She pulled me to the window for air. Weakly, I leaned against the bars. I heard musket shot, cantering horses. In the street a woman was jumping up and down. She picked up her skirt and then a stone, her skirt and then the stone.

  “She is trying to tell us something,” Jeanne-Victoire said.

  The sky was red. Already the heat shimmered over the stones. The woman picked up her skirt, pointed to it.