The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

by Sandra Gulland

  Your soldier, Lazare

  Note—Tell Eugène that Sébastien Antier was killed in battle. Eugène and Sébastien were close. Tell him Sébastien died honourably.

  July 27.

  Victory at Quiberon Bay! Immediately I set out for La Chaumière. It was ten in the morning, early, but already the courtyard was jammed with carriages.

  “You’ve heard?” I exclaimed the moment I saw Thérèse. Through the open door I thought I saw Tallien’s bristly head. “Tallien is back?

  “"He arrived late last night.”

  “For the banquet tonight?” It was the first-year anniversary of the overthrow of Robespierre.

  Thérèse nodded. She looked graven.

  “Something is wrong?” I asked. “Is it Lazare—”

  “No.”

  “What is it?” I felt a panic rising within me.

  “Over seven hundred prisoners were taken,” she whispered.

  I did not understand. “Is that not good news?”

  “There is talk of execution.”

  “Of the prisoners?”

  Thérèse nodded.

  “They were taken in battle?” I asked.

  “They surrendered, they put down their arms.”

  “Then by law they cannot be executed.”

  Thérèse snorted. “There is fear in the air! They will be slaughtered!”

  “You are thinking of the past.” I put my arms around her. She’d risen from childbed too soon.

  “We are the past,” she said.

  July 28.

  I was awoken in the middle of the night. It was Thérèse, in distress. She’d had an argument with Tallien, been forced to flee. Indeed, there was evidence she’d not escaped soon enough, for her lip was swollen and her cheek bruised.

  “I don’t understand.” I pressed a cold compress to her face. “I know how much he loves you.”

  She looked as if she would begin to weep again. “It’s my fault. I thought I could reform him. I allowed myself the sin of pride.”

  “Tallita, please! Don’t speak in mysteries.” I poured us each a large glass of claret. “What started it? What was the fight about?”

  “Have you not heard? About Sieyès?” She looked at me incredulously.

  I shook my head. Deputy Sieyès was in Holland, I thought.

  “He claims he’s discovered documents that prove that Tallien is inleague with Royalists, with the leaders of the émigré fleet that attacked at Quiberon Bay.”

  Tallien? “But that’s not possible, Thérèse.” That would mean that Tallien was on the side of the enemy—the very men Lazare fought against in battle.

  “It’s true, Rose. I knew by the look on his face when I confronted him—but the worst of it is … the worst of it is his fear of being found out. Now he will go to any length to prove himself an anti-Royalist, to prove to the Assembly that he is against the émigrés … even if it means massacring the prisoners he vowed to save!” She broke into sobs. I held her in my arms. The sun was rising when she finally fell asleep.

  It was almost midday when we awoke. Thérèse hurriedly began her toilette, covering the bruise on her cheek with rouge.

  “Where are you going?” I did not trust her mood.

  “To the Assembly,” she said, tying her hat strings.

  The doorbell rang.

  “It’s Deputy Tallien,” Agathe informed me.

  “You stay here,” I told Thérèse.

  I went to the front door. Tallien blocked the sun. It was hard to see his face against the bright light. “I have come for Thérèse,” he said.

  “I don’t think it wise for you to see her now,” I said. He smelled of liquor.

  Suddenly Thérèse appeared behind me. She attempted to push her way past, out the door. “Where are you going—” Tallien grabbed her arm.

  “To the Assembly.” Thérèse shook herself free. She cursed him in the Spanish tongue.

  “It’s no use!” he cried.

  “What do you mean?” She stared at him, her breathing heavy.

  “It’s over!” A motion had been passed that morning: the prisoners would be executed.

  “Who made the motion?” Thérèse demanded.

  Tallien did not deny it. “You don’t understand!”

  “You don’t understand. Over seven hundred lives have been sacrificed to save one—yours. How can you live with that!”

  “You would have me sacrificed?”

  “Yes!” And louder: “Yes!” She ran back to my bedchamber.

  “Surely something can be done?” I asked, shaken.

  Tallien shook his head. He turned his back, hat in hand, a ruined man.

  July 31, 1795—Rennes

  Rose,

  You can imagine my disgrace. I promised these men life—now all are to perish! Yet they surrendered, they put down their arms! Tallien knows this well—at my request, Sombreuil put his sabre in Tallien’s hands! My men saw it! We gave Sombreuil our word that his men would be treated as prisoners of war.

  When Tallien left for Paris, he was determined to secure their safety. Now I am told it was Tallien who made the motion in the Assembly to have them executed, that it was Tallien who waved a dagger through the air, calling for their blood! I cannot comprehend!

  I am too angry to write words of love. Be cautious….

  Your soldier, Lazare

  August 2.

  I called on Tallien. I had heard rumours—that he had lost over ten thousand livres in a single game of faro, that he was drinking heavily. In spite of all that had happened, I felt an obligation toward him. He had been a friend to me when I needed a friend most. He had saved my life. Now it was my turn.

  “Get out!” he yelled when he saw me. I backed away, sickened. Empty wine bottles littered the bare wood floor.

  “I come as a friend!”

  He threw a glass against the wall. “I do not need you!”

  Quickly I left.

  August 3.

  I found the courage to call on Tallien again. I found him ill. He was sober, however—we talked for some time. “I know my demons,” he confessed.

  “Yet you do not know your strengths.”

  “I am a coward. I do not deserve to be alive.”

  “Was it a coward who confronted Robespierre?”

  “I was in fear of my life!”

  “And Thérèse’s?”

  He put his hands to his face and wept. “And now I’ve lost her!”

  “This is your demon,” I told him, holding up an empty bottle of wine.

  I gave him news of his baby daughter, for whom he displays a sincere devotion. We parted with a tender show of feeling.

  Evening.

  A victory reception at Barras’s, thirty-seven guests, many bottles of champagne consumed.

  “Army champagne,” Barras said, doing the honours.

  “The army is supplied with champagne?” I asked. Even water was dear.

  “Only victorious armies, which of course ours are.”

  Shortly after nine I was astonished to see Thérèse. She was dressed in a very revealing gown, her enormous milk-filled breasts exposed. It was a hot, sultry summer evening and looking at her raised the temperature even higher. Every man in the room regarded her with an expression of both disapproval and lust.

  “Should you be here?” I whispered. She smelled of tobacco.

  I looked to Barras for help, but found he was filling her glass.

  “She should go home, Paul. She may do something she will regret.”

  “She is not a child.”

  Shortly before midnight I heard Thérèse’s musical voice in the game room: “My entire ensemble weighs no more than two six-livre pieces.”

  I went to the door. The men had gathered around her. Three women were watching from chairs by the fireplace.

  “Including the jewels?” Deputy Nabonide asked.

  “Yes.” Thérèse’s face was flushed, her eyes glazed. “Everything.”

  “I’d bet a louis on t
hat.” Deputy Verneuil threw the coin onto a table.

  “Any others?” Thérèse posed seductively. There was silence but for the sound of coins hitting coins.

  Barras, grinning, ordered a servant to bring a scale.

  Thérèse took off her earrings, her rings, handed them to Barras. Then she slipped a sleeve over one shoulder.

  I left the room. Soon after I heard a cheer, heard Thérèse’s cry—of victory I presumed … or was it defeat?

  Shortly after, Barras, a young man and Thérèse left together.

  My heart sank. I do not have the heart for this life.

  August 4.

  This morning I set out to La Chaumière. I intended to arrive early, so that I could talk to Thérèse.

  I found her in her boudoir, splashing cologne onto her silk sheath, to make the thin fabric cling to her naked breasts.

  “You come with disapproval in your eyes, my friend.” Her own eyes were glazed. Laudanum, I thought.

  “I come out of concern, for you.” I could hear the baby crying in the other room. “I think you should be cautious. Grief is chasing you. Let it catch you. It will hurt less, in the end.”

  “You envy my hot blood. I recommend for you a diet of truffles and celery soup, to heat you up.” She laughed, a laugh without joy.

  “Tallita, I love you—but I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

  Tears came to her eyes. “See what you’ve done!” She threw herself down onto her bed.

  “Why is it you weep?” I sat down beside her, took her hand. It was soft, without any sense of bone.

  “Will you forgive me—for Barras?” she asked.

  “Do you care for him?”

  “He’s an odd duck, but he amuses me.”

  “In all the world, Tallita, you are likely the only woman who could seduce our friend.”

  “One has to be imaginative,” she said wearily.

  I smiled. “Rest.” I kissed her forehead.

  “A pox on these men,” she said, closing her eyes.

  In which I am introduced to a strange little man

  August 6, 1795.

  Everywhere there is talk of divining, cartomancers, fortunetellers, soothsayers … that mystical realm so much the passion now.

  “Rose is always told she will be Queen of France,” Thérèse announced at Minerva’s this afternoon. She was stretched out on the chaise longue wearing an ivory silk robe and a green wig—the effect was bizarre, startling. (“Les merveilleuses,” they call us, the amazing ones.)

  “Why—that’s horrible,” Minerva said, adjusting her white gauze petticoats.

  “Only once,” I protested, “as a girl in Martinico. The other time, in the Carmes, I was simply told that I would marry a man who would astonish the world.” I shrugged. “But what does it mean? My fortunes are extraordinary, yet my life is mundane.”

  At that moment Barras was introduced. With him was a curious-looking man with short legs and a big head. Minerva stood to greet them.

  “Who is that man with Deputy Barras?” Fortunée Hamelin asked, watching the two approach. “Another protégé?” She made a face.

  “I may have seen him at the Feydeau,” tiny Madame de Crény said.

  “If you had, you would surely remember,” Thérèse said.

  The man was remarkable, it was true, but for all the wrong reasons. His long, limp hair hung down around his ears in a sorry attempt at fashion. His skin was sallow and his figure so thin his threadbare breeches seemed to hang.

  “Whatever can Barras have in mind?” Thérèse whispered.

  We were silenced for the purpose of introductions. “Citoyen Buonaparte, la veuve Beauharnais …”

  “You are a widow,” the stranger said. His accent was rough—unpleasant. Italian? I could not be sure.

  “The Republican general, Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, was this lady’s husband,” Barras said.

  Citoyen Buonaparte clasped my hand. His eyes were large, grey in colour, striking. His teeth were good. But there was an intensity in his expression that forbade levity. I was relieved when he was introduced to the others in our group, who seemed to respond to him as silently as I. He took a seat and said no more.

  “Well!” Minerva exclaimed, “perhaps we should play charades?”

  It seemed that nothing would leaven the mood. The presence of the man in the corner had a sobering effect on us all.

  “That Barras!” Thérèse exclaimed in the privacy of Minerva’s boudoir. “He has taken his projects too far.”

  “Deputy Barras pressed me to introduce Citoyen Buonaparte into our circle,” Minerva told us. “He is new to Paris and in need of social contacts—”

  “He is in need of social manners,” Thérèse said. “What is he—Corsican or something?”

  “Napoleone Buonaparte …? Why is the name familiar?” I asked.

  “He was the general who saved Toulon,” Minerva said. “Remember?”

  Toulon?

  “Two years ago—when the English invaded?”

  I remembered. The festivities, the dancing, the toasts throughout the night. “So that’s how Barras knows him,” I said. “Wasn’t Barras in charge at Toulon?”

  “It is impossible for me to believe that that man could be a general, much less a hero,” Thérèse said, dusting her face with rice powder.

  “My dear citoyennes, is it possible you are blinded by this man’spoverty, his lack of breeding?” Minerva asked. “Stand as my witnesses: I predict he will have a great future. I see it in the shape of his chin.”

  Future or not, Thérèse and I did not stay long—we left on excuse that her baby was ill.

  “What a miserable evening,” Thérèse groaned, settling into her carriage. “I hope Barras knows better than to drag that Corsican with him everywhere. Next thing you know, he’ll be insisting I introduce him at La Chaumière.”

  August 9.

  It is just as Thérèse feared—Barras is intent on making a project of the Corsican. He and the strange little man showed up at La Chaumière and now Citoyen Buonaparte comes on his own. Thérèse, ever the soft heart, has offered to help him obtain fabric for a new uniform. “If he’s going to be coming here, he should at least have proper clothes,” she told me.

  “Take care, Tallita—I think he is in love with you,” I whispered to her.

  “It would seem that Citoyen Buonaparte falls in love easily,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s engaged to marry a girl in Marseille, he talks endlessly about a girl in Châtillon, and now Barras informs me he intends to propose to La Montansier.”

  “The lady Barras rents his town house from?” “Lady? Rose, you are too kind.”

  La Montansier was proud of the fact that she had started her career as a prostitute. The loges in the theatres she manages are furnished with extra-wide divans. “But she’s over sixty—” I protested.

  “And with three million livres hidden under her well-used mattress.” Thérèse raised her eyebrows. “In Corsica, apparently, they make no pretense of such matters.”

  Tuesday, August 11.

  Last night, close to midnight at La Chaumière, Thérèse came to my side. “Meet me in my boudoir,” she whispered.

  I extracted myself from my group. When we got to the privacy of herroom, she fell onto her bed clutching her sides. “Buonaparte …!” She burst into laughter again.

  “The Corsican?”

  “He’s made a proposal of marriage!”

  “To you?” I stared at her. I smiled imagining it: Thérèse was so much taller than the Corsican. “Just now? In the parlour?”

  Thérèse nodded, making a great effort to control herself. “I was with Fortunée, Madame de Crény and Minerva. He came up to us and said, ‘Citoyenne Tallien, may I speak with you … in private?’ So I retired with him to the entryway. And it was there he said, ‘Now that you are free, I would like you to consider me.’ At first I did not understand. He became a bit impatient. ‘I am making you an offer of marriage,’ h
e finally burst out. Then he said, ‘Together we could have a great future, for Fortune smiles on me.’”

  “He said that? That Fortune smiles on him? What a curious thing to say.”

  “Especially for a man who is in such dire need. If Fortune smiles on him, she should rather start paying attention.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him he should consider you instead,” Thérèse said, adjusting the pearl ornaments in her hair in the looking glass.

  “No!” She was teasing—surely. “Tallita?”

  She never did say. But now the Corsican watches me.

  August 12.

  It has been hectic at Barras’s. He complains he has no time for the gaming tables, the hunt. “Democracy!” he cursed. “It’s so time-consuming! All these tedious meetings.”

  I pushed a guest list toward him. For two days, I had been trying to get his approval.

  “Citoyen Buonaparte? Is he not included?” he asked, looking it over. “The ladies have wearied of my Corsican protégé? You do not perceive his brilliance for his long and, I admit, distasteful hair, his smelly boots. I assure you, he is an ambitious man—he will go far.”

  “I perceive his ambition,” I said, “his ambition to woo every womanof standing in Paris. He shows no moderation in his passion … for women of wealth, that is.”

  “Moderation be damned. Moderation belongs to the past. Napoleone is in need of a wife. Perhaps you should oblige him.”

  With that he was gone. I sighed and added the Corsican’s name to the list. I will hear more on this matter, I fear.

  August 14.

  Barras came to my salon last night in the company of the Corsican.

  “Do Corsicans never laugh?” Thérèse complained. “He is so serious.”

  Toward the end of the evening I found myself sitting beside Citoyen Napoleone (an impossible name to pronounce). In an attempt to make conversation, I complimented him on his valour at Toulon. “It is said you are a genius,” I told him. “Yes,” he said.

  “You have a large family in Marseille? I am told one of your sisters is particularly charming.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Deputy Fréron,” I said.*

  Then abruptly he stood and left the room!