The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

by Sandra Gulland

  He put the papers down on the desk, took off his thick spectacles. “Citoyenne Beauharnais, I must be frank. This man brings you nothing but a cloak and sword. I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, advise you to sign this contract.”

  I felt heat in my cheeks, in spite of the chill. “I have come to sign this contract, Citoyen Raguideau, not to question it.”

  “Please understand, it would be a disaster for you to marry this man.”

  “So be it.” I took up the quill.

  Buonaparte was waiting in the hall. He seemed amused. “Only a cloak and sword?”

  “You overheard? Are you not offended?” I was angry. Was nothing predictable with him?

  “We shall see what a cloak and sword can do!”

  Later.

  The parish bells had just struck four. I was standing by the window, looking out at the garden, when I was startled by a noise. Behind me was Lannoy with a worn leather valise in one hand.

  “Are you going somewhere, Lannoy?” I asked. I did not recall that a leave had been arranged.

  A vigorous tip of her head almost dislodged her hat, a modest straw creation overpowered by a white-and-blue-striped bow. “I cannot serve that Jacobin!”

  “You are leaving me? Now?”

  “Farewell!” she wailed, throwing herself into my arms.

  March 9.

  Barras and Tallien arrived shortly after seven. Tallien had on his black coat and top hat. He was carrying an umbrella instead of a sword. “His funeral ensemble,” Barras said, who was dressed more traditionally in velvet and lace.

  I smiled uneasily.

  The three of us headed off in Barras’s coach. Agathe and Gontier had attached little bouquets of flowers tied with white ribbons to the horses’ bridles.

  It was exactly eight when we entered the township office, a once-elegant white and gold drawing room decorated with frolicking cupids, now headquarters of the second arrondissement and covered with dust. A fire was dying in the marble fireplace. It was dark: a single candle flickered in a bronze sconce. The large gilt mirrors reflected only shadows.

  My adviser Jérôme Calmelet was already there, seated in one of thehard leather chairs. The registrar, Citoyen Leclerq, was going through papers at the desk. A thin lad with a wooden leg sat slumped beside him.

  But no sign of Buonaparte. “No doubt he’s been held up,” Barras said, removing his cape.

  We waited. After almost an hour, the registrar stood, yawned, put on his cloak. “I leave you in charge, Antoine,” he told the young lad. Citoyen Antoine manoeuvred his wooden leg under the big desk and regarded us with an attempt at authority.

  “No doubt he thought he was to be here at nine.” Tallien shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

  “It is past nine now.” My little bouquet of flowers had begun to wilt. “I insist that we leave.” I stood. I was angry. I was more than angry; I was humiliated.

  “Wait,” Barras commanded.

  It was past ten when we heard footsteps on the stairs. “He’s here,” Barras said.

  Buonaparte burst into the room followed by a youth in uniform. He went directly up to young Antoine and shook him. “Wake up!”

  The lad sat up, blinked.

  Buonaparte grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet. “Marry us,” he commanded the lad, pushing a gold band onto my ring finger.

  It was over in a few minutes.

  We rode back to Chantereine in silence, Buonaparte and I.

  “I have decided to change my name. Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s more French. Do you like it?”

  I said nothing.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “If Barras hadn’t insisted, I would have left. I don’t know why I stayed!”

  “So, divorce me in the morning.”

  “Perhaps I will!”

  We didn’t exchange another word all the way to Chantereine. I headed immediately up the stairs. I threw the flowers off my bed, embarrassed by the fuss Agathe and Gontier had made. Fortuné growled when Buonaparte entered the room.

  “Your footman put your bags in there this afternoon.” I nodded toward the wardrobe.

  “What about the dog?” Buonaparte asked, returning in his night-clothes. He was wearing a cotton nightcap with a silly-looking tassel on it.

  “The dog stays.” Fortuné was in his usual place at the foot of the bed.

  “I will not sleep with a dog.”

  “Very well, then, you will sleep on the settee.” I blew out the lantern.

  Buonaparte stumbled toward the bed in the dark. I heard Fortuné growl. Then I heard Buonaparte curse loudly in the Italian tongue.

  I sat up, my heart pounding. Fortuné was snarling. “What happened!”

  “That dog should be shot!” Buonaparte held up his hand. In the moonlight I could see something dark on it.

  “Mon Dieu! Is that blood? Did he bite your hand?”

  “My leg.”

  Agathe came running into the room, holding a lantern. Buonaparte’s leg was covered with blood. Buonaparte pressed a bedsheet to it to stop the bleeding.

  Fortuné was cowering under a chair, baring his fangs.

  “A basin of hot water and some bandages,” I told Agathe, grabbing Fortuné by the scruff of the neck and shutting the snarling little thing in the wardrobe.

  Gontier came to the door, his ruffled nightcap falling into his eyes. “Go for a surgeon,” I told him.

  “No surgeon will be necessary,” Buonaparte said.

  “Don’t attempt to be a hero over this, Buonaparte,” I said. “There is nothing to be gained by it.”

  “Do you think heroism is something that can be put on, like a cloak!” He turned to Gontier. “I am master of this house now, and I am telling you, do not go for the surgeon. I’ve spent too much time on the battlefield attending to my own wounds to be coddled like a tailor by some ignorant youth.” He took one of the bandages Agathe had brought and dipped it into the steaming water. “If your girl could bring some salt?”

  “Her name is Agathe. Ask her yourself.”

  Buonaparte glared at me. “Are we to spend the rest of our lives quarrelling?"

  "I believe so.” I nodded to Agathe. “If you could fetch the salt? And the cognac,” I added.

  Buonaparte cleaned and dressed his wound, securing it with two stitches of strong silk which he put in himself, gritting his teeth against the pain. I persuaded him to lie with his leg propped up on a pillow.

  “You may go now,” I told Agathe and Gontier, who were standing at the foot of the bed, trampling the flowers. “Take Fortuné with you.”

  “I’m to be woken at six,” Buonaparte instructed Agathe.

  “That’s only a few hours from now,” I said.

  “I have taken too much time already.”

  Agathe and Gontier withdrew, taking away the lanterns and a still-snarling Fortuné.

  By the light of a single candle I poured two snifters of cognac. I handed one to Buonaparte. He put his hand up in refusal. “I must keep my wits about me,” he said.

  I sat down on the bed, took a sip of the cognac, sighed. I had wanted a father for my children, security—now it seemed so much more complex.

  “You doubt the wisdom of what you’ve done,” he said.

  What I’ve done. Yes. “Must you forever be telling me my thoughts?” I was being churlish, I knew. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It has not been a romantic evening.” Suddenly I felt tears pressing. Is one allowed to go back, begin again? Can mistakes be undone?

  Buonaparte pulled at a pillow.

  “Allow me,” I said. I put down my glass and adjusted the pillow behind him. He put his hand on my wrist. “There is something I haven’t told you.”

  “Please, no.” It was too late for confessions. I pulled my hand away.

  “A fortuneteller told me that a widow would be my angel, my lucky star.”

  I thought of the fortune I’d been foretold. You will be Queen.

  “You scoff,” he said.


  “I’m no angel,” I said. I lay down beside him.

  “You think the woman I love does not exist. You don’t believe in Josephine.”

  His grey eyes were so intense. I looked away.

  “Do you believe in me?” he asked.

  I regarded his profile by the light of the candle. He had a haunted look. What was it that fired him, drove him? It would never give him peace, I knew.

  “Are you cold?” He pulled the covering sheet over me.

  “Yes,” I said. I stilled his hand against my breast.

  He seemed unsure what he should do. I felt unsure, myself. Should I blow out the candle? Take off my gown? I felt my age, his youth.

  “I have read that if the tip of a woman’s breast is touched in a certain way, that she will go mad with pleasure,” he said. He sounded like a schoolboy, reciting a lesson. “I amuse you?” he asked, observing my smile.

  “You have a scientific mind,” I said.

  He cupped my breast in his hand, examined it. “Your breast is a perfect example of its kind—round, firm.”

  “Buonaparte!” A warmth had come into my heart.

  I leaned over him. His breath on my face was sweet.

  “Truly, you—” He stopped, unable to speak.

  I touched a tear that was running down his cheek. It tasted of the sea. “Yes,” I said. “I do believe in you.”

  Dawn.

  The sun has tinted the sky the most delicate shade of pink. It reminds me of the mornings of my youth. I listen for the animals stirring, the cock, the cow.

  Buonaparte, his leg wrapped in a bandage, is asleep. I listen to the sound of his breathing.

  I am married. Again.

  My husband is not the man I dreamt of as a girl, not my grand amour—and certainly not the king the fortuneteller had foretold. Only Buonaparte—strange little Napoleone. Now Napoleon.

  And I? Who am I?

  He calls me Josephine. He says I’m an angel, a saint, his good-luckstar. I know I’m no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose: scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.

  I slip off my wedding ring, a simple gold band. Inside, I see an inscription. I hold it to the light: To Destiny.

  Chronology

  Selected Bibliography

  ______. Dictionnaire de biographie française. Sous la direction de M.

  Prevost et Roman d’Amat. Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1954.

  ______. Dictionnaire Napoléon. Sous la direction de Jean Tulard.

  Fayard, 1987.

  Castelot, André. Josephine, A Biography. Trans. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

  Catinat, Docteur Maurice. “Une lettre inédite de la future impératrice Joséphine.” Bulletin, 1991. Rueil-Malmaison: Société des Amis de Malmaison, 1991.

  Chevallier, Bernard, and Christophe Pincemaille. L’impératrice Joséphine. Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1988.

  Cole, Hubert. Joséphine. London: Heinemann, 1962.

  Cronin, Vincent. Napoleon. London: Collins, 1971.

  Epton, Nina C. Josephine: The Empress and Her Children. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975.

  Jones, Colin. The Longman Companion to the French Revolution. Londonand New York: Longman, 1988.

  Knapton, Ernest John. Empress Josephine. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.

  Le Normand, Mlle. M. A. The Historical and Secret Memoirs of the Empress Josephine. Vol. I & II. Trans. London: H. S. Nichols, 1895.

  Minnigerode, Meade. The Magnificent Comedy; Some aspects of public and private life in Paris, from the fall of Robespierre to the coming of Bonaparte July, 1794–November, 1799. Murray Hill, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1931.

  Rose-Rosette, Robert. Les jeunes années de l’impératrice Joséphine. Martinique: Publié avec le concours de la Fondation Napoléon, 1992.

  Turgeon, F. K. “Fanny de Beauharnais. Biographical Notes and a Bibliography.” Modern Philology, Aug. 1932.

  Wagener, Françoise. La reine Hortense (1783–1837). Éditions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1992.

  Whitham, J. Mills. Men and Women of the French Revolution. New York: The Viking Press, 1933.

  Aknowledgements

  For help both general and specific: Eleanor Alwyn, Nathalie Bedard, Gale Bildfell, Elena Diana (Amaritha), Dr. John Goodman, Paul Kropp, Jackie Levitin, Corine Paul, Charis Wahl, John Williamson, and the Golden Girls Plus Bob, especially, Robert Zentner. For editorial suggestions, my main readers: Peggy Bridgland, Judy Holland, Marnie MacKay (ever-patient librarian), Fran Murphy, and especially, Sharon Zentner. For nourishment and wisdom: Janet Calcaterra, Thea Caplan, Pat Jeffries, Kathlyn Lampi, Jenifer McVaugh, Joanne Zomers. For significant teachings at important crossroads: Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Janette Turner Hospital, and especially, Jane Urquhart. For help in the historical labyrinth: William R. Beall, Bernard Chevallier, Dr. Robert Rose-Rosette, and especially, Dr. Maurice Catinat and Dr. Margaret Chrisawn. For fuelling the passion: fellow Napoleonic enthusiasts Tony Kenny, Dr. John McErlean, Derwin Mak, Helen Smith and Robert Snibbe of the Napoleonic Society of America, and especially, deceased Society member David Goudy. For being there from the beginning, Jan Whitford. For being such great editors, great publishers: Iris Tupholme, Maya Mavjee and the rest of the gang at HarperCollins. For being even more pernickety than I am, Bernice Eisenstein. For enthusiasm and understanding: Carrie and Chet Gulland, and especially, Richard Gulland—without whose unquestioning and steadfast support this book never could have been written.

  Also by Sandra Gulland

  TALES OF PASSION, TALES OF WOE THE LAST GREAT DANCE ON EARTH MISTRESS OF THE SUN

  Also Available by Sandra Gulland

  Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

  0-00-648547-2

  $18.95

  The Last Great Dance on Earth

  0-00-648562-6

  $19.95

  … the ghosts of our future

  are unpredictable

  and out of control.

  — Wendy Rose,

  from “The Fifties”

  P.S.

  Ideas, interviews & features

  About the author

  2 Author Biography

  About the book

  4 In the Author’s Own Words

  • The Story Behind the Story

  8 An Interview with Sandra Gulland

  Read on

  13 Recommended by Sandra Gulland

  14 Web Detective

  15 An Excerpt from Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

  About the author

  Author Biography

  SANDRA GULLAND was born in Florida in 1944. Her father was an airline pilot, so the family moved often, living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then Florida again before settling in Berkeley, California.

  In the fall of 1970, Gulland moved to Canada to teach Grade 2 in an Inuit village in northern Labrador, an experience she describes as “amazing.” Later, she worked as a book editor in Toronto, and in 1977 she married Richard Gulland. She gave birth to a daughter and son, and in 1980 the family moved to a log cabin near Killaloe (population 600), in northern Ontario. Gulland started an editorial and writing service, and became the principal of a parent-run alternative school. All the while, she grew vegetables (or “tried to grow vegetables,” as she puts it), raised chickens and pigs, and developed a lifelong fascination with horses. Meanwhile, and always, she was writing.

  Gulland’s consuming interest in Josephine Bonaparte was sparked in 1972 when she read a biography about her. Decades of in-depth research followed, which included investigative trips to France, Italy and Martinique, consultations with period scholars and learning French.

  The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. was published in 1995. It was followed in 1998 by Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe and The Last Great Dance on Earth in 2000. The Josephine B. Trilogy is now published in thirteen languages. Napoleon said that he “conquer
ed countries but that Josephine conquered hearts,” Gulland says. “It’s astonishing. She continues to do so.”

  Gulland added to this hugely successful trilogy in 2008 with Mistress of the Sun, a novel based on the life of Louise de la Vallière, extraordinary horsewoman and consort to King Louis XIV.

  Gulland and her husband now live half the year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and half in northern Ontario.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  About the book

  In the Author’s Own Words

  The Story Behind the Story

  In the summer of 1972, I read a short biography about Josephine Bonaparte—"an incredible story full of magic, love and power at an important moment in history,” I was later to write to a friend. I was captured (or, should I say, kidnapped) by Josephine’s profound humanity, her grace, her courage. At the heart of my fascination was the concrete evidence that her extraordinary life had been foretold. What did it mean? Was it an accident that Napoleon’s period of greatness coincided with those years he was married to her? Was Josephine the maker of a king?

  I began to collect books about her life and times. I wore out family and friends with stories about Josephine. She became, for me, a guiding spirit, an inspiration. At challenging moments I told myself (tell myself still) that if Josephine could do it, I could do it. Surprisingly, some readers have confided that they tell themselves the same thing.