The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  I heard voices. “It’s the National Guard!” Tallien’s mother cried out, hastily drying her hands on her stained muslin apron. “There’s a crowd out on the street!” Her cheeks were pink.

  “I’ll talk to them,” Thérèse said.

  There were a number of visitors throughout the morning. The police came twice. Several journalists begged entrance, which Tallien refused, making an exception for a friend who writes for the Moniteur. At the end of the day Deputy Barras arrived, laden with spirits and a port pudding he insisted he’d made himself. His eyes filled with tears when he saw his friend’s injury. He was accompanied by two fashionably unkempt Gilded Youths, not too much older than Eugène, I thought.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur,” one of the young men greeted Tallien. He lisped as he talked, as was the fashion, so that it sounded: Bonzou, monsez. His breeches were stretched and thin ribbons fell in long curls from the knees.

  “We’ll kill the assassin for you,” the other said. His coat-tails were ragged and the pockets of his vest had been stuffed to make him look deformed. “Just tell us who.”

  I was chilled by his words. I knew him to be the son of the Duc d’Annonay. He must have been twelve or so when his father was murdered, hacked to death in front of the family home. How could such a thing not scar a child?

  “Baptized in blood,” Thérèse whispered, after they had left. We were in the kitchen, helping Tallien’s mother prepare a tincture for wounds.

  “It makes me sad,” I said. An entire generation, orphaned by the Rrevolution, hardened by violence, schooled on the streets. What was to become of them now?

  “Did you notice how they talk? Barras says they babble nonsense rhymes while beating Jacobins to death. It’s a bit strange, don’t you think?”

  Revenge. Would the violence never stop? “If only there were a way of putting the past behind us,” I said.

  “Try telling that to Tallien,” she said.

  By evening Tallien was feeling well enough to begin formulating a plan of attack against the Jacobin Club—against Carrier. “I’m going to demand that hearings be conducted into the atrocities at Nantes,” he said, “hearings into Carrier’s crimes there. Thousands murdered in cold blood. It shouldn’t take much to convict him, put him away.” This idea gave him strength.

  Thérèse and I exchanged looks. “Is this wise?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t our goal be to unite all parties?” I suggested, gently, I hoped. “Factions have been our ruin.”

  “Justice must be done,” Tallien said.

  “But what if the Assembly becomes enthusiastic about this notion of hearings?” Thérèse asked. “If they decide to look into what happened at Lyons, it will be Citoyen Fouché they put on the stand. If they look into Marseille, it will be our friend Barras.”

  And if they look into Bordeaux, it will be Tallien himself, I thought. Thérèse didn’t say that.

  “Who among us is innocent?” she went on.

  “You.” Tallien slid his hand up under her petticoats.

  “Innocent!” She laughed.

  Quietly, I left, without bidding adieu.

  September 9, 1794—Cherbourg

  Dear Rose,

  Forgive my messy scrawl. I did not have a writing master when I was young. The grooms at the stable were my masters and I wouldn’t want to tell you what they taught me.

  Your son is a fine lad—he will make a good soldier.

  I know I did not handle things very well when I left. Can you forgive me? I do love you.

  Your soldier, Lazare

  Saturday, September 12.

  Tallien has recovered—enough to make an appearance at the Odéon Theatre. “My public demands it!” he said, adjusting his sling of red silk.

  “Our public.” Thérèse was dressed in a simple white shift, quite revealing. A string of diamonds threw flecks of dancing light over her breasts.

  “Your public.” Tallien regarded her with devotion.

  The theatre was packed, the applause deafening as Thérèse and Tallien entered. People got up on their chairs to see them, cheering and screaming. I felt awed, proud—and frightened.

  In which I am witness to a wedding

  September 22, 1794.

  Day One, Year Three of the Republic. I am writing this on a writing desk in a small but elegant suite of rooms on Rue de l’Université. I’m leasing them at a reasonable rate from Madame de Crény (“The Little Woman” Hortense calls her). Hortense and I moved in this morning. It didn’t take long—we have so little.

  Lannoy has agreed to stay with me in spite of the fact that I am unable to pay her. As well, Agathe will work for board, as will an old man I hired today, Citoyen Gontier, who insists he is strong enough to carry water buckets. So we’re settled…for the moment, in any case. Dear little Madame de Crény is willing to wait three months for the rent. If only, by some miracle, I could get through to Mother…

  September 27.

  Lannoy’s brother-in-law has made a fortune buying estates for very little and then selling them at an inflated value. On Lannoy’s suggestion, I’ve appealed to him for a loan—for fifteen thousand livres. It seems like a great deal, but how long will it last? I remember when that much money would have kept an aristocrat in pheasant and champagne for three years. Today it won’t keep us in fowl and bitter wine for three months.

  Saturday, October 4, evening.

  At Fanny’s this evening. She’s ill, having succumbed to the vapours brought on by her grief over Marie, I believe—so little success has she had in her constant efforts to get her daughter out of prison. “Can’t you do something?” she pleaded, breaking down.

  What more can I do? I’ve already made several attempts to help Marie, all without success.

  “What about that criminal friend of yours?” Fanny persisted. “I bet he could do something.”

  “Criminal friend?” I grinned. “Which one?”

  October 6.

  Deputy Barras pared his fingernails with a penknife as he listened to my appeal. Tall, baby-faced Citoyen Botot, now his secretary, sat by the window taking notes.

  After I finished reading my petition, Deputy Barras looked up at me and said, “You sang beautifully at Madame Tallien’s last night. You have an unusual voice. Innocent, yet suggestive.” He was wearing a double-breasted coat of striped pink silk. His hair was powdered and gathered at the back into a black silk bag.

  “You flatter me…” I felt ill at ease. I had conversed with Deputy Barras on a number of occasions—at the theatre, salons, in my own home—but always in the company of friends. He coquetted with me (as is his way with women), yet even so, I feared I was making an imposition asking a favour. I was relieved he’d so warmly agreed to hear my appeal.

  “And you are surprisingly accomplished at billiards,” he said. “You won three games off Tallien, I noticed.”

  “Our friend Tallien excels at many things,” I said, “but billiards is not one of them. I do not believe it just to surmise that I have any ability at the game.”

  “Yet you won against Citoyen Rosin as well. You know him, I gather?”

  I nodded. I’d met Citoyen Rosin some time ago, at a Freemason meeting. A créole banker of extraordinary means, he’d managed to get his wealth out of Saint-Domingue before it collapsed.

  “And his Swiss banker-friend Perré—the man with the burn on his face?”

  I nodded. Although disfigured, Perré was particularly charming, I found.

  Deputy Barras adjusted his gold-rimmed lorgnon, examined the document before him. “With respect to your cousin…Françoise-Marie, Citoyenne Beauharnais—” He shrugged.

  “Can nothing be done?”

  He made an exasperated gesture. “You must understand: governments come and governments go, but the bureaucracy stays the same. No matter who is in charge there are papers, review boards, committees, procedures. It’s an obsession in this country.” He cleared his throat, squinted at the paper again. “I see here that her husband, Fra
nçois Beauharnais, Marquis, is an émigré, an officer in the Prince of Condé’s army. Wounded in the Vendée,” he added absently, reading.

  François—wounded? In the Vendée? I longed for details, but I dared not ask, dared not reveal my concern. “Perhaps you recall meeting her,” I said, “at my salon on Rue Saint-Dominique.”

  Deputy Barras put his fingers to his chin, a posture that displayed to advantage the fine point lace of his shirtsleeve ruffle. “But as the wife of an émigré, and one who has taken up arms against us—”

  “Marie divorced her husband some time ago,” I protested. I glanced over at Citoyen Botot, intent on his notes.

  “Many aristocratic wives divorce their émigré husbands in order to save their fortunes,” Deputy Barras said, “and their empty heads. It means little, I’m afraid.”

  “My cousin is a Republican, she belonged to a number of the revolutionary clubs. She and her husband separated for this reason,” I persisted.

  Deputy Barras sighed. “I will do what I can,” he said. He nodded to Botot, who rose and left the room.

  “How can I thank you?” I asked. I clutched my silk bag. I had come prepared to pay, but I could not offer much.

  “As a matter of fact, there is something you could do for me,” Deputy Barras said, removing his lorgnon. “I’m involved in a number of fairly large…undertakings, I suppose you’d call them. I have need of bankers with a flair for risk, shall I say? Citoyens Rosin and Perré have been recommended, but of course, without an introduction, a recommendation…”

  “I’d be delighted to arrange something,” I said, rising. “An evening at my home?”

  He took my hand with exaggerated delicacy. “Will I have the pleasure of your company at my salon tonight?” he asked.

  I answered him with a bow, honoured.

  “On condition you join me in a game of billiards,” he said.

  “Perhaps we should place a wager on it,” I said.

  “I take it you intend to win.”

  “Always.”

  “You wicked lady.”

  “Quite,” I said, smiling.

  As I left I paused to have a word with Citoyen Botot. “Is there any hope?” I whispered.

  Startled, Citoyen Botot looked up from the piles of papers covering his desk. “Citoyenne Marie Beauharnais will be released tomorrow—at eleven in the morning,” he said, lisping only slightly.

  October 29.

  I encountered Citoyen Fouché at Deputy Barras’s salon. “What brings you into these circles?” I asked. He was wearing a mismatched, stained, and ill-fitting ensemble, in spite of the elegance of the gathering. The ribbons on his knee-breeches had come untied.

  “I could ask the same of you, Citoyenne Beauharnais,” he said. “Although a woman who so willingly listens is always welcome among men of power.”

  “You are drôle, Citoyen. You evade my question.”

  “Are you trustworthy?”

  “You who know everything about me, ask if I am trustworthy?”

  “Last night two deputies were roused from their beds to go to the Temple. Perhaps you know this already.”

  I shook my head. “Why?” The Temple was the prison in which the King’s orphan children were being held—Madame Royale and the Boy were there.

  Citoyen Fouché looked over his shoulder. “There is a rumour that the Boy—‘King’ according to the treacherous among us—is no longer there.”

  “Was he there?”

  “There was, indeed, a boy there. But was he the King’s son? That is not certain.”

  “But if the Boy is not in the Temple—where is he?” A child of nine, the trump card of nations. So much depending on so small a head.

  Citoyen Fouché shrugged. “You tell me. The Royalists want him alive. The Jacobins want him dead. And whoever holds the Boy, holds power over them both.”

  I saw Deputy Barras coming toward us. I motioned to Citoyen Fouché to be silent.

  “So I ask myself,” Citoyen Fouché went on, ignoring my caution, “who might want that much power? Who might that be?”

  Tuesday, November 11.

  Mobs in the streets. Deputy Carrier, President of the Jacobin Club, the executioner of thousands, has been arrested for “excessiveness” in the line of duty. The Gilded Youths are howling for his head. Restrained from tearing him limb from limb, they set upon the Jacobin Club.

  Then Thérèse arrived to close it down.

  Thérèse. She took the key to the club herself, fearless of the brawling men, of the violence in their hearts. Thérèse, slipping the key to the Jacobin Club into her bodice, closed the door on history.

  “Were you not frightened?” I asked her, astonished. I was reading aloud a report in a news-sheet: “Such a woman as that would be capable of shutting the gates of Hell,” a journalist had written.

  “I will tell you my secret, Rose,” She put her hands to her belly. “God walks with me. I am with child.” She burst into tears.

  November 14, late afternoon.

  Thérèse and I stood at the fortuneteller’s door for a time, yelling through the delivery slot. There was a chill wind.

  “I do not tell fortunes any more!” Citoyenne Lenormand insisted. She refused to open the door. During the Terror she’d been imprisoned for foretelling the death of Robespierre. Ever since she’s been reclusive. She would not allow us in.

  “But it’s me, Thérèse Cabarrus de Fontenoy—I am the one who got you released!” Thérèse cried out.

  Finally, the doors opened. Citoyenne Lenormand was a small woman, younger than I imagined, with small dark eyes, quite deep-sunk, under a dirty lace cap.

  “I have seen you before,” she said to Thérèse. She paused. “Dressed as Liberty…when the Luxembourg prisoners were set free.”

  “You have a good memory.” Thérèse untangled her hat strings.

  “You have an unforgettable face,” the soothsayer said. After civilités, Lenormand instructed Thérèse to sprinkle water over a looking glass placed on a table laid with three covers. “You are about to make an important decision,” she said, examining the glass. “It is destined that the union be made. You know of whom I speak?”

  Thérèse nodded. Her look was resigned.

  “Your path is not an easy one. To your credit, much good will come of this alliance—but you will be the one to pay the price.”

  Thérèse made a face. “I know.”

  “You are gifted with vision.”

  “Cursed.”

  “Yes,” Citoyenne Lenormand said. “It is a curse.” She turned to me: “I believe I have foretold for you before.”

  “When I was in the Carmes, a few of us contrived to send you information, from which you deduced our futures.”

  “Yes. And you are a widow now.”

  I nodded.

  “I also predicted that you would remarry, I recall, and that your second husband would be an extraordinary man, known throughout the world.”

  “That part hasn’t come true.” I smiled.

  “You make light, yet your heart is heavy. Ask me what you wish to know.”

  “Tell her more about this extraordinary man,” Thérèse suggested, grinning at me mischievously.

  Citoyenne Lenormand laid out some cards. After a long silence she said, “He will be younger than you. Brilliant, yes. A military man—a general, likely.”

  Thérèse winked. “I wonder who that might be?”

  On the way back to Rue de l’Université, Thérèse lectured me. “General Hoche is a rising star—he will do great things.” We were in her new red carriage. A gang of children, street urchins, were chasing after us.

  “It is true,” I said. A miracle worker, people were saying; a genius of war, a genius of peace.

  “What I am saying is that he is your rising star—your extraordinary man.”

  I groaned.

  “Give me your hand, Rose,” she demanded.

  “Tallita—you are a Gypsy,” I complained. “Confess. A Gypsy queen
.”

  Thérèse smiled, then grew serious. She traced the lines in my palm. “Citoyenne Lenormand is right. You will marry a general.”

  “General Hoche is already married.” I pulled my hand away.

  “Soldiers get married and divorce once a year, to suit their newest fancy.”

  “It is not as simple as that. Lazare cares for his wife—I believe he loves her.”

  “You would be more beneficial to him. You could help him advance in his career.”

  “Lazare doesn’t need my help.”

  Thérèse made a noise from her throat—an expression of impatience. “May I be frank with you, Rose?”

  “Are you ever not frank with me?” I smiled.

  “You are not getting younger. Your children are charming, true, a credit to you in every way—but in need of an education. Sooner than you think, your daughter will be in need of a dowry, your son a position. This will cost, cost a great deal. It is them you must think of.”

  “You talk as if there were good prospects everywhere.”

  “What of Marquis de Caulaincourt? At the Thélusson Ball I saw him following you everywhere, drooling on your shoulder.”

  “He’s been married for two decades, he has eight children, he’s almost sixty—”

  “He’s rich and he dotes on you.” Thérèse pulled the fur blanket over her knees.

  “Yes, Maman,” I said. Thérèse made a playful face. “But what about you?” I asked, changing the subject. “Did you find out what you wanted?”

  Thérèse sighed. “I have known since the moment I met Tallien that I was destined to marry him, destined to help others through him—” She paused, looked out the window. We were coming to the river. The spires of Notre-Dame—the “Temple of Reason” now—stood bold and beautiful against the sky. “Destined to soften the rule of his fist,” she said softly.

  “Tallita!” I was shocked by her words.

  “Forgive me. I know you care for him.”