The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  “And you don’t?” Did she not call Tallien her “Lion Amoureux”?

  “There are things about him I find distasteful.”

  I smiled. “You were raised to be a princess,” I said. And certainly, Tallien was no prince.

  “I was raised to be a courtesan, but we need not get into that. No—I must confess that I entertain the affections of our friend for a number of reasons, but love is not one of them. Not even passion, which is often mistaken for love. Rather, I feel a bond of obligation toward him. He saved my life and the lives of many of my family and friends. And he has suffered as a result.” She paused. “I shouldn’t be telling you these things.” She let down the glass, in spite of the cold, put it back up again.

  “You’ll not marry him then?”

  Thérèse sat back, her eyes brimming with tears. “No,” she said. “I will marry him.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Have you ever had the feeling you were part of a larger plan?” she asked, interrupting.

  I wondered about that. The fact that I was a widow now, that this had been foretold—did that mean that my marriage to Alexandre had been part of a larger plan? Was Alexandre’s untimely death meant to be?

  The coach pulled into the courtyard of my hôtel on Rue de l’Université. “Do you believe this to be so with Tallien?” I asked. I found the idea of destiny both comforting and terrifying.

  “When Tallien and I were together in Bordeaux, each night, as I went to bed with him, I liked to think of the lives I had persuaded him to spare that day. In this way I discovered the purpose of my existence.”

  I did not know what to say. Thérèse was so young, such a carefree soul—and yet, there was this, always this, this terrible responsibility she had taken on. Not a day went by that she wasn’t pleading for a life. It was a commitment we shared—our religion, some said. “Ladies of mercy,” Tallien called us.

  “Thérèse—you are an angel,” I said, taking up my basket.

  The footman opened the door, let down the metal step.

  Thérèse touched my shoulder. I turned to look at her. “Will you be godmother?” she asked.

  “Me?”

  She nodded, her cheeks glistening.

  “I would be honoured,” I said.

  November 10, 1794—Cherbourg

  Rose,

  We are in the process of moving to new headquarters in Rennes. I will be coming to Paris to arrange for supplies. The only consolation in this wretched business is that I will once again hold you in my arms.

  Your soldier, Lazare

  Sunday, November 16.

  Lazare!

  Monday.

  Lazare brings news of Eugène. Carefully I put forward questions. I do not want to nag. “You’re not working him too hard? He’s not in any danger? Is he eating? Are you watching over him?” I have been sleepless with concern. Rennes is in the heart of the Vendée region. I’d heard stories of a civil war there—peasants and aristocrats united against the Republicans. I’d been happier when Eugène was in Cherbourg, facing the English. I didn’t want him fighting Frenchmen. It wouldn’t be right.

  Lazare laughed, lacing up his breeches. “Of course I’m working him hard. Of course he’s in danger. It’s the army!”

  “He’s only a boy!”

  “Do you not see that I feel pride in him? A father’s tender care?”

  This silenced me. A father’s tender care?

  Lazare held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I have come to love your son, Rose,” he confessed, “to regard him as my own.”

  November 19.

  Lazare spends his days in meetings with the Committee of Public Safety; nights he spends with me. I take the time I am allowed greedily, my hunger overwhelming.

  November 20.

  Lazare is gone. He was here for only three days—three whirlwind days of passion and tears. Will I ever grow accustomed to such parting?

  November 19, 1794—Rennes

  Chère Maman,

  We got to Rennes—on foot! My boots are worn through. (I’ve enclosed a tracing of my foot and the measure of my leg, for a new pair.) Everyone has lice. But at least I haven’t got scabies. We put up in the woods. Yesterday the artilleryman was murdered in town. We are regarded as the enemy!

  A thousand kisses, your son Eugène

  November 20.

  An associate of Citoyen Dunnkirk is sailing for America. There is hope of getting through to Mother, so I have spent the day writing and rewriting a letter, writing and rewriting what I must tell her, what she must, in any case, know: that I am a widow, that Hortense and Eugène are without a father, that we are all of us without any means of support.

  I am so deeply in debt I know not where to turn. What are my choices?

  November 28, 1794—Rennes

  Rose,

  My troops are bored—they long for battle. They fail to see glory in an olive branch. Swords are more heroic, I grant you.

  The peasants only want to pray to their saints. Should we murder them for this? The politicians in Paris insist they go to a Temple of Reason instead. What can these halfway minds be thinking? Faith cannot be legislated.

  As a result, Royalist sentiment here is strong—a shocking number have hopes of seeing the Boy on the throne of France. This thought disgusts me! What have we fought for, suffered for—if not for Liberty? If the Boy were put on the throne, I’ll be sent back to work in a stable.

  Your soldier, Lazare

  December 12.

  I went with Thérèse to see her country house this afternoon—La Chaumière she calls it. It is a long drive, outside the city walls. Nevertheless, she is intent on living there. She loves its humble aspect. “No one can understand what I see in it.”

  It wasn’t easy. I was myself surprised. It even has a thatched roof.

  “It’s bigger than it looks,” she assured me.

  “The setting is lovely.” At the far end of Allée des Veuves, not far from the river, set in the midst of forest, fields, it has a wild, free feeling. I closed my eyes, inhaled the fresh, cold air. Yes, I thought—I could understand.

  “The first time I came here a hen laid an egg on the doorstep. A sign, no doubt…”

  “But of what?” I asked, laughing. For Thérèse sees signs everywhere.

  December 16.

  Three Jacobin leaders were guillotined this morning, their heads displayed above a cheering crowd.

  “It’s starting again,” Lannoy said, watching out the window anxiously.

  “They say this will put an end to it,” I said. I could hear someone playing “Ça Ira” on a trumpet.

  Lannoy threw me a piercing glance. “Your friends—the ‘blood-drinkers’—are they so very different?”

  Saturday, December 20.

  I encountered Citoyen Fouché on Rue Saint-Honoré this afternoon. He asked if I’d heard anything more about the Boy.

  “Nothing.” Aside from Hortense’s constant chatter.

  “No whispers at Barras’s?”

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “Yesterday, three deputies examined the child. Deputy Luzerne is convinced that he is a fraud, that the real Boy has been kidnapped…perhaps even killed.”

  Killed. The Boy—murdered? “Why do you tell me these things?” Tears came to my eyes.

  Citoyen Fouché tipped his hat. “To caution you, Citoyenne. Not everything is as it seems.”

  December 26.

  Tonight, Thérèse and Tallien were wed. A small gathering of friends.

  “To happiness,” I said, embracing Thérèse. At four months, her belly was just beginning to show.

  “To Madame Tallien.” Tallien raised his glass in toast. “To our Lady of Mercy.”

  I recalled Thérèse’s words: I am destined to help others through him, destined to soften the rule of his fist.

  The rule of his fist. Was it a bruise her heavy make-up hid?

  In which I learn the true value of friendship

  Fr
iday, January 2, 1795.

  Daily I cross the river to the Assembly, seeking to have the sequester removed on our belongings, seeking to clear Alexandre’s name, seeking restitution, compensation…seeking.

  All along the quay they are there, the thin children, bewildered men, desperate women with babies at their breasts—excrement soiling their clothes, vermin crawling in their hair. I am moved by the defiant look in their eyes. How is it that an entire city can succumb to such misery? How many souls crying out to Heaven, how many prayers? After all that we have suffered, how can we be asked to suffer still? Take my bread, I pray, spare that child. And that. And that. The little hands reaching out, the sunken eyes: this is torture beyond measure.

  Defeated, I returned home. Agathe, Lannoy, Gontier were at their work, Hortense at her studies. On the kitchen counter was the one small loaf of bread we were all of us allowed—two ounces per day per person. I slipped it into my basket and returned to the bridge, to the sickly woman with a baby at her breast, four young grabbing at her skirt. I put the loaf in her lap. The children turned to their mother—was it permitted? She tore into the crust like an animal. I averted my eyes.

  Later, at home, I heard Agathe cry out: “The bread! It is gone!” She had waited in line for two hours to get it, endured the cold. The small loaf had been there, earlier, she knew that, on that very counter, she insisted. Her voice trembled with emotion.

  “It can’t have disappeared,” Lannoy said. Perhaps the bread had been eaten; perhaps Agathe herself was the guilty party, she implied.

  “I took it,” I told them, stepping into the fray.

  Lannoy turned to me with a bewildered expression. “Madame?”

  “I gave it to a woman on the Pont-Royal. She had four children. She needed it more than we.”

  Agathe burst into tears.

  That evening.

  By day I pick my way through evidence of the most appalling poverty. By night I coquette with the newly rich in exclusive salons. Deputy Dumont, a former fowl-fattener, is now fattening himself on confiscated church property. Deputy Nerval, a leather-seller, recently purchased one of the mansions of the Marquise de Neufchâteau—fully furnished, including the horses and carriages—on profits made supplying wormy pork to the Army of the East. Who would know people are starving?

  January 6.

  Lannoy returned from the milliner’s with an ashen face. She went directly to her room. “What happened?” I asked Gontier, who had accompanied her. He goes with her everywhere now, a knife concealed in his coat.

  He shuffled his feet and stared at the floor. It required patience to get Gontier to speak. I waited. “A woman jumped in the river,” he mumbled finally.

  “Mademoiselle Lannoy saw this?” Every day people threw themselves into the Seine. Tallien claimed that there were so many now, at Saint-Cloud the job of pulling the bodies out had become overwhelming.

  “She had a child strapped to her.” Gontier stopped, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “A big girl…like ours.”

  Like ours. Hortense, he meant. A girl as big as that, fighting for her life.

  Thursday, January 8, 7:00 P.M.

  At La Chaumière there is an atmosphere of creative confusion. A work crew toils under Thérèse’s direction. She maintains her energy in spite of her pregnancy. She is exacting, she knows what she wants—but invariably it is something unusual. The workmen simply cannot comprehend. Often it takes several attempts before they get it right.

  We stay late into the night, going over fabric samples, walking through the rooms. She wishes to create a theatrical, artistic, witty atmosphere: almost overdone (this is challenging). It fires my imagination. Now and again we come up with an idea that sets us both dancing.

  After, we stand at the doors to the garden, listening to the wolves howl, the wind whistling through the trees, talking of love and life. Another world, so far from the misery that is Paris now—but for the hungry wolves circling, watching and waiting.

  January 2, 1795—Rennes

  Chère Maman,

  I will be needing a new uniform soon. New gaiters, too; mine have entirely worn at the heel.

  Your son, Eugène

  January 8, 1795—Rennes

  Rose,

  Forgive me for not writing more often. I am not a man of letters, as you know. Also, it has been quite the job here; our provisions are terribly inadequate. We do what we can, what we must—and that on very little.

  I am pleased with Eugène’s progress—he is a fine boy.

  Your soldier, Lazare

  Monday, January 12.

  Under Thérèse’s guidance I’ve realized an excellent profit speculating in saltpetre. Aunt Désirée was horrified. “It is unbecoming for a woman to involve herself in commerce,” she scolded. Until I told her how much profit I had made (five thousand livres!), and then her own interest was sparked. I intend to reinvest the money in a purchase of lace from Britanny, which I can resell in Paris, yielding an additional twenty per cent.

  Citoyenne Rose Beauharnais—profiteer. At least now I can send Eugène money for a new uniform.

  January 15, 1795—Hôtel de Caulaincourt, Paris

  Dear Madame Beauharnais,

  I am writing to inform you that thanks to your recommendation, General Hoche has kindly awarded my eldest son, Armand, a position as lieutenant in the Army of the Coast. Also, thanks to your efforts, my second son, Auguste, is now gainfully employed as a clerk. I am indebted to you.

  At your suggestion I have made an appointment to speak to Deputy Coligny about the three years’ pay due to me as a retired general. I will keep you informed as to the outcome. Thank you for approaching him on my behalf.

  I would say more, but even in amoral times such as ours it is deemed unseemly for a man of my advanced age and marital status to write words of “appreciation” to a lovely widow. Perhaps I will see you chez Talliens?

  I remain, most gratefully and as always,

  Your dearest and most foolish friend, Marquis de Caulaincourt “a slave to the devil of middle-aged passion”

  Thursday, January 15.

  Marquis de Caulaincourt has insisted on awarding me ten per cent for my efforts.

  “I did it for friendship,” I protested.

  “I will pay you in coin,” he said.

  Gold. “If you must.”

  January 16.

  Tallien has been advising me on how best to draw up a petition requesting that the seals be removed from my belongings on Rue Saint-Dominique. This afternoon I made my presentation to the Committee of Public Safety. Tallien spoke in support: “Certainly it is certain,” he began, repeating his words, as was his custom, “my fellow deputies-in-arms are beginning to comprehend that together we must cleanse the wounds of the past, right the wrongs in order for the Tree of Liberty to have fertile ground in which to root.”

  I repressed a disloyal smile. “Lukewarm-water Tap” is what my friend has been nicknamed in the Assembly, he does go on so.

  Wednesday, January 21.

  Festivities throughout the city, in celebration of the day the King died, two years ago. This in spite of the cold.

  I would have stayed in, with Lannoy, who not so secretly mourns the King, but for a ceremony at the Palais-Égalité where Tallien was to be honoured. So I went with Thérèse, who was bundled in an enormous fox cape.

  The speeches droned on, followed by singing. The Gilded Youths, resplendent in their crazy finery, dragging heavy clubs, demanded that the band play “Death to the Jacobins.”

  “There may be trouble,” Deputy Barras said.

  I suggested we go back to my apartment, which was not far. I was shivering from the cold. Also, I was concerned for Thérèse—at five months she continues to be delicate.

  It was cold in my parlour; the fire had died down. We could see our breath. I was about to pull the bell for Gontier to stoke it, when Tallien insisted. “After all, this used to be my father’s job,” he said.

  “Well,”
Deputy Barras said, lowering himself onto a stool by the fire. He rubbed his hands together. “Two years ago today.”

  Both Deputy Barras and Tallien had voted for the death of the King. I didn’t like to think of that.

  The fire caught. “This last year has been blazes.” Tallien glanced in my direction. “Pardon my language, Citoyenne Beauharnais—I forget you are a lady.” He stood, brushed his hands.

  “And what about me?” Thérèse asked, stretching out on my daybed, which I had recently moved into the parlour due to the cold.

  Tallien leaned over her, whispered something in her ear. She laughed.

  “Perhaps we should request a demonstration.” Deputy Barras accepted my offer of a brandy. I filled his glass from a bottle Marquis de Caulain court had given me.

  “Really, Deputy Barras—you are so perverted,” Thérèse said.

  “Imagine, and in Thérèse’s condition…” I feigned to be shocked.

  “I’m trying to imagine, that’s my problem.” Deputy Barras made a funny face.

  Smiling, I threw a fur coverlet over Thérèse.

  “Our good, innocent Rose,” she said. “Are we embarrassing you?”

  “How innocent can she be, I ask you, with a bed in her parlour?” Deputy Barras asked.

  “My mother keeps a bed in her parlour,” Tallien said. “All the peasants do.”

  “And sleep there?” Deputy Barras asked. His green-and-black-striped coat had big square buttons with hunting scenes painted on them.

  “No, it’s only for love-making,” Tallien said. (In fact, he used a cruder term.) “When company comes for tea.”