The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  “What did you say?” Junot demanded.

  “We are lost,” Hamelin said, blinking. “I think that’s what I said.”

  “We’re not lost!” Junot grabbed the peasant’s whip and cracked it, flicking the horse’s rump. The mare bolted forward, setting the chickens to squawking.

  We smelled Desenzano before we saw it. The mare balked, tossing her big head, refusing to go forward. “It’s the smell,” I said. I put a handkerchief to my nose, my eyes watering.

  “There was a battle here last night,” Junot said, cracking the whip again. But the mare wasn’t budging. Then the driver yelled something at the horse and it pulled forward at last, swishing its plaited tail.

  “He said stupido, didn’t he? I think he told the horse it was stupid.” Hamelin leafed through his book of phrases.

  “Stufato, I thought he said.” A feeling of faintness had come over me.

  “Stewed meat?” Hamelin read.

  Junot glanced back at me. “Cover her eyes.”

  I tried not to look as we went through the town, but I could not keep out the smell of gunpowder, burned flesh, faint whiffs of a sweet odour. The soft bump of the wagon over a body. The whimpering sounds, like those of a child. “I heard someone call out. Can’t we stop?” Then I made the mistake of opening my eyes. Everywhere there were bloated bodies. The cobblestones were awash with blood, drying in the morning sun. Two peasant women were pulling a coat off a dead soldier, a boy with a grey pallor to his skin, vacant eyes. The pickers looked up at us and one of them grinned, toothless as a baby. I pressed Lisette to me, my trembling fingers entangled in her sweat-damp hair.

  As we approached Castelnuovo there were herds of cavalry horses tethered, loaded munitions wagons, tents pitched, soldiers everywhere. The smoke of numerous campfires gave the landscape an ethereal look. Tears came to my eyes at the sight of the flag of the French Republic hanging from the thatched roof of a peasant’s hut—the temporary headquarters of the Army of Italy.

  “What took you so long?” Bonaparte demanded, emerging. “Your escort arrived back well over an hour ago.”

  “It was rough going,” Junot said, saluting, red in the face. He glanced at Lisette. She was staring out over the maize fields.

  “It was a good thing I was there,” Hamelin said as Bonaparte lifted me down from the wagon.

  I fought back tears. “I think I should sit down.” And then the sobs came, overwhelming me.

  “Get ether,” Bonaparte commanded an orderly. He grasped me by the shoulder. “Fight it, don’t give in to it.” But I had been fighting it for too long. “The Austrians are going to pay dearly for this,” I heard him say under his breath.

  I drank the ether water the aide brought, coughed. It tasted brackish. That smell was with me still. “Give some to Lisette.” She was sitting in the wagon, watching us with a dazed look. Even the chickens in the crates were silent.

  “The driver wants a reward,” Junot told Bonaparte, cracking his knuckles. “At least, I think he does. Maybe you should talk to him.”

  “Give him whatever he wants,” Bonaparte said, squeezing my hand.

  “Are our trunks here? Can we change?” Lisette asked, standing.

  Junot put out his hand to help her down. “Careful, she might fall,” I told him, my voice tremulous.

  “You should eat—it will give you strength.” Bonaparte led me into the little cottage with a thatched roof.

  Inside, it was dark. The floor was just dirt. The hut was hot, airless, smelling of goats. A table in front of an empty fireplace was covered with reports, illuminated by a tin lantern. An enormous map was nailed to the rough plank wall. Bonaparte led me to a straw pallet. He said something in Italian to a peasant boy with a dirty face. “And salami?” Bonaparte asked, looking back at me. I shook my head, no. I didn’t think I could eat.

  “The coach will be ready in thirty minutes, General,” Junot said, looking in.

  “The harness is mended?”

  Junot nodded, cracking his knuckles.

  “We’re leaving you, Bonaparte?” I began to tremble.

  Nearing Toscane, we were met by a courier mounted on a black horse slick with lather. “Turn back!” he yelled. “The Austrians are on ahead. They’ve taken Brescia!”

  Mon Dieu, I thought, Brescia? Brescia was so close to Milan.

  “What are we going to do now?” Hamelin asked, taking out his travel book. “We can’t go north, east or west.”

  “South,” Bonaparte said, pacing.

  “I want to stay with you!”

  He regarded me with an expression I couldn’t identify. This man, my husband, wasn’t the man I had known in Paris. Here, in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the camp, surrounded by men who regarded him with devoted loyalty, he seemed transformed. Confident, expansive, there was a certain nobility to his movements. Like his men I believed in him, felt an aura of security when I was in his presence. “Please, Bonaparte.”

  He knelt down beside me, taking my hands in his. His touch calmed me. “You must understand—the Austrians are closing in. We’re anticipating quite a battle. You will be safe in the south.”

  His eyes told me I must, that it was for the best. I sniffed and nodded. He kissed me with great tenderness. “You were brave this morning,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, Bonaparte!” I pressed his fingers to my lips. There was strength in him. I could understand why his men followed him with such absolute devotion—he ennobled them, just as he ennobled me.

  He stood and addressed his courier, who was standing in the door, twisting the ends of his massive moustache. “Cross the Po river at Cremona,” he told him, tracing the route on the map with a paper knife. “It’s less risky there.” He scratched something on a paper. “My Uncle Fesch is in Parma. He will give you shelter for the night. Then take him with you south. Tell him that’s an order. Head down into Lucques—they are a peaceful people. I’ll send word when it’s safe to return.”

  “A kiss?” I said, standing.

  “For luck,” he smiled, taking me in his arms.

  It is past midnight now. We are in Parma, in the home of Bonaparte’s Uncle Fesch, a jolly sort of man with a ruddy complexion. A maid just came for my tray, the pastries untouched. “I cannot eat,” I told her slowly, in simple French. Scusatemi. “I am ill,” I added, not untruthfully.

  And terrified, still.

  And haunted: by the image of a boy’s face, his thin body on the dusty road, the smell of Desenzano, the cries of the wounded left to die.

  Tears, tears. I begin to tremble. Mon Dieu. I am the daughter of a soldier, the widow of a soldier, the wife of a soldier. But until today, I never knew what war was.

  In which I am surrounded by Bonapartes

  October 2, 1796—Milan, a sweltering hot afternoon.

  It has been some time, I see, since I’ve written here. So much has happened, and yet so much remains the same. Bonaparte is victorious, against all odds. Yet the enemy is a many-headed Hydra. How many armies can the Austrians raise? Every time Bonaparte vanquishes one, yet another rises up in its place. I fear there will never be peace.

  Oh, it is the vapours again, surely. I am overcome with malaise. I feel another attack coming on, a strange shimmering at the edges. Migraine, the doctor told me the last time it happened, a paroxysmal pain in the temple. Pain, certainly, for even laudanum could not touch it. The last time I had an attack, I stayed in a darkened room for three days, daring not move or even speak. This land will be my grave, I fear.

  November 23.

  Victory! (Relief.) Once again the Austrians have retreated behind the walls of Mantua.

  December 9.

  Bonaparte is back, his health weakened by a plunge into a swamp. (I pray it is not mal-aria.*) The quiet domestic life we are finally enjoying now will help, I hope. How little time we have had together! He’s having his portrait painted, we’re planning a ball—and, I should add, attending nightly to what Bonaparte refers to as “our project.” Ma
ybe now, with time together, we’ll succeed.

  December 24, Christmas Eve.

  “Madame?” Lisette curtsied when she realized Bonaparte was sitting in the alcove by the window. “Your sister, General, she is—”

  “Maria-Paola? My sister is here?” Bonaparte jumped up. “Already?”

  Lisette glanced at me. Oh la la, her eyes said.

  “Uff. The boat was disgusting!” Bonaparte’s sixteen-year-old sister is a striking girl with curly black hair and sapphire blue eyes—even more beautiful than I’d expected from all I’d heard. “I threw up on the deck, over the side, in the dining hall, in my bunk.” She’d plucked her eyebrows into a thin line, like the servant girls. “You’re mussing my hair,” she protested in bad French, when Bonaparte embraced her. She has a shrill voice. “This is where you live? Magnifico!”

  Bonaparte turned toward me, his arm around his little sister. “Paganetta,” he said proudly.

  I nodded, smiling stupidly. Paganetta, indeed. She is only sixteen, yet so womanly. And a spirited girl, it was easy to see, well aware of her charms—la beauté du diable.* “Welcome, Maria-Paola, to—”

  “I’m not Maria-Paola any more, I’m Pauline.”

  “Welcome, Pauline, to—”

  She swept by me without listening. “Remember, Napoleone, you promised! I get my own suite.”

  December 27.

  A constant stream of maids and footmen has been running up and down the hall doing Pauline’s bidding. The bed sheets are not sufficiently soft, the mirror not sufficiently ornate, the china sugar dish does not match the silver tea equipage and the tapestries hanging on her walls are frayed. I watch this flurry of activity with irritation. I have a reception to prepare for and nothing is getting done.

  December 29.

  I caught Pauline in my wardrobe, hiding in my ball gowns. “I’m playing!” she insisted. (Playing? She’s sixteen!) In the reflection of the looking glass I saw her stick her tongue out at me.

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t ‘play’ in my suite, Pauline,” I said, smiling with all the sweetness I could muster.

  January 7, 1797.

  At the opera last night four young men arrived at our box insisting that they had been invited. Pauline, it turned out, had looked at each of them through the large end of her opera glass (which in this country means, Come see me).

  Bonaparte only laughed when I told him. “You find that amusing?” I demanded. Frankly, I feel like killing his little sister.

  30 Ventôse, Luxembourg Palace

  Chère amie,

  Terrible news—Thérèse sued Tallien for divorce yesterday. She and the baby and the nanny and three house servants are with me now. Apparently Tallien threatened her with a pistol. I told her I’d do what I could to keep it out of the journals.

  And speaking of journals, according to the Républican I’m unable even to write this letter because I’ve been put in prison for making false bank notes. Ha!

  I’m apprehensive regarding the upcoming election. The Royalist faction is gaining strength. Our Minister of Police claims one hundred deputies have made oaths of allegiance to the Pretender. One deputy even had the gall to stroll in the Tuileries gardens in red-heeled boots.*

  Director Letourneur assures us that we need not fear, that all will be under control because he will be patrolling the streets of Paris on horseback. (The dolt!) And as for Director La Réveillière, he is taken up with matters pertaining to a cult he has founded. I advised him that every good religion needed a martyr, and that to make his a success he should get himself hanged. He failed to see the humour.

  Père Barras

  May 9—Milan.

  We’re back in Milan after a difficult three months of travel. In January Bonaparte defeated yet another Austrian army—the fifth—and then turned his attention south, to Rome, forcing the Papal states to succumb. Then, with the south secure, he chased the Austrians into the north, until finally, two weeks ago, they agreed to a preliminary peace.

  And so, at last, the Austrians are defeated and Bonaparte is victorious. His wife, however, is not. I wage a losing battle with his spirited sister Pauline. This morning I discovered her in the pantry with a footman. “I think you should consider getting your sister married,” I told Bonaparte. Fast. “General Leclerc is in love with her,” I suggested. Victor Leclerc was an absolute fool for the girl. “Everyone calls him the blond Bonaparte because he imitates you.” Short, serious, with thin lips and big eyes, Victor Leclerc even looked like Bonaparte, but for his fair colouring.

  “His father is a merchant.” Bonaparte stood and went to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “Wealthy, though.”

  Pauline yawned. “Perhaps you would like to sit down.” Bonaparte glanced at me, suddenly unsure. Matters to do with his family flummoxed him completely.

  “Perhaps I should go,” I said, standing.

  “Stay!”

  “What’s this all about?” Pauline demanded.

  “You must have a husband,” Bonaparte said.

  “I’m already betrothed.” Pauline glared. (At me!) “You might recall.”

  “Deputy Fréron is a middle-aged drunk with three illegitimate children by an actress—a bad one.”

  “He was going to leave her!”

  “She claims he married her!”

  “Bonaparte?” I touched his hand. He and his sister would only end up brawling at each other. And if anyone was a match for Bonaparte, it was Pauline.

  Bonaparte sat down, scowling. “What about General Leclerc?”

  Pauline looked from me to her brother and back again. “Little Victor?”

  “Marriage would bring many benefits, Pauline,” I said. “General Leclerc comes from a wealthy family.”

  “Flour merchants!”

  “He was educated in Paris,” I persevered. “The family has a country seat—the château of Montgobert.” For all I knew it was a pile of stones.

  “What about a trousseau?” she demanded.

  “Whatever you like.”

  “The gowns must be by Signora Tandello.”

  Bonaparte coughed. Signora Tandello was the most expensive dress maker in Milan. Yes, I nodded, of course, anything.

  “How much of a dowry would I get?”

  “Joseph and I will have to talk about that,” Bonaparte said.

  “No doubt a great deal,” I added.

  Pauline pursed her lips. “Bien.”

  May 15, La Chaumière

  Darling,

  It is just as well you are in the Land of Antiquity, for the situation in Paris has become worrisome. The election was a disaster. The Royalists have taken control of the legislative councils! Even General Pichegru, who everyone knows is in the pay of the Pretender, was elected President of the Five Hundred. I was at a dinner last night where the guests talked quite openly of putting the Pretender on the throne. The Royalists’ agents—of whom there are rumoured to be a number in Paris—are throwing gold around quite freely.

  My home life is worrisome as well—a disaster, some might say. I was mad to have reconciled with Tallien. I love him with a passion, you know I do, but I simply can’t live with his drinking, his wenching and fits of jealous rage. And now it’s too late, alas. Every woman in Paris is in an interesting condition, it seems, myself now included.

  Your loving and dearest (and yes, somewhat miserable) friend, Thérèse

  Note—I heard that your friend Aimée* died. My sympathy, darling.

  May 22—Mombello.**

  It’s a lovely spring evening. Fireflies dance outside the open windows. I am writing this by moonlight. How late is it? I’m not sure. Thérèse’s letter disturbed me terribly. I am filled with sorrow, grief. How many lives have been sacrificed for this Revolution of ours, our precious liberté? I think of Aimée, all my loved ones who have died. I think of Alexandre. La liberté ou la mort. Will their sacrifice be for naught? Will the Royalists be victorious, put a king back on the throne, abolish all that so many have died
for?

  I kept Lazare’s Saint Michael medal close to my heart today—Saint Michael with his sword, Saint Michael fighting tirelessly against the forces of evil. I think of Bonaparte facing the enemy, over and over again. I think, with admiration and pride, of his astonishing victories. But to what end, I can’t help but wonder, is he chasing the Royalists out of Italy, establishing a democracy here? What would it matter if Paris were to fall to the enemy?

  May 30.

  It took a moment for Lieutenant Lavalette to catch his breath. He is not a young man. He took off his hat and straightened his wig, which failed to cover his bald spot. “I arrived in Genoa in the early afternoon, General,” he began, standing at attention. “After refreshing myself at my inn, I made straight away for the Assembly and as—”

  “Get to the point.” Bonaparte drummed his fingers.

  “I was informed that your mother was on a vessel in the harbour, General.”

  “And where is she now?”

  “In Genoa, General, I—”

  “You left her there? Lieutenant, Genoa is on the verge of an uprising!”

  “She insisted,” Lavalette stammered. “She said, ‘My son is here, I have nothing to fear.’” (Bonaparte smiled.) “I ordered a detachment of cavalry to escort her, General. They will be arriving tomorrow.”

  “They?”

  “Your mother and a man—she didn’t give his name. And a boy—her son, I think she said. Your brother, General?”

  “Girolamo?”

  “And two daughters.”