The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  I shook my head. How could I explain? I handed her the note. I felt foolish, so suddenly overcome. Somehow, I hadn’t realized—had not been prepared.

  “That’s nice.” Lisette turned the note over in her hands, mystified.

  A beautiful young woman. “Yes,” I said, blinking back tears.

  June 22.

  “Madame Bonaparte is in the garden,” I heard our footman say. I saw a white plume bobbing above the boxwood hedge, heard a young man’s voice. A familiar voice! I picked up my skirts, hurried down the narrow path, my heart racing.

  We very nearly collided. Eugène lifted me in his arms, twirling me clumsily. “I can’t believe it, it’s actually you,” I cried out, my eyes stinging.

  He wiggled his hands behind his ears. “Yes, Maman, it’s me—truly. Just in time for your birthday.”

  I took his hands in mine, blinking and sniffing. He remembered! “You didn’t write. I wasn’t expecting you for another month.” It was such a joy to see him.

  Sheepishly, he pulled his hands away. “I know, I’m neglecting to wear my riding gloves, I’m neglecting to clip my nails.” Imitating my voice, grinning.

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” I protested, laughing. “When did you grow so tall?” Yet still, that boyish face: dimples, freckles across his nose. “How was your journey?”

  But before he could answer, he was startled by my new dog sniffing at his boots. “What’s this?” he exclaimed, jumping back.

  “His name is Pugdog.” The tiny black creature sat down by the side of the path, panting like an old dog, his lame leg sticking out to one side.

  “What does Fortuné have to say about that?” Eugène bent down to stroke Pugdog’s head.

  I made a sad face. “Fortuné was killed, Eugène.”

  “Fortuné!”

  “Not long ago. He challenged the cook’s mastiff and…” My eyes welled up remembering.

  “Fortuné took on a mastiff?” He scoffed at the thought.

  “Come,” I said, pulling on his arm, “Bonaparte’s in the stable.”

  My son stopped abruptly on the path. “General Bonaparte?” he stammered.

  “He’ll be so pleased that you’ve arrived.” I tugged at him again, but he was too big to budge. And then I understood. The stepfather he hardly knew was now a hero, hailed Liberator of Italy. The stepfather he hardly knew was now his commanding general.

  June 23.

  Immediately, Eugène’s training has begun. “A superior war is won without fighting,” I overheard Bonaparte instructing him this evening, after our meal. “One can use the forces of nature to good effect, but knowledge is the key. Battles are won here.” Bonaparte tapped his forehead. “Not here.” He put his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Am I understood?”

  “Yes, General!” Eugène said eagerly.

  Bonaparte caught my eye and grinned.

  June 29, 8:00 P.M. or so. Stiff!

  Eugène, Junot and Captain Charles spurred their horses, raced ahead. Lisette did her best to keep up (she’s bold on a horse). I was content to follow at a more leisurely pace, taking a path that edged a pond, relishing the solitude, the vistas. It was a glorious summer day.

  Before long I realized I was lost. I was beginning to worry when I saw a man on horseback on the horizon: Captain Charles. I kicked my horse into a gallop. “I was lost!” Laughing, I pulled to a halt beside him, doubling my reins to hold my horse back. The burst of freedom had excited him.

  Captain Charles struck a heroic pose. “I returned to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  “So this is East Wind,” I said, looking at the captain’s mount. There’d been talk about the horse Captain Charles had recently bought, outrageous speculation about how much he’d paid for her. (The one-hundred-louis ride, Pauline called the mare.) Well built, a glistening black, she radiated both power and beauty.

  “Like her?” He stroked his horse’s neck. The silver ornaments on her headband sparkled in the light.

  The horse was magnificent, without a doubt. And the captain cut an exceptionally handsome figure, I thought, noting the unusual stitching around the cuff of his riding jacket, the square bone buttons. “My father once had the good fortune to own such a horse,” I said. “A gambling win. Lady Luck, he called her.”

  “Mine was luck of a different sort.”

  Our horses were walking side by side now, in pace. “Oh?”

  “I did rather well on a business contract.” He swiped a fly off East Wind’s ear.

  “Through the Bodin brothers?”

  “Yes, and as a result they’ve invited me to join their company. They have profited from buying and selling National Properties, but now they wish to expand into the area of military supplies, specializing in horses.”

  “For the Army of Italy?”

  “I guess it is foolish of me to reveal such a thing.” Or simply very trusting, I thought. “May I tell you something in confidence, Madame? As soon as peace is signed, I intend to resign the army. Not every man is meant to be a soldier.”

  Certainly, it was hard to imagine the captain with a sabre in his hand—hard to imagine him using it. “Military suppliers do very well.” Military suppliers became outrageously wealthy overnight.

  “With the right connections, yes, but without—” He made a clucking sound that caused his mare to spurt forward. “So far the Bodins have been unsuccessful in their efforts to get a government contract.”

  “They’ve applied to the Minister of War?”

  “Yes, but without the consent of a certain director, it’s useless.” He glanced at me.

  “Director Barras, by any chance?”

  “I understand you are on intimate terms with him.”

  “Director Barras and I are friends.”

  “That puts you in a powerful position.”

  I laughed. “Not really.”

  “Madame, may I ask you something?” We headed down a steep incline. I leaned to keep my sidesaddle from slipping.

  “Certainly,” I said. No doubt he wanted me to recommend the Bodin Company to Barras. I am so often appealed to for favours, I’ve come to recognize the clues.

  “Might you consider joining our company? I hope I haven’t offended you by suggesting such a thing, Madame.”

  I pressed my calf against my horse’s side, to move her over. “On the contrary.” Indeed, it was a most interesting proposition.

  “With the right contacts, one could make millions.”

  Millions. My horse pricked her ears. I heard the pounding of hooves. Lisette (in the lead!), followed by Junot and Eugène, appeared at the edge of the woods. They raced toward us at a gallop, yelling and laughing.

  “It appears we’ve been discovered, Captain,” I said.

  “And now there will be rumours.” Captain Charles spurred East Wind. She bucked into a gallop. My horse pulled at the bit, eager to follow. I grabbed her mane and gave her her head, my heart pounding, the wind in my face.

  July 3.

  The Austrian delegates will arrive in one week—representatives of the most ancient royal court of Europe. I’m in a panic! If only I’d had my tooth attended to earlier.

  July 4, late afternoon. (Hot!)

  Dr. Rossi, the dental surgeon, is a little man with bushy red whiskers that he constantly pulls on. He told me a new tooth would successfully root—for a price, nine hundred francs, and this without a guarantee. I explained to him the urgency of my situation; I’m to return in the morning.

  July 5.

  I’m ill! It was ghastly.

  Evening, almost midnight (can’t sleep from pain).

  What happened:

  There was a peasant girl in Dr. Rossi’s antechamber when I arrived. She grinned, displaying yellow teeth. Dr. Rossi’s maid showed me to a small room, in the middle of which was a leather chair. I was asked to sit and (apologetically) asked to remove my hat, which I did. The doctor entered after a moment, pulling on his whiskers. He peered into my mouth and probed at my bad tooth wit
h a pointed metal object. He seemed pleased by the pain this caused me: “Excellent, excellent.”

  After his maid gave me morphine for nerves, he excused himself, explaining that he would only be a moment. I heard cries—the peasant girl?—and then he rushed into the room with a bloody tooth pinched in a vise-like tool, two assistants dashing in after him. Involuntarily I shrank back, but the assistants laid hold of me, and the doctor yanked my tooth out and pushed the new tooth into its place. Then one of the assistants held my jaw closed while the other wound my head with a strong strip of linen so that I might not open my mouth.

  And so here I am, mute and dazed, bandaged and sedated, with a peasant girl’s tooth in my mouth. I dare not get sick.

  July 7.

  My tooth came out—an infection had set in. I’m taking generous doses of laudanum. God meant me to have bad teeth, and to receive the Austrian diplomats thus. Or so I tell myself.

  July 9.

  The Austrian delegates will be here tomorrow. I’ve been all day in the hands of beauticians: I’ve been waxed, massaged, pounded and polished. Lisette painted my nails as Eugène quizzed me on the name and title of each diplomat (Cobenzl, Gallo, Merfeld, Ficquelmont), their children, parents, aunts and uncles even, the year each was born, the town. “You know all this, Maman,” Eugène said, throwing down the lists.

  July 10, 4:00 P.M. or so.

  They’ll be arriving in an hour. “You’ve never looked more beautiful,” Bonaparte told me reverently, taking in the details of my gown, a muslin draped in the style of the ancient Romans. A filigree laurel of gold held back my loose curls.

  “It’s not too modern?” I studied the effect in the looking glass.

  “That’s the point. The old world meets the new. Old world bows to the new.”

  New world, indeed. I smiled, for Bonaparte refused to lace his boots with silk ribbons. I knew aristocrats. I feared they would laugh at his laces and round hat.

  “Uff! They’ll be wearing plebeian shoelaces soon enough,” Bonaparte said, giving me a careful kiss before disappearing back into his study to his maps and documents, texts and correspondence—the work that keeps him up all day and all night, day after day. Winning battles had only been a step; the important work was establishing democracy in Italy.

  “Kings never worked so hard,” I said to Lisette, turning to view myself from the side. I’d become slender in Italy, due to ill health. I was pleased with the effect—it made me look younger.

  Captain Charles and Eugène appeared at the door wearing tablecloths for capes and lampshades for hats. “Vee must ‘av peace!” they barked in unison, imitating an Austrian accent.

  “Don’t make me laugh,” I pleaded. “I’ll ruin my make-up!”

  11:20 P.M.

  It went well! I am pleased. Bonaparte, however, is not. I’m having a bath prepared to calm him.

  On the whole I found the diplomats to be pleasant—especially the Comte de Cobenzl, the head of the delegation, who speaks elegant French. “I look forward to many pleasant evenings,” I told him as they left, adding, daringly, “Citoyens.” The Comte de Cobenzl, who heard me distinctly, smiled and embraced me fraternally.

  He is an ugly but genial older man with the aristocratic talent of putting everyone at ease. We talked of Corneille’s Le Cid (parts of which I was surprised to discover Bonaparte had committed to memory); Goethe’s new epic Hermann und Dorothea; the corresponding theories of electricity and animal magnetism; Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. Bonaparte praised his beloved Ossian, which surprised and impressed the Austrians, I could see—they hadn’t expected a Republican general to read poetry.

  “The charming bastards,” Bonaparte cursed as soon as the door closed behind them. “They have no intention whatsoever of negotiating a peace agreement.”

  July 14.

  This evening as I was preparing for bed, Bonaparte burst into my dressing room. “They’re balking,” he said, pacing in front of the wardrobe with his hands behind his back. “They refuse to come to an agreement.” He sat down on a little stool. “And why should they? As long as the Royalists are gaining strength in Paris—” He clenched his fists.

  July 16.

  The trouble began before the midday meal. Lisette and I were meeting with two of the cooks, discussing the menu for a reception in honour of the Austrian delegates.

  “Solo—” I turned to Lisette. “What is the word for chicken?”

  “Pollo.”

  “Solo pollo.” Only chicken. The words rolled off my tongue like a song, as if I were in an opera. A comic opera. Opéra bouffe.

  The cooks could not comprehend. No pasta? No salami?

  “Lisette, explain to them that that is what the General wishes—” I was interrupted by the sound of someone shouting. It was Bonaparte, yelling in Italian. He only spoke Italian when he was angry. Or amorous.

  The two cooks began to laugh.

  “What did he say?” I asked Lisette. Bonaparte had been quite explosive of late. The peace talks had not been progressing. The Austrians were not taking him seriously. They were biding their time in the belief that soon the Royalists would be back in power in France.

  “He said asswipe, Madame.” Lisette flushed.

  Asswipe? It was unlike Bonaparte to be crude. “Are you sure?” Lisette has been studying Italian, but how would she know a word like that?

  “And blazes. And devil.”

  “The General is savage as…” The head chef held up a meat axe, grinned. “Meat. Axe.” Enunciating slowly, proudly, in French.

  There was another angry outburst. “That haughty, demanding prick!” Napoleon shouted, in French this time. My cheeks burned.

  The cook with the wen on his neck snorted. That word he knew.

  I stood. “No, you stay,” I told Lisette.

  Bonaparte was standing with his back to the door. His grey wool waistcoat was stained with perspiration. The scene was one of disorder, the carpet strewn with journals from Paris. I recognized one—the Mémorial, a Royalist publication. Berthier, Bonaparte’s chief of staff, was sitting at the desk in the corner, staring at the General, a quill in one hand. They seemed frozen in an antique tableau, shadow silhouettes against the light. The very air felt dangerous, like gunpowder, as if it might explode. “The lives of good men have been sacrificed,” Bonaparte yelled, breaking the spell. “And for what? Without a peace agreement, what have we accomplished? Nothing!”

  “Un momento,” I whispered to the hall porter, positioning myself beside the door out of sight, standing purposefully, as if spying on one’s husband was the normal thing to do.

  “The enemy isn’t here, the enemy is in Paris! The Royalists have taken over. The traitors should be arrested, banished! All of them! Veni, vidi, fugi, my ass.* The journals should be repressed! They’re in the pay of England, of Austria, of every damned Royalist nation in Europe—why should they be tolerated? And the Church fomenting trouble again. Basta! Berthier, take this down. Address this to the Emperor. Yes, of course, the Emperor of Austria. Tell him this. Tell him if a peace agreement is not signed by the first of September—No, don’t put that. Put…what is it? Yes. Put fifteen Fructidor. Let him figure it out. If the peace negotiations are not concluded by fifteen Fructidor, we go to war. You heard me: war!”

  I stepped into the doorway. Bonaparte turned to me, his eyes bulging. He looked feverish, emanating a manic energy.

  “Has something happened?” I crossed the room and took his hand. He is shortsighted; it is a mistake to address him from a distance. “What’s all the shouting about?”

  “Shouting?”

  “We could hear you in the kitchen.”

  Bonaparte glanced at his chief of staff, puzzled. “We weren’t shouting.”

  La Chaumière

  Darling!

  A quick note: I’ve heard rumours that Lazare is being considered for Minister of War. Your husband is to take orders from your former lover? Nom de Dieu!

  Your most loving, etc., Thérè
se

  July 18, past midnight (can’t sleep).

  “May I ask you something?” Bonaparte’s hand on my shoulder was cold.

  “Of course.” I kissed his hand, as if to warm it—warm him.

  “How…close were you with General Hoche?”

  “We were friends.”

  He snorted. “You were lovers. Everyone knew that.”

  I pulled the covering sheet up over me. “In prison, yes.” A partial truth.

  “General Hoche is said to appeal to women. He’s a chevalier of the bedchamber, it is said.”

  “Bonaparte, please, don’t be like this.” I pressed myself into his arms, pushing through the thicket of elbows and hands he put up as obstacles, pressing against him, knowing his need.

  August 1.

  “What does res non verba mean?” Eugène asked, looking up from reading the Moniteur.

  Res non verba was Lazare’s motto. I looked over my son’s shoulder. The article quoted a speech Lazare had made to his troops. “It means, the thing, not the word—that what you do is more important than what you say,” I told Eugène, disconcerted by my son’s inability to translate a simple Latin phrase. I heard the sound of spurs jingling outside the door. Hastily, I folded the journal. “Eugène, don’t speak of General Hoche around Bonaparte,” I said under my breath, standing to greet my husband.

  July 22, Luxembourg Palace, Paris

  Chère amie,

  It is almost midnight as I write this. I am in a state, I confess. Forgive my hasty pen. Regrettably, things did not work out with respect to Lazare. It is too complex a matter to explain here. Nobly, he retreated. Whatever you might hear, he did this of his own accord.