The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  I could imagine the depth of Lazare’s disillusionment, his disgust. “The Royalists were trying to get your son to turn against the Director, but it didn’t work,” I went on. “He knew what was at stake. Then the agent must have panicked, because General Hoche, their worst enemy, knew too much—knew everything.”

  “And so the agent poisoned him,” Adélaïde said, her voice clear and strong. She was standing with one hand on the mantel—on the blue urn.

  The urn. Mon Dieu, I thought, suddenly remembering what Fouché had said, about Lazare’s heart. “Yes,” I said, sickened, my throat tight. I heard the child laughing. I glanced up at Lazare’s portrait, for strength. “Director Barras had nothing to do with it.” The truth was not so simple, however. The truth was that Lazare, the brave innocent, had fallen victim to one of Barras’s greedy intrigues.

  February 6.

  The final vote on the new constitution has been tallied. Bonaparte is now First Consul. Three million voted in favour—and less than two thousand voted against.* It’s a miracle.

  [Undated]

  I knew by Fauvelet’s flustered look that he had something to say to me, something I wasn’t going to like. “It’s about your debts, Madame. The First Consul wishes to have them settled.”

  “And so Bonaparte sent you?” Coward!

  Fauvelet nodded. “I’m to ask you the total sum.” He scratched his chin. “He will pay them. He only asks that you withdraw from all speculative endeavours now and in the future, Madame.”

  I paced around him as he talked. In truth, there was no other way. My debts were beyond my ability to settle. It wasn’t all hats! (Although I did owe for thirty-eight—how did that happen?) The big bills were substantial: Bodin Company debts, a National Property I’d invested in and Malmaison alone accounted for over one million. And the pearls, mon Dieu.

  It is done: I’ve withdrawn from the Bodin Company. Bonaparte settled my debts. There were tears.

  February 7.

  “Damn, Washington died,” Bonaparte said, throwing down a dispatch.

  “The American?”

  “Of all times. Now I’ll have to show mourning.” He looked over a calendar. “How many days left?”

  How many days until we moved to the Tuileries Palace, he meant. “Eleven,” I said, examining the calendar. Just thinking about the move induced a panic in me. There was so much to do, so much that had to be accomplished in so little time. The walls were not yet plastered. And the floors—the workers were supposed to have begun work on them three days ago.

  “Perfect, ten days of mourning: and then the move.”

  February 14.

  A good meeting with Thérèse. We’re making progress going over the List. It’s so much easier with the two of us.

  February 16.

  “You sent for me, Citoyenne?” Émilie’s husband Lavalette stood before me at attention, as if for a military review.

  I begged him to be seated. “I have a favour to ask of you, Lieutenant Lavalette. However, I am hesitant, as it entails a certain degree of personal danger. I need someone to go into Austria—”

  Lavalette registered surprise.

  “—in order to locate a certain individual, an emigré whose name has finally been removed from the List. I need you to help that individual cross the border back into France.” No easy task.

  “May I ask who?”

  “Certainly, but you must vow not to tell a soul, not even your wife.” I paused, smiled. “François Beauharnais.” Émilie’s father, the Marquis’s son.

  February 17—Tuileries Palace.

  I am writing this at my escritoire in what will soon be my new drawing room—the yellow room, I call it. I feel uneasy, at odds with the taste of the Queen, who occupied these rooms before me. Every surface—the walls, the ceiling, even the floor—is covered with ornament.

  Will I ever be happy here? Was she? I wonder. (I doubt it.)

  I’m exhausted, I remind myself. Even now, there are trunks to be unpacked, put away. But the dining and reception rooms are finally presentable, the heavy brocade drapes hung only an hour ago. Day after tomorrow…

  February 18.

  Everything should be ready for tomorrow’s move—the grand parade, the reception, the dinner. Ready in theory, anyway. In reality, every time I go to look over the work, something is amiss. The workers were only this afternoon laying the carpets. And now, my cook is ill with an ague.

  February 19.

  Eugène’s uniform has been mended and Hortense has finally determined the right shade of ribbon (a lovely blue-green) to go with her gown. Bonaparte just rushed in and we went through the order of events one last time. “Make sure Hortense is watching just after the cavalry,” he whispered to me. But he wouldn’t say why.

  Shortly after 5:00—a quiet moment.

  “I hate all this.” Bonaparte tore at his sash.

  “Be still.”

  “You look majestic, General,” Fauvelet said, helping Bonaparte on with his jacket.

  “I’ve never seen you looking so…pressed,” I said with a smile. Bonaparte was most comfortable in old, worn clothes.

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” He did not smile. “Fauvelet, you’re lucky. You don’t have to make a fool of yourself in public, as I do.”

  “Madame Bonaparte?” One of the movers gestured toward a mountain of trunks. “Do these all go?”

  I nodded. Moving, on top of everything else. Any minute, I would collapse. “As you have said yourself, Bonaparte, the people need to see you, they need a spectacle.”

  “So you do listen to me.”

  “Bonaparte, I’m always listening.” Tweaking his ear.

  Hortense, Émilie and Caroline came gliding into the room, twirled for inspection. I fixed Hortense’s hair ribbon. Caroline’s dress was tight on her, but there was nothing to be done. (Is she in an interesting condition? I wondered. Already?) “You should see Joachim’s new plume for his hat,” Caroline said. “It cost three hundred francs.”

  “What’s that terrible racket?” I looked toward the door.

  Eugène appeared, straddling a chair, rocking and jumping it into the room as if it were a horse. The girls and I burst into laughter. He jumped off, tamed his “steed,” saluted. “Well?” Grinning. Showing off his new uniform, the uniform of the Consular Guards.

  “Oh,” said Hortense, breathlessly, “all the girls will be throwing their bouquets at you.”

  “So long as they don’t throw them at my husband.” Caroline crimped the bow in her hair, so that it would stand better. “See how it droops?”

  Our coachman appeared at the door wearing tails. “Your coach is ready, Madame.”

  I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. We were on time—miraculously. I glanced in the glass: I felt I had too much make-up on, like an actress preparing to go on stage. And then I realized that I was an actress, and this was a stage.

  “Come, darling. It’s time!” Caroline said to Hortense and Émilie, putting on an exaggerated air of grandeur as she swept into the corridor.

  I caught Bonaparte’s eye, smiled—children!—but he was preoccupied. The valet was helping him on with his boots. “I’ll see you later then—after the revue?” And before the dinner, I thought, which reminded me: had the silver been packed? Worrying: should I take my new pug dogs with me now?

  Bonaparte stood, pulling at the bootstrap. “I can’t get my foot in.” The boot went flying.

  I touched his shoulder. He turned, as if startled. Addressing soldiers, Bonaparte was at ease; addressing civilians terrified him. Every Royalist country in Europe would be praying for a stumble. “It’s going to be splendid,” I said, giving him a kiss.

  The parade was splendid. Eugène looked wonderful (as did his new horse Pegasus), and of course the crowds went wild for Bonaparte. It was a moving moment when the tattered flags of the Army of Italy went by. Bonaparte removed his hat and bowed his head; the crowd suddenly became hushed, reverent. This little man with such bi
g dreams has filled all our hearts with hope. If there are angels (and there must be, surely), they are with him now.

  Indeed, even my daughter is falling under his spell. As soon as the cavalry went by she, Émilie and Caroline excused themselves to go to the powder room. I remembered Bonaparte’s instruction just in time. “Wait, Hortense.” The military band was marching out into the courtyard, the brass instruments bright in the sun. “Just one moment, please.”

  “Why?” Caroline demanded as Hortense slipped back into her chair overlooking the palace courtyard. The members of the band were in position and an orderly was running across the courtyard with a stool for the conductor to stand on.

  “I don’t really know.” The conductor mounted the stool and lifted his baton. The musicians raised their instruments and the opening

  Partant pour la Syrie

  chords were struck. The piece sounded familiar, yet I could not place it.

  Hortense sat forward, her hands on her knees.

  “Can we go now?” Caroline asked, standing by the door. Hortense raised her index finger.

  “Hortense, isn’t that your song, the marching song you wrote?” I asked. “Partant pour la Syrie?”

  “Hush,” she cried out. “I want to hear it!”

  Evening.

  “What did you think?” Bonaparte asked, bursting into my dressing room. “I thought it went rather well.”

  “It was brilliant,” I said. He hadn’t noticed Hortense sitting by the door.

  “Why is it so dark in here? Where are the children? What did your daughter think?”

  I looked at Hortense in the looking glass, smiled. Bonaparte followed my gaze. “Oh!” he said, taken aback.

  Hortense stood, her hands clasped in front of her. “I was so honoured.”

  Bonaparte smiled and tugged her ear. (Gently, for once!) “You were surprised? Good. The musicians want to know if you would write another for them.”

  Hortense nodded, tongue-tied, a flush covering her pale cheeks. “Caroline is expecting me!” she cried and bolted out the door.

  “Is she pleased, do you think?” Bonaparte asked, puzzled.

  “She’s overcome.” I pressed his hand to my cheek. “That was a very nice thing for you to do.”

  “It’s a good piece,” he said, shrugging, sitting down so that the valet could pull off his riding boots. “Why do you have the drapes drawn?”

  “People look in.” I’d had a fright earlier when I saw a man’s face pressed against the iron grill. “But it’s dark in here even when the drapes are pulled back.” The rooms are set below ground level; the windows are high on the wall. Sitting, one cannot look out. “Your new breeches are on top of the trunk with your sash.”

  In moments he reappeared, his valet following him like a shadow.

  “Excellent,” I said, although the fit wasn’t perfect. There hadn’t been time.

  Mimi came to the door, lovely in a new muslin gown. “Third Consul Lebrun and his wife are—”

  “Already?” I looked at the clock. It was only five! We weren’t expecting guests to arrive until six.

  “Good,” Bonaparte said, pulling on his dress shoes. “I need to talk to him about the deficit.”

  “I’ll only be a moment.” I stood in front of the large looking glass as Mimi fastened my pearls. The Queen had studied her image in this very glass, I thought.

  After dinner with the Consuls (boring!), I went on ahead to the bedroom, to prepare for my husband. I dismissed Mimi. Alone, I bathed, changed into a simple flannel gown. I was weary of lace and pageantry. Wrapped in a comforter, I sat by the fire thinking of the woman who had once sat thus, in this room, by this fireplace, also waiting for her husband to join her. Her husband: King Louis XVI. I recalled the day he was guillotined, the slow, steady roll of the drums. And then I recalled the day of the Queen’s death less than a year later, a ghost of a woman already, widowed, her children taken from her. She was thirty-eight when she died, only a few years older than I am now.

  Queen Marie-Antoinette. How curious it is for me to be living here, writing at her escritoire. How curious, and how very unreal.

  Bonaparte arrived as the clocks chimed midnight. “I’ll ring for the valet,” he said.

  “No, don’t.” I helped him out of his coat.

  In his nightshirt, his head wrapped in one of my madras scarves, he regarded the room thoughtfully. “Well.” He took in the bronze-trimmed mahogany bed, a monument of (ugly) ornate ormolu.

  “I still can’t believe we live here.” I did not say, I can’t accept that this horrible place is now my home.

  Bonaparte went to the grandiose bed, pulled out the little step. “Come, little créole.” Smiling, he bowed at the waist, arms wide, like a courtier. “Step into the bed of kings.”

  “Bonaparte, don’t you feel as if you’re in a dream?” The centre of the enormous bed was like a valley; we kept rolling into it. (I’ll have a new mattress made.)

  Bonaparte grunted, on the verge of sleep, and pulled me closer, his arms around my waist. “Yes,” he said a moment later, “a dream of my creation.”

  I lacked the courage to ask him what that dream entailed. “I keep thinking of all the things that happened in this room, the kings and the queens who have slept in this bed.” The kings and the queens who have lost their lives.

  “And I keep thinking how lovely you are, how I’m luckier than any of those kings.” His hands were roving again.

  “Bonaparte, I’m serious. It frightens me, being here, living here. I don’t belong.”

  “You’re questioning God when you make such a statement.” He propped himself up on his elbow.

  I rolled over onto my back, looked into his sad-serious eyes. “What do you mean?” There was no limit to Bonaparte’s energy, to his dreams, to what he aimed to achieve. Was it faith that gave him courage?

  “Remember the fortune you were told, that you would be Queen?”

  Tears came to my eyes. “I don’t want to be a queen, Bonaparte.”

  “But I’ll need you beside me,” he said, joking gently.

  I put my hand on his cheek. “I love you.”

  I lay beside my husband for what seemed like hours, listening to the sounds of the night. I could hear the prostitutes laughing in the gardens, whisperings outside our windows. I lay listening to my heart, and to the strange, silent dark of the cold marble corridors.

  The bells had just rung out one note when I felt it again, that chill. Bonaparte, often so deep in sleep I fear him dead, murmured and turned, pulling the comforters around him, as if he too could feel it. I sat up, watchful. I saw a light approaching.

  “Mimi?” I hissed. My heart began to pound. Only bad news came thus, in the night. I pulled the comforter around me. Why was it suddenly so very cold? And then I saw her again: that plain white gown, that plain white cap. The Queen—in prison clothes. A cry escaped me, I reached out for Bonaparte. The moment I touched him, she began to recede, fade. And then the room was dark again, and silent, but for the pounding of my heart.

  In which I am called Angel of Mercy

  February 22, 1800.

  “Twenty-seven already this morning,” Mimi told me, her eyes wide.

  Twenty-seven petitioners? Yesterday there had been twelve, and nineteen the day before. Proud, starving aristocrats, trembling beggars. Weeping women, tongue-tied men, stuttering children: all desperate, all needing help.

  “Madame Bonaparte.” The girl bowed. The elderly woman accompanying her was dressed in the uncomfortable style of the Ancien Régime. With the help of a walking stick she struggled to stand.

  “Oh, please, do sit,” I insisted. Her bustle had slipped sideways, giving her a deformed look.

  “M-M-Madame B-B-Bonne…” the old woman stuttered, but she could get no further.

  “Bon à Parté, Grandmaman.” The girl threw me an embarrassed look.

  “Mademoiselle de Malesherbes, is it not?” The girl had come to me weeks earlier. I guessed her to be
twelve years in age, thirteen perhaps.

  “You remember!” She flushed.

  What I remembered was the charm of her devotion to her grandmother, whose name had been put on the List during the Revolution and who was destined to die in Germany, alone, far from her family, her loved ones.

  I took the elderly woman’s hand. “Then you must be Countess de Malesherbes.”

  “In Germany they call you the Angel of Mercy,” the old woman said, her voice clear now. She had a vise-like grip on my hand. “I want you to come to my funeral.”

  I smiled. “I trust it will not be soon.”

  “It will be a splendid fête. My daughters have promised.”

  “We have come to say thank you,” the girl said.

  “And God bless!”

  Over twenty petitioners later, I was growing fatigued. No wonder thrones are cushioned. “Only one more,” the hall porter informed me. “Mademoiselle Compoint.”

  I tilted my head to one side. “Pardon?”

  He squinted at the card. “Mademoiselle Louise Compoint.”

  Lisette?

  “I could tell her to return tomorrow, Madame.”

  I drummed the arm of my chair—as Bonaparte so often does, I realized. Soon I would have all his nervous mannerisms—his twitches, his tics. Soon I might even have his short temper. If only I had his judgement, I thought. Should I refuse to receive Lisette? “Send her in,” I said finally, putting back my shoulders.