The Princess of Nowhere

by Lorenzo Borghese

  “Sophie! Signorina Sophie! You have a visitor!”

  The sick girl was sitting on the sofa, swathed in shawls, paging listlessly through a magazine. There was a pile of halfopen books and magazines on the table beside her, pushing the ranks of china animals into a multicolored herd in one corner. At the sound of her name, she looked up, suddenly flushed and eager—until she saw who it was.

  “Look,” said the maid triumphantly. “His Excellency has brought you a present!”

  Camillo watched in horror as the maid laid the box on Sophie’s lap. He had thought for hours about what he could give Pauline today. Not jewelry; that was for when he made his formal proposal of marriage. Not flowers; that would say that today’s visit was an ordinary call. Something in between. Something that signaled his intention to propose marriage. A voucher. A pledge of alliance.

  He had settled on one of the family heirlooms he had brought with him from Rome, a large cameo medallion set in gold. The medallion showed a dragon—one of the emblems of the Borghese house—in high relief, green against a white background. The scales were edged in gold leaf; the eyes were tiny rubies. It had been made as one of a set of six for his greatgrandfather, but the others had been lost or broken.

  “That is very kind of you,” said Sophie woodenly. She did not smile or look at him, and she made no move to open the gift.

  “How—how are you feeling?” said Camillo, wrenching his eyes away from the box.

  “Better.” She added after a moment, “Thank you.” Then, in response to an urgent gesture from the maid, “Won’t you sit down, Your Excellency?”

  “Thank you.” Camillo sat, his eyes returning to the box.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Camillo took a deep breath. It was just a piece of glass. Let it go. “It is for your collection,” he said.

  “My collection?” She looked up for the first time, puzzled.

  He gestured toward the crowded jumble of china and crystal fauna on the table. “You don’t have a dragon.”

  “Oh.” She looked down again, then slowly untied the ribbons and opened the box. The maid gave an audible gasp when Sophie lifted out the medallion. “It is very nice,” Sophie said politely. She held it on her lap, studying it for a moment, then set it on the table on top of one of the open books. “Thank you.”

  “Your Italian is quite good,” he offered.

  “Thank you,” she said again, eyes still lowered.

  Camillo wondered if they were going to sit here saying “thank you” to each other for the rest of the visit. And if the girl ever looked at anyone when she talked to them. Of course, she had been ill. She was tired.

  “How is your cousin?” he tried, after another short silence.

  “Oh, Dermide is fine. He did not get infected.”

  “Ah, that is good.” He cleared his throat. “I meant Madame Leclerc, actually.”

  “I don’t know.” Sophie’s head was bent so low that he could not see her eyes any longer. All he could see was the neatly parted fair hair and the tops of two blond eyebrows. “I haven’t seen her today. Or yesterday. I think she is resting.” There was a slight quiver in her voice. Then, more firmly, “She nursed me, you know. For days. She slept in here, with me.” There was almost a challenge in her tone.

  How long had he been here? Three minutes? Five? It seemed like an eternity.

  It all happened at once: quick footsteps, a rustle of skirts, Sophie’s pale, drooping face suddenly alight, turned toward the door, eyes shining. Pauline was here, and the dead space had come alive. She was dressed in black once more, but it didn’t matter; she was still the most colorful, vibrant thing in the room.

  “Prince Camillo!” She swept him a sketch of a curtsey, smiling. “I see I have a rival for your affections! You slight me for Sophie!”

  He would have protested, but Sophie jumped in first. “No, no,” she said, trying to stand up and struggling with the shawls. “He asked about you! He was just being polite!”

  Pauline gave him an amused glance. “Do sit down, Sophie, you’re still not well,” she said, without really looking at the girl. She was surveying Camillo and evidently liked what she saw; her smile took on a hint of possessiveness.

  “I’m better,” said Sophie, breathless.

  “Nonsense.” Pauline finally looked at her. “You’re flushed, and I can see you trembling from here. Nunzia, get her something to drink. And some wine for His Excellency.” She pushed Sophie back onto the sofa. “Don’t you know how to entertain callers? You should have rung for refreshments at once.” The maid bobbed her head and vanished.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Sophie, looking mortified.

  “I don’t think Sophie has ever had any callers before,” Pauline said to Camillo, gesturing him back to his chair as she sat down by Sophie. Her eye fell on the box and ribbon, which had slid to the floor. “What’s this? Did His Excellency bring you a present, Sophie? How very thoughtful of him!”

  As Pauline’s eye went from the ribbon to the empty box to the glittering cameo on its precarious perch on the table, Camillo felt as though time had stopped, allowing his mind to see, in detail, all the hideous possibilities. Pauline might think he had brought a fantastically expensive and inappropriate gift for Sophie, marking him as a fool. She might think he had given the dragon to Sophie to win her over to his side, marking him as a schemer. Or she might deduce the truth: that he was so socially inept that he had allowed a maid to take Pauline’s gift and give it to her ten-year-old ward.

  In that frozen moment, Camillo saw Sophie’s expression and knew that the panicked indecision he saw there was a precise mirror of his own face.

  Luckily, Pauline was staring at the medallion. She picked it up. “You shouldn’t leave it on top of something else, Sophie. It’s breakable. And very valuable.” Her finger traced the outline of the dragon’s neck. “Lovely,” she said, setting it back down, carefully, in a clear space away from the edge. Was Camillo imagining it, or had there been a wistful undertone to that “lovely”?

  His eyes met Sophie’s again.

  “It isn’t for me,” Sophie said suddenly, just a little bit too loud. “It’s for you.” Her chin tilted up, and for an instant she didn’t look like a child at all. “The prince wanted to show it to me, to see if you would like it.”

  “It’s for me?” Pauline turned to Camillo.

  He nodded.

  Pauline gave Sophie a quizzical look. “Well, what did you tell him, Sophie? Did you think I would like it?”

  “I said it was very nice. But—but you were not supposed to see it yet.”

  “Very nice! Sophie, you goose, it is a treasure!” Pauline snatched the medallion and held it up. “Look, the eyes are little jewels!” She turned to Camillo. “It is beautiful; thank you.”

  “You should thank me, too,” said Sophie. “I told him to give it to you.”

  Pauline tilted her head to one side and looked at Sophie, at Camillo, and finally down at the dragon. She knew, Camillo realized. She knew exactly what had happened. “Well, I do thank you, Sophie.” She tapped the medallion lightly. “You have very good taste.”

  He did not stay long; Sophie was a convalescent. The maid came back with wine and candied nuts and dutifully admired Pauline’s gift with no apparent surprise at the change of recipient. Sophie drank a tonic and was sent off to bed, bribed with the promise that Pauline would return to check on her after seeing Camillo out.

  They walked downstairs side by side, Camillo’s hand just touching the inside of her elbow.

  “So,” she said, just as they reached the front door. “Are you going to ask me to marry you?”

  “Yes,” he heard himself say. Calmly. Without a second thought. “Are you going to say yes?”

  “I suppose so.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes serious for once.

  “You don’t mind that I almost gave the last Borghese dragon medallion to a ten-year-old girl?”

  She gave a little smile. “No. Poor Sophie
, I will have to give her something to make up for it.”

  “You do like it, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes.” She reached up and touched the side of his face, a slight caress, like the way she had stroked the dragon’s neck. “I am very fond of rubies.”

  A servant appeared with his hat and coat.

  “Tomorrow?” he said.

  “Tomorrow, at three.”

  Pauline had the whole story from Nunzia ten minutes later. The maid kept trying to apologize, but Pauline was laughing so hard she had to sit down and fan herself before she could speak.

  “It’s all just a misunderstanding; there’s no harm done,” she finally said, still breathless. “Just imagine, though—that thing must be worth ten thousand francs if it’s worth a sou! Thank heavens for my wise little Sophie!”

  “Oh,” said Nunzia, remembering. “She is asking for you.”

  “I’ll go and see her later.” Pauline dabbed her eyes and stood up. “I have to go and decide what I am wearing tomorrow. The prince is coming to ask me to marry him.”

  Nunzia gave a little shriek and started to dart away to spread the news.

  “Nunzia!”

  The maid turned back.

  “Not one word,” Pauline said sternly.

  “About the marriage?”

  “About this afternoon. The prince’s gift. Swear on the Blessed Virgin. And warn Sophie, too.”

  The girl nodded solemnly and crossed herself.

  It was a delicious tale, but there was no point embarrassing the prince by letting it be known. Her brothers, for example, would never let Camillo hear the end of it. Although she wondered what Joseph would have done, or Napoleon, if they had found themselves in Camillo’s shoes this afternoon.

  She stopped, her hand resting absently on the banister. She knew exactly what they would have done. They would have slapped Nunzia, grabbed the box back, left Sophie in tears, and stormed away in a temper.

  Maybe the story wasn’t so funny after all.

  Camillo proposed—very formally, with a gift of a pair of ruby ear-drops, purchased in great haste after his visit to Sophie. Pauline accepted—equally formally, with a gift of a portrait of herself à la bergère. She thought she looked quite fetching as a shepherdess, and scowled at her brother Lucien when he made pointed remarks about Versailles and Marie Antoinette. Lucien was the exception, however. Everyone else in the family seemed quite pleased that Pauline was soon to be Princess Borghese. Even Pauline’s mother smiled benignly at her willful daughter and dreamed of audiences with the Holy Father in Rome.

  Pauline’s dreams were different and did not include the pope.

  When Pauline thought about her first marriage now, it was to marvel at how young and naive she had been. Seventeen. A child. Leclerc was hardly much older, in his mid-twenties. He was slender and short—she called him her little Leclerc—and the two of them looked like china miniatures when they appeared together on formal occasions. Her world had been changing so rapidly in those days. At thirteen, she had fled Corsica in the middle of the night. Pauline could still remember the three flea-infested rooms in the worst quarter of Marseilles that had housed her whole family. At fifteen, she was writing passionate love letters to the forty-year-old adventurer Fréron. Two years later, she was in Italy, where her brother was conquering Austrians one week and granting fairy-tale wishes the next. Pauline was to be married? Very well, her husband would now be a general. Josephine found Milan was too noisy and crowded? The Crivelli family would be delighted to offer the Bonaparte family their summer palazzo at Mombello. So Pauline had married Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an elegant mansion overlooking a poplar-studded valley. Her dowry of forty thousand francs had seemed a small fortune.

  Her dowry now was to be half a million francs, and Napoleon’s personal gift to her, in addition to the dowry, would be a set of diamonds worth several hundred thousand more. Camillo was showering her with jewels, fans, and gloves. She was young and wealthy and beautiful and she was going to be a princess.

  * * *

  There was only one problem: Napoleon.

  The bride and groom had obtained the First Consul’s approval for the match; the contract was drawn up; the dowry established; Pauline’s jointure duly recorded. Unfortunately, no one had consulted Napoleon about the date of the wedding.

  “Too soon,” he said curtly when his mother traveled out to St. Cloud with Pauline to announce that the ceremony would take place at the end of the summer. “I will not authorize it.” He returned his attention to a pile of letters on the desk in front of him, dipped his pen into the inkwell, and made a notation in the margin of one sheet.

  “Too soon!” Pauline’s eyes flashed. “Just three weeks ago you were kissing me on both cheeks and congratulating me! We propose a date six weeks away, and you say ‘too soon’?”

  Every day since Camillo’s proposal, she had seen more to like. He was tall and athletic; he had a delightful low voice and musical laugh; he read poetry to her in Italian and paused in mid-sonnet to kiss her hand. Yet for all his polish, he could be shy—he had blushed like a boy one afternoon when his hand had inadvertently nudged her breast. She found this appealing. It made her feel innocent and desirable. When Camillo took her arm, she felt a warmth and eagerness passing from his body to hers. The weeks of waiting for the pope’s official endorsement of the match had seemed very long, and there were still the banns to call. Flirting was all very well, but as a steady diet it lacked substance. Pauline wanted a husband.

  “It is too soon,” repeated her brother, unmoved by her stormy expression. He pointed with his pen at her dress. Her black dress. “You are still in mourning. The customary period of mourning for a widow, as prescribed by the regulations, is one year. In fact, I believe it may be a bit longer than that. But certainly a minimum of one year. You may not be married for another four months.”

  “Four more months!” She jumped up. “Are you mad? By then I will be a nervous wreck! Camillo will forget me! He will take a mistress!” She leaned over the side of the desk and changed to a coaxing tone. “Napoleon, this is me, your little Pauline. Think how ill I have been, how terrible it was to sail home from the West Indies with Emmanuel’s body. As a personal favor, could we not make an exception?” She ran one hand down his arm in a tentative caress.

  He stared down at the pile of correspondence, shoulders rigid. “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “I am not some peasant woman,” she said angrily, jerking her hand away and stalking around to the front of the desk. Her mother was frowning at her, but she ignored her. “I am your sister. This is a marriage of state. What do I care what the rule is in some silly book?”

  “That silly book is the Almanac National de France!” her brother roared, throwing down his pen. “You are my sister, yes. I am the leader of France. You must be more careful than a ‘peasant woman,’ not less. You will abide by the regulations prescribed for a widow, or there will be no dowry and no diamonds. You will wear black. You will not dance. You will not attend the theater. And you will not be married until November at the earliest. That is final.”

  Pauline stalked out of the room in a rage, leaving her mother to placate Napoleon. In the carriage on the way back into town, she stared defiantly ahead, daring Letizia to scold her. But it was her mother, in fact, who came to her a few days later with a proposal: Napoleon and the Almanac National governed the civil ceremony that had been the state’s lawful marriage rite since the revolution. But the Catholic ceremony, which Pauline and Camillo had planned to celebrate in conjunction with the state license, was not subject to Napoleon’s rules. Why not publish the banns at once and have the church wedding as planned? If the banns were called in some small, obscure parish—say, Mortefontaine, where Joseph had a country home—Napoleon would never know. The wedding would have to be a quiet family affair, but surely that was better than waiting four more months?

  Her first wedding had been a quiet family affair
, and she had hoped, as a princess-to-be, for something more public and festive. But the thought of tricking her priggish older brother was almost as satisfying as the thought of a glamorous wedding feast. The banns were called. The papal legate, Cardinal Caprara, was invited to perform the ceremony. On the twenty-eighth of August, still wearing black, Pauline Bonaparte was married to Prince Camillo Borghese in the eyes of the church and, more important, in the eyes of her mother.

  FIVE

  Nothing in Camillo’s life had prepared him for his wedding night.

  He was not a complete innocent. True, for a time in his mid-teens he had harbored secret longings for the priesthood and had backed out of several engagements where older boys promised to “make a man of him.” But flesh had eventually triumphed over spirit. A few weeks after his sixteenth birthday, two friends had dosed him with brandy and pushed him into the best bedroom of a local brothel. The whore’s name was Marietta. She was probably about twenty but looked twice that. Her teeth were brown and cracked. Her hair, an odd reddish color that was contradicted by the dark thatch between her legs, was already thinning. Still, he was a bit drunk, and she smiled cheerfully at him and let him take his time. The fascination of touching things he had only glimpsed—breasts, nipples, buttocks—made more of an impression than the act itself.

  The next morning he had a monumental hangover, which he interpreted as a punishment from God for fornication. For two days he stayed in bed with the curtains drawn, feigning illness. He was sure that anyone who saw him would know instantly what he had done and denounce him to his father. On the third day, he slipped out of the house late in the afternoon and went back to Marietta, where he discovered that the process was much more enjoyable when he was sober. On the fifth day, he went again. Marietta told him he was coming along very nicely and even let him sleep next to her for an hour afterward and have a second round before leaving. On the eighth day, he arrived at the brothel only to be told that Marietta had another visitor. Would he like a different girl, or would he prefer to wait for Marietta? She would not be much longer. Horrified, he fled. It had never occurred to him that Marietta did to anyone else the moist, dark things she did to him. He swore himself to abstinence and kept the vow for four agonizing months.