The Princess of Nowhere

by Lorenzo Borghese

  No, Gian Andrea was a patriot, and he had come to persuade Camillo that he was betraying his own country by governing on Napoleon’s behalf.

  Had he been older or from a less powerful family, he would likely have been arrested right away. The militia had strict orders to suppress anything that looked like a nationalist uprising. But Camillo and his court treated Gian Andrea like a misguided schoolboy, listening politely to his earnest speeches and inviting him to go hunting, or boating, or drive out to a picnic in the foothills. No one took him seriously, especially because, after he had been there for a few days, it was obvious to everyone that he had fallen head-over-heels in love.

  Not with Sophie, of course. With Pauline.

  Sophie’s life that fateful May in Turin therefore consisted of intervals of exquisite torture set into vast gray fogs where she ate, spoke, and slept without paying any attention to what was around her. When she was with Gian Andrea—or with Pauline, talking about Gian Andrea—the world was so real, so brightly colored and sharp-edged that it hurt. When she was somewhere else, the pain was gone, but so was she.

  She had seen right away that her hero had fallen victim to Pauline and had resigned herself to watching him from afar at public events. But within a few days of his arrival, he himself had sought her out.

  They were at Stupinigi, at the old royal hunting lodge. Pauline had demanded a change from the damp air of the town, and Camillo had moved the court to the hills for the day for a “bucolic fete.” Sophie had been playing idly on a very out-of-tune pianoforte in the music room when Gian Andrea had knocked on the open door.

  Her fingers produced a mangled chord, and she snatched them back from the keys.

  “May I come in?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said politely.

  “I’m finished,” she said quickly. “I don’t have my music here, and in any case, the instrument is dreadfully flat.”

  “May I escort you somewhere, then?”

  She couldn’t believe this was really happening. Where, she asked herself frantically. Where could I say I was going?

  He seemed to guess at her difficulty. “Perhaps to the bridge, in the park? It is a lovely view.”

  As if in a dream, she rose and took his arm.

  “You probably don’t remember me,” he was saying. “We were introduced the evening I arrived. But I heard from the princess that you were a freethinker, and I wanted to ask you about it. I am very intrigued by the movement.”

  You are intrigued by Pauline, thought Sophie cynically, and you have discovered that I am her ward.

  It was not a total lie. He actually was interested in free thought. He had read Collins and Diderot, and believed that free thought was essential to the nationalist cause he championed. But after one or two meetings, Sophie was not surprised when his questions veered away from philosophy and settled on Pauline. Or, more precisely, on Camillo.

  Every day he had a new and ugly story about the prince, which he shared with Sophie. “You’re the only one who takes me seriously,” he would say. Sometimes he would smile at her, and her heart would turn over. Once he put his arm around her, but he spoiled it by ruffling her hair. “Sweet Sophia.” He laughed. “What would I do without you? You’re like my priest; I confess everything to you.”

  Yesterday he had suddenly asked about Dermide.

  “The prince didn’t really kill Donna Paolina’s son, did he?”

  “Of course not!” Sophie gave Gian Andrea her fiercest glare. “How could you even think such a thing!?”

  They were walking in the gallery that connected the larger palace in the royal square to the smaller one, where the Borgheses held court. He trailed his finger across one of the marble console tables and said nothing.

  She knew how he could think Camillo guilty of murder. Hadn’t she herself pictured Camillo as a poisoner, four years ago? Gian Andrea was bewitched, as Sophie had been. Pauline could tell no lies. Camillo was an unfeeling monster who oppressed his beautiful wife. And Gian Andrea, of course, was ready to be Pauline’s knight errant and save her.

  They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the silverplated clock on the table. It was an eagle. Camillo’s new subjects had decided that the palace needed Napoleonic eagles, and they had showered him and Pauline with clock-eagles, candlestick-eagles, chairs with eagle legs, china services decorated with eagles, cushions embroidered with eagles, even a box of sugar candies fashioned to look like eaglets hatching from their eggs. Soon the palace would have an eagle to go with every Chinese vase.

  “Well, what did happen?”

  “What? When?”

  “When the princess’s son died.”

  “Oh.” Sophie did not want to think about Dermide. “He died of a fever,” she said reluctantly.

  Gian Andrea gave her one of his I-am-too-worldly-for-you looks. “Some fevers are natural; some are not.”

  “Stop it!” Sophie stamped her foot. “Everyone in the house was ill! Dermide was always a bit sickly; it hit him harder than the others, that is all. The prince wasn’t anywhere near Frascati. He was in Lucca with the princess.”

  “All right, I believe you,” he said, alarmed at her expression.

  The tears that had threatened at the mention of Dermide retreated, and Sophie started to relax again.

  “But he wouldn’t let her bury the boy in the Borghese chapel,” he said, persisting. “That I do know. He made her take the body all the way back to France.”

  Sophie gave him an incredulous stare. “Who told you that?”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “Pauline,” she said, nearly spitting out the words, “insisted that Dermide be buried next to his father in Picardy. She traveled back to France with his coffin. Even though it was August, and the fever was everywhere. She fought with the prince, and her doctor, and Napoleon, and she only got her way because they were afraid she would do something dreadful if they said no.”

  He looked skeptical.

  “Listen to me,” she said, her voice intense. “You don’t have to believe anything else I say, if you only believe this. You think my cousin is Italian. She grew up on Corsica, so she speaks Italian better than French. She looks Italian; she is married to an Italian prince. But she isn’t Italian. She is French. No one ever has to compel her to go back to France from Italy. France is home. That is where she wants to be. She writes Napoleon every week asking for permission to return.”

  “I happen to know why she wants to go back to France,” he said stiffly. “She told me herself.”

  “Oh?”

  “To get away from her husband.” Leaning over, he said in a low voice. “He mistreats her.”

  Sophie couldn’t listen to any more. “The prince is worth ten of her!” she snapped, exasperated. Then she hurried away, appalled at what she had just said. He’ll never speak to me again, she thought, and as her footsteps echoed on the marble floors of the gallery, the silence behind her echoed louder still.

  When she met Pauline that afternoon, her red eyes gave her away.

  “He’s been unkind to you!” declared Pauline theatrically. “The villain!” She spoiled it by laughing. But only for a moment; then she became sympathetic. “He thinks you are too young, doesn’t he?”

  Sophie nodded. “Once he said I was like his little sister,” she said glumly. “Another time he compared me to a priest.”

  “Well, that won’t do. We must think of a way to get his attention before you leave.”

  Leave? They were leaving? When? Where were they going? Were they coming back? She nearly choked on her wine. Terrified, she dabbed at her mouth with her handkerchief until she thought she could command her voice. “Are we leaving soon?”

  “Sometime soon, yes. I am waiting to get permission from my brother.”

  “And—and I am going with you?”

  “Yes, of course.” Pauline didn’t appear very concerned about it, but Sophie’s whole world was crumbling.


  “Will the court—” She was floundering. “Will the prince—that is, will the people here at court be coming?”

  “You mean will your young admirer come with us,” Pauline said matter-of-factly. “No, I imagine not. This will be a private trip, just you and me and a few of the servants. That is why we need to do something soon. Something to pique his interest in you.” She must have seen how upset Sophie was, because she added, with one of her pats on Sophie’s knee, “Don’t worry—it won’t be for several weeks yet. More likely a month.”

  A month. A month had seemed an eternity when Sophie was waiting in Paris for Pauline to return from one of her spur-of-the-moment visits to a spa, or from her stay last year at the home of her lover. Now “we leave in a month” sounded to Sophie like “we leave tomorrow.” Her stomach clenched; she thought for a minute she might pass out.

  “Let me think,” muttered Pauline. “The banquet, perhaps. That would be a good time.”

  There were often several banquets a week at the palace, but Sophie knew which one Pauline meant. Camillo had decided to celebrate the feast day of Saint Philip, Apostle of Rome, with a mass in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in the morning and a large banquet at the palace in the evening. Not only was this Camillo’s name-day (his second name, Filippo, was his name in the church), but an earlier Camillo Borghese, Pope Paul V, had been the first to recognize the saint, beatifying him less than twenty years after his death. Sophie had already heard plenty from Gian Andrea about the planned celebration.

  “I don’t think he will go,” Sophie said nervously. Gian Andrea had first denounced the whole institution of namedays as superstitious nonsense. Then, warming to his theme, he pointed out that this particular ceremony, with its links to Pope Paul V, was obviously meant to remind Camillo’s subjects of his family’s power and papal connections. “It’s nothing but politics,” he had concluded in disgust. “Politics and religion. Bah.”

  “He’ll go if I speak to him,” Pauline said.

  Sophie must have shown something in her face; Pauline laughed. “No, no; he’s far too young for me. And so serious! He never smiles. He’s all yours.” She took back Sophie’s glass of wine. “No more wine for you today; we need to try on dresses. Three days isn’t long enough to have something made up; we’ll have to alter one of mine.”

  Sophie started to object; she had plenty of dresses already. Then she thought about her dresses, and Pauline’s dresses, and held her tongue. Hers were muslin, in pale colors, trimmed with ribbon, with square bodices. They were dresses for a girl. Pauline’s were silk, decorated with jewels or gold embroidery, cut low in the front. They shimmered when she walked and cupped her breasts invitingly. Now that Sophie actually had breasts (tiny, but breasts nevertheless), Pauline’s dresses had started to look appealing rather than shocking.

  Pauline rang for her maid. “Bring me the blue silk,” she ordered, “the one with the chiffon overskirt. And the yellow sarcenet. Although—” She looked at Sophie. “I don’t think you will look well in yellow, but it is a very pale yellow. We shall see.”

  Within a few minutes, Sophie was standing on a stool while two maids and a seamstress pinned fabric around her. She felt a bit light-headed and dizzy; it was a good thing Pauline had taken away her wine.

  “Too short, of course.” Madame Ducluzel had been summoned to assist in the proceedings and was eyeing the blue dress approvingly. “But we can put on a border; the color is perfect.”

  Sophie, looking in the mirror over the heads of the maids, did not approve, but no one seemed to be interested in her opinion. She remembered this dress on Pauline; she had worn it in Nice, less than a month ago. On Pauline, the deep neckline and high waist had hugged the princess’s curved figure. On Sophie, the dress hung like a sack; her thin shoulders stuck out of the tiny cap sleeves and the bodice flapped, half-empty, over her under-endowed chest. And, of course, the hem didn’t even reach her ankle bones. On Pauline, the rich blue color had set off her white skin and dark hair. On Sophie, the color simply made her pale hair and eyebrows look even paler. She sighed.

  “Bend over,” said the seamstress, her mouth full of pins. She was doing something to Sophie’s chemise, and her fingers tickled Sophie’s rib cage. Obligingly, Sophie inclined forward.

  “More.”

  She bowed at the waist, almost losing her balance.

  As her breasts shifted forward, the seamstress caught them in a fold of fabric, twisted, and pinned. Sophie suddenly felt as though she couldn’t breathe; there was a band around her chest that gripped it like iron.

  Up, gestured the woman.

  Sophie straightened, looked automatically in the mirror, and gasped. The loose neckline was loose no longer. It clung like a second skin, and thrusting up to fill the scallop-shaped bodice were two lovely, creamy globes, straining at the fabric as though they were twice their real size. Slightly cross-eyed, she peered down. She had cleavage.

  Meanwhile, the seamstress was twitching at the fabric of the sleeves, adding a ribbon of chiffon to match the skirt. Sophie’s shoulder bones disappeared. Finally, a border of fringed silk was tacked onto the hem.

  “That is more like it,” said Pauline, satisfied. She pointed at one of the maids. “You. You will do the signorina’s hair. No curls. Put it up à la Grecque, and twine this in it.” She handed the girl a box.

  Sophie craned her neck to see what was in the box. It was a rope of sapphires.

  “Here, I’ll show you,” Pauline said. Hopping up onto the seamstress’s chair, she lifted Sophie’s hair into a rough twist and draped the jeweled strand across her head.

  Instead of pale hair, Sophie suddenly had gold hair. Gold hair with sparkling blue highlights. At that moment, she would have lain down and let Pauline walk on her. Except that it would ruin her dress.

  At Pauline’s insistence, Sophie attended mass with the rest of the court on the morning of the banquet. “He has to see you in the morning, looking like the Sophie he ignores,” Pauline told her. “Then, at the banquet—the transformation!” She snapped her fingers. “He will be bouleversé.” Pauline had been speaking French to Sophie lately. It made Sophie nervous; it reminded her of the mysterious voyage looming in her future.

  As a budding freethinker, Gian Andrea should not have been at mass, either. But Pauline insisted he would be, and there he was, in the row right behind the prince and princess. He managed to position himself so that he took communion next to Pauline, too, and when he touched his lips to the goblet, he looked not at the bishop but at his neighbor, bending sideways to place his mouth exactly where Pauline had placed hers. Sophie, conspicuously isolated on her seat while everyone else lined up at the altar, noted this bit of byplay and flinched inwardly. It was exactly the sort of thing Pauline had been teaching her in her “lessons.”

  Sophie, Pauline decreed, had to learn how to flirt. In the three days since the dress-fitting, the princess had spent hours each afternoon coaching her. Sophie was exhausted from listening and watching and trying to do everything Pauline suggested. The results had not been promising.

  “Now, young Visconti sees you in your new dress, and he is épris.” Pauline had imitated a smitten look. “He comes up and kisses your hand and tells you how lovely you look. What do you do?”

  “Say thank-you?” Sophie guessed.

  That option obviously had not occurred to Pauline. “I suppose you could,” she conceded. “But that is not the important part. I’ll be you. Come here and kiss my hand.”

  Feeling utterly ridiculous, Sophie stepped awkwardly toward Pauline, raised her hand, and kissed it.

  “Now, watch,” instructed Pauline. As Sophie lowered Pauline’s hand and started to let go, Pauline held on and stepped forward, so that Sophie was now much closer to her—a hand’s breadth away instead of the length of her arm. And she lowered her eyes, peeping up at Sophie from underneath her dark lashes.

  Sophie’s eyes followed hers automatically. Then, realizing that she was staring straight down Pauline’
s dress, she hastily stepped back.

  “That’s what you want.” Pauline jerked her chin down toward her décolletage. “You want to bring him right up to you and then lower your eyes so that he looks down, too. You look modest and charming, and he gets an eyeful of your titties. Plus the smell. You have to get him close enough to smell you.”

  That had been bad enough, but then there was the discussion (more like a lecture, because Sophie had been too shocked to say much) about virginity. With some regret, Pauline had decided that Napoleon might be upset if Sophie slept with Gian Andrea. “He would blame it on me, for one thing,” she said. “But really, there is quite a bit that you can do without actually letting him inside.” And she had proceeded to describe those options with great relish.

  Sophie had gulped down three glasses of the sweet wine in a frantic attempt to numb her brain but had still understood far more than she wanted to. Now, alone on her bench in the red-and-black marble vault of the chapel, she watched Gian Andrea take communion and tried to shut out the images of his mouth doing something else. Something unspeakably embarrassing and revolting. She fervently hoped that her father was right that there was no God, because if He existed, He would probably strike her with lightning for thinking about things like that in the chapel that housed Christ’s burial shroud.

  Mass was long, and Sophie’s knees were bruised by the end. She had also worked herself into a state of utter panic. The thought of the banquet terrified her. To be on display, in public, in that dress suddenly seemed like a nightmare instead of a fairy tale. And what if Pauline was right? What if Gian Andrea did take her aside afterward and kiss her? Put his tongue in her mouth? Put his hand down her dress? Was that what she, Sophie, wanted? Or was it what Pauline wanted? Her head was pounding; her stomach felt like she had swallowed a dead toad. She couldn’t go; she wouldn’t go; she was sick. As the rest of the court filed out, Sophie huddled in her corner, unable to move. The silver lamps around the altar in front of her wavered and dimmed; black spots danced in front of her eyes.