The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon's Bird of Paradise

by Carolly Erickson

  We prospered, but many others failed. An uncle of Alexandre’s, Etienne de Beauharnais, drank a heavy dose of laudanum and died, leaving a letter to the marquis in which he confessed that he faced bankruptcy and could not endure the shame.

  I attended the funeral, which was held at the church of the Ursuline Sisters in Fontainebleau. Eugene and Hortense were with me, Eugene a handsome boy in his school uniform which resembled that of the palace guards, Hortense quiet and subdued in her little gown of black velvet. After the funeral mass ended Alexandre came up to us and kissed the children, who were glad to see him. I was relieved to notice that he was as warm to Hortense as he was to Eugene. I hoped that meant that he no longer doubted her paternity.

  “I’ve been seeing your name in the newspapers,” I said to Alexandre. “They say you speak out often on the issue of political reform. That you are a persuasive orator.”

  He looked proud and self-important, hearing my words. “I hold strong views. I express them openly. France must change if she is to survive, and the change cannot come from our timid king. The people must create their own future.”

  “How?”

  “By coming together, as they did centuries ago, when their parliament, the Estates-General, met and consulted. Only the Estates-General can prevent the king from becoming a bankrupt like my Uncle Etienne.” Alexandre seemed like a man possessed, so passionately did he speak of the need for reform. It was as if all the passion he once had for carousing and womanizing was now being redirected into politics—with the result that he was a changed man. Perhaps even a nobler man. I was gratified to see that he had found a worthwhile outlet for his intensity of purpose. At least, some considered the cause of political reform worthwhile. Others condemned it and called it treasonous.

  “I’ve had a letter from Martinique,” Alexandre told me toward the end of our conversation. “From a colonel who knows your father well.”

  “Oh? And how is father?”

  “Ill and weak—and growing weaker. He has had a fever. The colonel says he is determined to rescue Les Trois-Ilets from ruin despite his ill health. He works in the fields alongside the slaves, with his shirt off, in the fierce hot sun.”

  “Poor father. He won’t last long, doing that. Mother must be browbeating him, forcing him to work. She has never forgiven him for his lazy ways and his vices.”

  My conversation with Alexandre increased my concern for my father, and made me homesick for Martinique. When a letter arrived from Aunt Rosette, telling me that my grandmother Catherine had died I knew I had to return home.

  I found a ship that was due to sail within a few weeks and made hasty preparations to be on it. Eugene remained at his boarding school but Hortense came with me—and Euphemia of course. I took gifts for everyone, a new gold-topped walking stick for father, a large gilded birdcage for Aunt Rosette, to keep her parrots in, a necklace of topaz and a harp for my mother, a leather-bound edition of the works of Montesquieu for my Uncle Robert and various other small gifts for my cousins and friends.

  I did not relish the idea of another ocean crossing and dreaded the prospect of sharing a tiny cramped cabin with Hortense and Euphemia— and my mother’s harp. Because we were the last of the passengers to make our arrangements we were given the smallest and most uncomfortable cabin.

  “By all that’s holy!” Euphemia blurted out when she saw it. “It’s barely big enough for two roaches to fight in!”

  The damp, rotting walls of our tiny cabin seemed to close in around us as the days passed and the weather grew hotter and more humid. Green blooms of mold appeared on the ceiling and dropped on us as we slept. Hortense was very ill right from the start of the voyage and could keep nothing in her stomach; her piteous retching woke us often during the long nights. No sooner had she recovered than Euphemia turned pale and began vomiting in her turn. Eventually, after a week of bad storms, I too succumbed.

  We were a fine sight, we Parisians in our stained, limp gowns that reeked of sea-damp, our hair disheveled and our faces pinched and thin. Still, when we were fit enough we went up on deck, eager for fresh air and company, and I quickly made the acquaintance of two planters who were returning to Martinique after a long sojourn in Paris.

  “I tell you, I’m selling up,” said the older of the two, who introduced himself as Felix Houlier. His weathered face was creased by years in the sun, and his eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, were full of discouragement. “Just as soon as the next crop of fourteen-month cane is in, I’m off for France again. I’ve built myself a house near Chambord. I’ll sell this crop and pay off the bankers. With luck I’ll have enough left over to live on.”

  “I can’t afford to sell,” said his companion, Barthelemy Aries, a dapper, sharp-featured man who I judged to be in his thirties. “I go deeper into debt every year. If only my father would die and leave me his money! But he won’t. He’s a crusty old bird, still strong and mean at sixty.”

  Both men knew my father—most Grands Blancs knew one another, as our island of Martinique is small. They spoke of him with respect, which surprised me as I had always assumed he was a failure. I had heard my mother and grandmother say this so often that the idea was deeply implanted in me.

  “Tascher is sound enough,” Houlier said, wiping his sweaty brow. “He’s not had an easy time of it, after all. I heard that half his slaves ran off to join that ragtag army in the hills.”

  “What ragtag army?”

  “The ones who call themselves Friends of Liberty,” spat out Aries. “Friends indeed!! What they really want is to kill all the Grands Blancs. They tried to poison us all last summer, by putting rancid meat out in the marketplace for us to buy. They steal our cattle and kidnap our children. They threaten our women and terrify the house slaves. They want us all dead and gone, so they can take over the island and rule it themselves.”

  I was shocked at what I was hearing. Aunt Rosette, in her letters to me, never mentioned any slave army or threats against the Grands Blancs. Yet she was an exceptionally nervous and timid person. If she were frightened, wouldn’t she have told me?

  When we finally disembarked in Martinique I could feel the tension in the air. Passengers hurried off the ship, and the friends and relations waiting on the dock to meet them gave them the swiftest of greetings before hurrying them into waiting vehicles and speeding away.

  I was relieved to see that Uncle Robert was there to meet us, his tall, portly figure a comforting sight. He embraced me and Euphemia, then held out his arms to Hortense, who ran to him willingly.

  “Look, Uncle Robert, I’ve learned the hornpipe.” She danced and twirled there on the dock, repeating the steps the sailors had taught her after she recovered from her seasickness.

  “Brava, little one,” he cried out. “What a fine little performer you are!”

  “Perhaps she can dance for pennies in the marketplace,” I said jokingly. Instead of smiling Uncle Robert’s face became stern. “Not in the marketplace,” he said firmly, hoisting Hortense up in his arms and holding onto her tightly. “Not these days at least. Now then, Yeyette, you can all ride in my carriage. Joseph wanted to come and meet you but your mother forbade it. You will understand why when we reach Les Trois-Ilets.”

  Driving through the marketplace, I began to see what my uncle meant. The once lively, bustling square was all but deserted, the few pathetic-looking stalls that now clustered in one corner offered few goods for sale and the few shoppers appeared to be clutching their marketbaskets tightly, as if in fear. Armed guardsmen patrolled the margins of the square, swinging thick truncheons, cane knives stuck into their belts.

  “We had an incident here last Wednesday,” my uncle whispered to me. “A Grand Blanc was found hanging upside down, butchered like a hog. His guts and blood were all over the cobblestones. Part of his skin was flayed off. I tell you, Yeyette, it was the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”

  “But who did it?”

  “He had a sign hanging from his feet. It said ‘Friend
s of Liberty’ “ I shuddered, imagining the ghastly scene.

  “Every night since then we have patrolled the streets here in FortRoyal, rounding up runaways and rebels. They have paid a heavy price for what they did, I assure you. Look!”

  I followed Uncle Robert’s pointing finger and saw, hanging from a lamppost, the crumpled form of an African, naked except for a loincloth, a thick rope around his neck. Quickly I covered Hortense’s eyes. I did not want her to see the dead man’s frightening face, the lolling tongue and staring eyes.

  “There—and there—” Uncle Robert pointed out more dead bodies, most of them very black, a few lighter, like Euphemia.

  “We even had to hang the police,” Uncle Robert went on. “They were no good. They joined the rebels!”

  “Surely not all of them!”

  “Many. The rest ran off to the caves in the mountains.”

  All the way to my father’s plantation of Les Trois-Ilets I held Hortense’s hand and tried to distract her from looking out the carriage window. Every African face I saw on the road looked menacing, every group of slaves working in the cane fields seemed a threat. The thick plantings of cane, the clumps of broad-leaved banana trees and plantains, no longer appeared beautiful to me. Now they seemed like hiding places for rebels, camouflage behind which an army of angry blacks lurked, waiting to kill us all.

  I tried to tell myself that I was not thinking clearly, that in my tired state, worn down by the hardships of the long sea journey, I was allowing my fears to run away with me. I had grown up among Africans, I had loved them as playmates, beloved servants, friends. My half-sister Euphemia was closer to me than anyone, except perhaps my father. How could these familiar companions threaten harm?

  When we reached Les Trois-Ilets and Uncle Robert left us, hurrying off in his carriage, I sensed at once a pronounced chill in the atmosphere, a tension that told me my father and mother were in conflict. Sadness overcame me as everything I saw in the converted sugar mill where my family lived reminded me of my grandmother. We would not see one another again. My dearest grandmother! If only she were here, with her clear-eyed understanding of things and her tart tongue, I would not feel so sad, confused and frightened.

  My father, showing a vigor that quite surprised me, given all that I had heard about his weakened state, came into the room that served as a front hallway and greeted us. There was a light in his eyes and a confidence in his speech that I had not heard since I was a young child.

  “Yeyette! You have become a true Parisienne!” He gazed in admiration at my costly gown, overlooking the salt stains on its fine fabric, and also noted my jeweled rings and dangling earrings. “You will no doubt find Martinique tedious, after the pleasures of the capital. And your lovely little Hortense, dear child, come and kiss your old grandpapa.” She went to him, smiling, and kissed him on the cheek. “And where is Eugene, the young warrior?”

  “Still at school, papa, preparing to enter the military academy.”

  “Yes, of course. He is a dedicated boy, isn’t he? And a handsome one, to judge from the miniature portrait you sent me.”

  My father chattered on, his energetic flow of talk seemingly unceasing. Finally I interrupted him.

  “Papa! Where is mother? Where is Aunt Rosette?”

  “They have chosen to move into the wind-house.”

  “The wind-house? But that’s nothing more than a cave in the rocks!”

  He shrugged. “It was their choice.”

  “No, father. I cannot believe that. Something has happened. Does it have anything to do with the savage attack Uncle Robert told us about, the killing of that poor man in the marketplace?”

  “Let us not speak of that in front of the child. Euphemia, take Hortense upstairs and put her to bed.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Euphemia looked over at me. I nodded to her. “Yes, Euphemia, please take Hortense to my room and let her lie down.”

  “Now, father,” I said when they had gone, “tell me what is going on.” But there was no need for him to say anything more. A woman came into the room and walked over to him, her walk sinuous, a wide smile on her dark brown face. She wore a red and gold gown that clung tightly to her shapely thighs and barely covered her full round breasts, a gown no respectable woman, Grand Blanc or African, would wear. Golden earrings hung from her earlobes, and her coppery brown skin shone as if oiled. She approached my father with an unmistakable seductiveness, and he drew her to him with an embrace so intimate that it left no doubt that they were lovers.

  So brazen was their revelation of intimacy that I almost felt embarrassed, as if I were witnessing something too private to be viewed. I turned away, suddenly angry on my mother’s behalf. I began to gather my things, intending to leave the room. But before I could do so, the woman spoke, her language a heavily accented Creole French, her husky voice rich and full.

  “Yeyette! Don’t you recognize me?”

  I turned to face her. “I am addressed as Madame la Vicomtesse by slaves.”

  “Selene is not a slave, Yeyette. I gave her her freedom long ago. I thought it a shame that such a lovely body should be wasted, working in the fields.” He passed one hand down the curvaceous length of the woman, from her bare shoulder across one breast, inward to her slim waist and outward again along the thrust of her hips and on down her leg.

  “When I was very young, and just off the boat from Africa, I served you,” the woman said to me. “I sat on the floor while you slept, and pulled on the rope that turned your fan. I kept you cool. You never spoke to me. Not once. You never said, ‘Selene, are you hot too? Are you thirsty?’ You never looked at me. To you, I was not even there. I was a ghost, a wraith. A phantom raised by a quimboiseur.”

  I looked at the woman, offended by the brazenness of her speech— and offended far more by the way her hand rested possessively on my father’s shoulder.

  “No. I did not speak to you. You were a slave child performing a necessary task. There was no need for us to talk to one another. Just as there is no need for us to talk now.”

  “Oh, I think there is, Yeyette. You see, we are family, you and I— and Euphemia too. We are all related through Joseph, we all carry his blood. You and Euphemia are his daughters. The child inside me will be his son.”

  17

  A THIEF HAD BEEN CAUGHT, accused of stealing and hoarding sweet potatoes from the garden, then running away.

  All the slaves from Les Trois-Ilets were summoned by the tolling of the great bell that rang out over the cane fields. They had to watch the thief be punished, a warning to them, in those times of deepening conflict and unrest, that they too would face punishment if they did not obey the master.

  I stood beside my father on the veranda of the converted mill, waiting for the thief to receive his due.

  “It looks well to have the family with me at times such as these,” my father said. “As a reminder that we Grands Blancs are in charge, and will be for generations to come.”

  For once Selene was not clinging to my father’s arm—indeed she was nowhere to be seen. Her belly was becoming larger and larger. My father confided to me that the African midwife in Fort-Royal thought Selene might have twins.

  “How would that be, Yeyette?” father said proudly. “Imagine that. Twin boys. And at my age!”

  “You can hardly expect me to welcome Selene’s children into our family. Not while mother is shut away in the wind-house, humiliated and robbed of her rights.” I had said as much as I could on that subject, and had gotten nowhere.

  The slaves were slowly filing into the open space below the veranda. I watched their faces. Some were impassive, some resentful, many openly hostile. It was impossible not to notice, watching the slaves assemble, the scars they bore. Scars of their captivity: marks of the whip on their broad backs, raw weals from recent beatings, hands and fingers cut off, eyes and noses missing.

  “With the money you’ve sent me I bought fifty new Africans,” my father said. “And I’ve hired a new ov
erseer. There’ll be no more runaways now.”

  A tall, lithe man was walking in front of the assembled slaves, his walk neither fast nor slow, his step confident. He wore the leather breeches, linen shirt and dark vest of a planter. His dark hair, worn long, was tied back off his neck. His lean, tanned face was handsome, his expression unreadable.

  He motioned for the thief to be led in, and briefly—ever so briefly— he looked up onto the veranda, and into my eyes. The intensity of that furtive glance was unmistakable. It was the dark boy!

  I knew him at once—and felt my body respond.

  The dark boy had become a dark man, the power of his gaze intensified tenfold by his maturity. Seeing him, and feeling my desire for him sweep over me as it had so many years earlier, I had to reach out for the railing of the veranda to steady myself.

  “Who is he?” I asked my father as I began to regain my customary control. I indicated that I meant the overseer, who was tying the thief’s hands with a length of rope.

  “That’s Donovan. Donovan de Gautier. Used to be a soldier, so he says. Has no family—or none that he admits to having. He’s the best overseer I’ve ever had.”

  So the dark boy had a name. Donovan. Not a Creole name. An English name. Or was it Irish, like my grandmother?

  I could not take my eyes from him. I remembered the look of his slim, muscular naked body the day he dove into the sea when I was a girl. I remembered all of him. The look, the smell, the feel of him. The sheer joy of our lovemaking.