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

by Carolly Erickson

  She scrutinized me, her eyes resting shamelessly on my full bosom.

  She barely glanced at Hortense (who, I must confess, was not a pretty girl, though her character was very fine). She ignored Eugene, whom she had known in Egypt for almost a year. Instead her eyes rested on Coco, who was a precociously pretty child with my father’s small, almost womanish, delicate features. She had her mother’s lithe, slender body, her ripe coppery skin, and her beautiful black eyes and luxuriant curling black hair which Euphemia tamed each morning and tied back off her face. Coco was an irrepressible, exuberant child, energetic and active. She resisted all attempts to dampen her spirits and turn her into the sort of meek, inert, doll-like lump of walking obedience most wellborn parents desired their daughters to be.

  “So this is your love-child,” Bellilotte said. Her voice was high and brash.

  “Coco is my stepsister. And I do not recall inviting you into my house.”

  She continued to regard me coolly. “He said you were a haughty bitch.” She swept past us and on into the dining room, where Eugene, courteously but firmly, attempted to take her arm and lead her back outside.

  “Don’t try it, boy. You heard what your father said. He wants me to look around. Don’t make me scream for him.”

  Just then Euphemia trod on Bellilotte’s gown, making it impossible for her to move without tearing the fabric.

  “Get your black foot off my gown!”

  Euphemia reached into the bodice of her own silk gown and pulled out her favorite idol, the Ibo Red Goddess. She swung the small carved image on its chain in front of Bellilotte’s alarmed face.

  “Have you ever seen one of these?” she asked.

  Bellilotte, her light blue eyes wide, nodded her head slowly.

  “It can bring rain, cure fevers, make men fall in and out of love—all sorts of things.”

  “I—I have seen idols before. When my husband and I—I mean my former husband and I—were in Bengal, when we were first married—”

  “Why, this little statue can destroy a woman’s beauty in a few moments. Hives, warts, wrinkles, pockmarks: the Red Goddess can bring them all. Ah, what harm they can do to a lovely complexion!” She raised the fetish higher, and swung it back and forth with greater vigor.

  Bellilotte instinctively put her hand to her dewy cheek, as if to ward off the hives and warts and other disfigurements.

  “Bright eyes can grow dim, lovely hair can fall out,” Euphemia said, as if chanting, her voice singsong in its rhythms. “Rank odors can arise from her womanly parts, odors no man would ever want to come near—”

  Without waiting to hear more, Bellilotte began to run, her gown tearing as she took her first steps, for Euphemia kept her foot firmly clamped on the hem of her skirt. In her torn gown, her eyes wide with fear, the girl ran to Bonaparte in the courtyard, who showed his annoyance.

  “Out so soon?”

  “That black woman threatened me.” “How?”

  “She said she would make warts on my face.”

  Bonaparte laughed. “Pay no attention. Get into the carriage and wait for me there.”

  Pouting, Bellilotte obeyed, taking her time climbing gracelessly into the carriage, trailing shreds of purple cloth. Once inside, she stared out the carriage window watching all that was going on.

  My arm on Eugene’s, I now walked out into the courtyard at a stately pace. My knees trembled, for Joseph stood there, beside his brother, glancing up to watch my approach and talking to Bonaparte all the while.

  When I reached Bonaparte I stopped and addressed him.

  “I bought this house with my own money,” I said, as slowly and clearly as I could. “It is mine.”

  Bonaparte whirled to face me. “May I remind you, madame, that you are still my wife. The wife of General Bonaparte, no less. Everything you own is his. And you have no money of your own, as you well know.”

  “I have what I borrowed from Barras.”

  He snorted. “Borrowed? On what terms?”

  I had no answer. I had accepted the money Barras offered me, taken from his overflowing safe. I had assured him that I could repay him, knowing, all the while, that he would expect no repayment, then or ever. Knowing that he was so rich he needed none.

  Bonaparte rudely turned his back on me and resumed his conversation with Joseph.

  “It will amuse me to sell this costly place and use the profit to drive Barras out of office.”

  So that was why Bonaparte wanted my lovely Malmaison. To pay for his planned takeover of France. Eugene had kept me informed of the secret meetings and intrigues being carried out toward this end. I was well aware that my husband, responding to the loud, overwhelming outcry of support he received on his arrival in France, intended to become its sole ruler—and very soon. Given this grand plan, I realized that his visit to Malmaison and his conversation with me must seem unimportant indeed.

  “I forbid you to use my house for your selfish ends.”

  I don’t know where I found the courage to say this—perhaps from the feel of my son’s strong, sturdy left arm, perhaps from my hatred of Joseph, and my anger at what he had tried to do to me, perhaps from my contempt for the blowsy Bellilotte. Or perhaps because I had grown stronger since my struggle for life in Plombieres and in the long months of my recovery.

  Bonaparte turned slowly back toward me. His eyes had narrowed. “Do you imagine, madame, that you can do anything at all without my permission?”

  Childishly, I kicked dust on his dark blue trousers. I heard snickers of laughter.

  “Take your mother back into the house, Eugene, before I am forced to discipline her in front of the servants.”

  Quietly Eugene responded. “I think, general, that she has a right to be here.”

  “Perhaps you did not understand me Eugene. I do not blame you for any of your mother’s many wrongs. Nor for her infidelity, or for the shame she has brought on me and my family, or for the way she has disgraced herself and you, or for the dishonor she has brought on the people of France as my wife. It is not your fault that she is unworthy to be the consort of a head of state. I cannot forgive her—but I can and do forgive you for your loyalty to her. I will always look on you as my son. I will keep you near me. You have earned my favor.”

  I was never prouder of Eugene than I was in that moment.

  “General,” he said, “I cannot serve you if you desert and insult my mother. I must take care of her. I hereby decline any offer of continued service you make to me. I will now say my farewell, and resign my post.”

  He gently lifted my arm off his and, taking a step toward Bonaparte, drew from his scabbard the sword Bonaparte had presented to him years earlier, Alexandre de Beauharnais’s sword. The blade gleamed in the sunlight, but even in the brief instant it was exposed to the light I could tell that it had grown dull, that its once flawless surface was nicked and scratched and that the hilt had rusted. It was no longer the blade of a boy, but of a warrior, a battle-scarred length of grey metal, a blade that, I felt sure, had taken many lives.

  Eugene knelt and offered the sword to Bonaparte.

  And then the general’s stern face began to soften, his narrowed eyes began to widen and fill with tears. He opened his arms to Eugene, and to me, and without thought we ran into his embrace.

  “Oh, all is forgiven. Only love, only love,” he murmured in a broken voice, kissing us again and again. He reached for Hortense, and Coco, and finally Euphemia. Forgetting everyone else, oblivious to all but our feelings of unity and affection, we hugged and kissed one another again and again.

  Bonaparte picked me up and carried me into my great round bedroom, ignoring the squawks of the furious Bellilotte, and there we made love, again and again, his ardor seemingly greater than ever. My relief was beyond description. I yielded happily to his embraces and gave him the peace of heart and body that he craved. We were one again. We did not come out of the bedroom for three whole days.

  42

  “MONSIEUR,” I cal
led out to the workman standing on a ladder high above my head. He didn’t hear me.

  “Monsieur!” I called out again, more loudly.

  “Pardon me, milady.” He made an awkward attempt to bow, standing on his ladder. “Please tell me what you desire.” He began to descend the ladder.

  “Oh no, please. Don’t bother to come down. I just wanted to ask you about the chandelier. About all the candles.”

  We stood in the grand dining hall of the Tuileries Palace, a vast room whose dimensions I could not even begin to guess. A room larger, perhaps, than all of Les Trois-Ilets put together.

  Tall columns of veined pink marble topped with gilded Corinthian capitals framed high rounded windows. The elaborately carved moldings were painted in silver and gold filigree. Lifesize nude statues filled niches above which were golden coats of arms supported by winged cupids. On the painted ceilings goddesses of plenty and harvest gods disported themselves amid cornucopias overflowing with fruits, nuts and candies. A smiling Bacchus reclined in inebriated satiety above my head. All around me, where I stood on the shining parquet floor, stretched long tables laid with crisp white linen and crystal, shining silver epergnes and vases of sweet-smelling flowers from the greenhouses.

  Though I could still hardly believe it, I was mistress of the Tuileries Palace now My immensely popular husband, through a series of political maneuvers, had succeeded in making himself the most powerful man in France. We moved into the palace and were attempting to revive the grand state kept there by the king and queen before their executions.

  It was all very strange to me—very strange and very uncomfortable. I am a planter’s daughter from Martinique, not royalty. To be sure, I had observed the late queen from a distance, when I was a girl staying with my Aunt Edmee in Fontainebleau. But I had never attended a royal levee or ball. I was not familiar with court etiquette. I had many titled friends and acquaintances who were at home in the palace, and from being among them I had acquired, over the years, a certain elegance (so people said) and an ability to put others at ease as a hostess. Still, I felt very much a novice in my role as mistress of the Tuileries Palace. I had a great deal to learn. I planned to begin learning from the servants who, after all, were the ones who made the palace run smoothly

  “Please tell me your name monsieur.”

  “I am Christian de Reverard, milady.”

  “Then, Christian, kindly tell me how it is that the candles are all lit at the same time when the guests come in for supper. It always seems to happen as if by magic.”

  The man smiled. “It is quite ingenious, milady. You see, each candle is connected to one other by a small string. I am attaching the strings now. The strings cannot be seen from the floor, where you are standing, but if you were to come up here next to me, on a ladder, you could see them quite clearly.”

  I peered up toward the beautiful ceiling high above me, where the goddesses and gods were in their wispy costumes. I could not see any strings among the candles.

  “At a signal, when the procession begins and you and the First Consul lead in your guests and the musicians begin to play, lit candles are touched to the strings at each end of the room. It only takes a few seconds for the fire to leap from candle to candle, until all are lit.”

  “And how many candles are there?”

  “Goodness, I have no idea. Only the Grand Master of the Candles knows that.”

  “May I ask, Christian, how you learned all this?”

  “I was a groom at Versailles, milady, from the time I was nine years old.”

  “My father was a groom there too. I wonder if you knew him. Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie.”

  “There were many of us, milady. Hundreds. I cannot remember all their names.”

  “No, of course not. Thank you so much, Christian. I will not forget you.”

  “I am honored to be of service, milady. May I resume tying the strings now?”

  “Of course.”

  It was time to dress for the ball we were giving that evening. We had much to celebrate. For the first time in many years, France was at peace. A treaty had been signed with England and both countries agreed to end their fighting. The worst excesses of the Revolution were long over. Many of the titled lords and ladies who had fled during those dark years were returning, and the priests also, and Bonaparte was on his way, people said, to restoring Catholicism in France—something the revolutionaries would never have believed possible.

  To be sure, some people were saying that bad times were returning. That soon we would need another Revolution to get rid of Bonaparte. And it was true, he ruled quite firmly. More firmly than King Louis had. He did not like anyone to criticize him. Many newspapers had been forced to cease publication because they printed critical articles about him and some plays that attacked the government were banned.

  Still, I did not think things were as bad as they had been before the Revolution, when everyone was going bankrupt and there was no bread and the king and queen did not seem to care.

  No, things were not as bad. France was prosperous once again, and people had faith in Bonaparte. He was still so young—only in his early thirties—and he had done so much in his short lifetime.

  I, on the other hand, was nearing forty, and there was no disguising that unfortunate fact.

  I was getting to look old. I was old. My husband told me so constantly, even in front of others.

  What he said was quite true. My teeth were black stumps, the stumps of an old woman. I couldn’t bring myself to wear the wooden teeth others of my age wore. My husband kept telling me that General Washington, one of his heroes, wore wooden teeth and I should too, but I couldn’t bear the thought, and the pain (I know there would have been pain, a great deal of it), the awful pain of having the stumps drawn would have been unbearable. So I just kept my mouth shut, and hid my black stumps behind my fan when I talked, and did not open my lips when I smiled.

  My hair was dyed, as it had started to turn grey. I wore thick white makeup to disguise the red blotches in my complexion. I wore too much rouge, Bonaparte said. But I had to wear it. I no longer had any youthful color in my cheeks. And at times—yes, I confess it—I wore gowns that were too revealing, gowns that might looked well on me once but that were much too young for me now. I had a weakness for trying to look girlish, like the pretty girl I had been in Martinique.

  The truth was, I could not bear to think of myself as other than a girl. Becoming an older woman, even a handsome older woman, frightened me. I had not the gift for that, as some women did.

  So I did everything I could to keep old age away. I slept with a slab of raw meat on my face to freshen my complexion. I wiped thick unguents on my stinking gums to sweeten my breath. I doused my body in perfume. I stayed out of bright sunlight and let the soft glow of candles flatter my face and neck.

  I did my best.

  It was not good enough.

  On the night of our celebration ball, I dressed in a gown I hoped Bonaparte would like. It was of soft sheer ivory muslin, and it clung in a flattering way to my bosom and hips. The white lace bodice was subtly revealing yet chaste—a good compromise, I thought, between what was then fashionable and what was appropriate for the mistress of the Tuileries. Over it I planned to wear a cashmere shawl in the stylish color of Fly’s Bottom but at the last minute I changed my mind. I had an inspiration.

  That season, to celebrate the peace between England and France, the best dressmakers were featuring something called an English spenser, a very short, military-style jacket with brass buttons that stopped above the waist and gave a very smart appearance. I had ordered several of these, in blue, grey and green. I asked my maid to bring me the blue one and put it on over the muslin gown, adding a jaunty heron feather in my curly hair.

  I was nearly ready. Looking at my reflection in the pier glass I seemed pale. I picked up my pot of rouge and added yet another layer to my wan cheeks.

  No, I thought. He will say I’m wearing too much. Quickly I wiped
the rouge away. But then I appeared grey, my skin lacking in warmth and life. I put on some more rouge, hoping I had struck a balance, avoiding unsightly aging without looking artificially youthful. It was so difficult to get it right!

  Sighing, I put the pot of rouge down and went boldly into Bonaparte’s dressing room.

  His turbaned bodyguard Roustan, tall and muscular and dressed only in garish red Turkish trousers, glared at me. I hated Roustan, and he knew it.

  “Sir, I am ready.” Bonaparte insisted that everyone call him “Sir,” now that he was the head of government. I thought this affectation absurd.

  He was dressing in front of a large triple mirror, two valets assisting him. He paused long enough to turn to gaze at me. Instantly his eyes darkened. I knew that look.

  “Take off that British-looking thing.” He turned back to the mirror and focused once again on his toilette.

  “If you mean my jacket, it is called a spenser, and it is very fashionable.”

  “Take it off at once.”

  I sighed and removed the spenser. I knew there was no use arguing with him.

  He ignored me while he finished dressing, and allowed himself to be inspected by the valets, who at length nodded, indicating that no more improvements could be made.

  The valets stood back against the wall, squeezing themselves into as small a space as possible.

  Bonaparte, who had never been vain about his looks, scrutinized his appearance in the tall mirrors. I thought I detected the briefest, and slightest, of smiles cross his thin lips. Vanity, I thought. He has vanity in him after all.

  He turned back toward me.

  “Disgusting. No one wants to look at an old woman’s tits.”

  “But sir—”

  His stare was like ice.

  I turned to go, then looked back, over my shoulder. “I am much admired,” was all I could think of to say. A feeble rejoinder, and I knew it.

  “You are much flattered. And take off that ridiculous rouge! You look like a streetwalker. Which you almost are,” I heard him mutter under his breath as he turned toward the nearby desk and sat down, pulling a pile of papers toward him.