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

by Carolly Erickson

  “My own Yeyette,” Donovan wrote,

  I am with you in my every thought. Never doubt this. We are in Portugal near the seacoast. Our commander Lord Wellesley is a stalwart man. I am with the Highland Light Infantry but will go in disguise into Spain very soon. Burn this note! And pray for your Donovan.

  Not long afterwards another message informed me that he had made his way into Spain.

  You would be very surprised if you saw me Yeyette. I am now in disguise as an Irish priest hiding in a mountain village. The Spaniards shelter me. They hate the Great Satan (as they call Bonaparte) and want to see him defeated. They hate the French. It is said Bonaparte is coming to Madrid. You are in my heart.

  Soon all the talk at court was of Spain. Bonaparte left Warsaw, and Marie Walewska, and marched to Madrid where his army conquered the city and then attacked the invading British. I could hardly sleep at night, I was so worried about Donovan. I did not know the name of his village, or even what province he was in. His messages began to come less frequently. He wrote of taking part in ambushes and raids, of having to steal food to survive, of midnight assaults and dangerous clashes with French squadrons. As winter closed in, I received the shortest note yet, scrawled in a trembling hand:

  Dearest Yeyette, your image is forever before me. I am so cold and there is nothing to eat. I need you. Donovan.

  I was always careful to burn the messages I received but this one I could not bear to destroy. I felt that it might be the last letter I ever received from Donovan. With dread I folded it up into a tiny square and put it inside the charm Euphemia made me wear around my neck for protection. I vowed never to take it off.

  Not long afterwards Christian came to me in a much agitated state. I was presiding over a ceremony at court but managed to excuse myself on the pretext of feeling unwell. As I left the room I felt many pairs of eyes on me, wondering, speculating.

  “What is it, Christian?” I asked when we were alone. “Is it Hortense?” Hortense was recovering from childbirth, having had another son, whom she named Charles-Louis-Napoleon.

  “No, Your Imperial Majesty, it is news from Spain. Dire news.” He looked quickly around to assure himself that we were not being observed, and even pulled back a nearby curtain to see if anyone was behind it. There was no one.

  “There has been a terrible battle at a place called La Coruna. Bonaparte sent in all his men to attack the British, who had been starving and dying all winter. The British fought bravely, but they had no bullets left. They stood where they were, hacking at the French with their bayonets. Many died. The rest went to the seacoast and had to be rescued. It must have been a sight to see, all those hungry soldiers being rowed out to meet the warships on fishing boats, dinghies, smugglers’ trawlers, anything that would float.”

  He shook his head, as if in disbelief at the imagined sight he was describing.

  “And Donovan?” My voice was choked, I could barely speak.

  “I don’t know. I have heard nothing. But there is no reason to despair. He may not have been with the army. His task was to sabotage the French, and to gather information. Not to fight. He is a clever man. A survivor.”

  “In his last message to me he said that he was starving.”

  “I don’t know, Your Imperial Majesty. I simply don’t know. We must hope for better news soon. In the meantime, the opposition to Bonaparte is growing. Even within the army, and here at court. They say Bonaparte is having to divide his army, that he is being forced to fight in too many places at once. He is leaving Spain to fight the Austrians. Once he leaves, the British will invade again.”

  I returned to the salon where the ceremony was in progress. I leaned on Christian’s arm. I felt shaky, uncertain of my footing.

  “Courage, empress,” I heard Christian mutter. “Be brave. Fight with your bayonet.”

  I smiled. But after the ceremony ended, and the last of the guests and courtiers had bowed and curtseyed their way out of the salon, I felt a great emptiness inside. Though the ceremony had been a long one, and I had eaten nothing for many hours, I had no appetite. I felt listless, numb. As if all my thoughts and feelings had been purged.

  As I made my way back to my apartments, passing along the maze of corridors in the great sprawling palace, I came upon a message scrawled on a peeling wall in stark black paint. I reeled in shock. It read:

  EMPRESS OF NOTHING.

  51

  I WORE WHITE TO MY DIVORCE. It was a pretty dress, in very fine muslin, several layers of it, with a gathered bodice, low cut, that flattered my bosom and puffed sleeves in the newest style. I wore a veil, not unlike a wedding veil. My gown had a train, with a wide row of lace and ruffles, but this time, unlike my coronation, there was no question of any Buonapartes carrying my train, or refusing to carry it. I was on my own.

  Most of the Buonapartes were present, there in the candlelit throne room, for the divorce ceremony. They stood there gloating, their long campaign to get rid of me over at last. Paulette, very beautiful in her maturity, yet so ugly and spiteful inside, Caroline, sleek and smug, hateful Elisa, who I knew to be in conflict with Bonaparte over her title and her lands, always greedy for more, and Louis, his pustulant face all but hidden under a slouch velvet hat with a very wide downturned brim, seated because he could no longer stand for more than a minute on his unsteady legs.

  Joseph was not present, he was in Madrid attempting to restore order to his strife-torn kingdom, and my awful mother-in-law Letizia was not present either, thankfully. It would have made me very angry and upset indeed to see her there among her children, steely-eyed, hostile, knitting with her black yarn and crossing herself and muttering “Gesu!” every time my name was mentioned.

  My good, dear Eugene was there, but as Bonaparte’s deputy, not as my comforter or supporter. He stood beside the emperor, who was now, of course, his adoptive father, and waited to be of service. He was Prince Eugene now, I reminded myself, a married man and a father (his wife Augusta, of whom I was fond, was a Bavarian princess), a wounded, decorated war hero and among Bonaparte’s most valued commanders. He had grown into a fine man, a man any mother would be proud of. Yet on this day he was trembling visibly, his hands shaking as he handed Bonaparte the divorce documents, his entire body quivering with such agitation that I thought he might have an apoplectic fit.

  He was torn; his loyalty to Bonaparte was very strong, his honor as an officer unimpeachable. He would do his duty, obey his orders. Yet his love and loyalty to me knew no bounds—and today he was being commanded to assist in the painful process of making me a divorced woman.

  Shame, sorrow, pity, and a lasting stigma: that was divorce. From this day on I would be a discarded, disgraced woman, and Eugene was about to collaborate in any disgrace. It was no wonder he was trembling.

  I stood before a table where the official papers severing me legally from my husband were spread out. Bonaparte sat behind the table, in a thronelike chair. It was a civil divorce, to be sure, not a religious annulment. Six months earlier the pope had excommunicated Bonaparte and once again the imperial throne and the Vatican were at odds. But the important thing was, once these papers were signed, Bonaparte would be legally free to marry again. As would I.

  I would be free to marry! Why did the thought bring me no joy, only apprehension? Was it because the only man I would think of marrying, Donovan, was not the kind who would ever tie himself legally to one woman? Or was it because, having been wed to two men already, one of whom, Alexandre, was practically married to another woman already and the other, Bonaparte, had treated me with exceptional cruelty for years, I was frightened by the thought of ever being a bride again?

  I did not know. All I knew was that, at long last, the dreaded day had come, the day I would once again be Yeyette Tascher from Martinique, former viscountess, former empress, former mistress of the Tuileries, former wife of the most powerful man in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte.

  I stood quietly, listening to the opening remarks made by a court
official. I tried to remain composed, but felt faint. I could hear Paulette snickering, and Elisa sniffing. I swayed slightly, and reached for Christian’s arm to steady me. I saw Eugene start to come toward me, but shook my head ever so slightly and smiled, to indicate that I was all right. The look on my son’s face, a look of deep anguish and concern, wrenched my heart.

  The moment came when I had to read the speech Bonaparte had written for me.

  “With the permission of my dear husband,” I read, “I proudly offer him the greatest proof of devotion ever given to a husband—”

  I could not go on, my tears were flowing too fast. I handed the paper I had been reading from to Christian, who read the rest of it in a strong, clear voice.

  It was a touching ceremony, dignified and elevated in tone. Yet everyone present knew the stark reality behind the solemn words, the truth about our fissured marriage. The many mistresses my husband had had, his liaisons with actresses and dancers, titled ladies and courtesans. His long love affair with Marie Walewska, who had recently borne him a son. The quarrels. The stubborn silences. The tearful reconciliations. The passion thwarted, the love cankered and soured and turned to hate.

  And yet, despite the freight of emotion in that candlelit room as the ceremony concluded, there was a residue of affection. Bonaparte rose and came toward me, and kissed me on the cheek. “I will always be your friend,” he murmured.

  My friend! My nemesis, more likely. I had no doubt that, whatever tender sentiments he may have expressed, he would quite ruthlessly do me injury whenever it suited him. And if he should find out about my renewed liaison with Donovan, what then? I did not allow myself to imagine the consequences. For even though I was no longer his wife, I had no doubt that he still counted me among his possessions, part of his vast empire of lands, goods and chattel.

  I set off for Malmaison, my own place, my fortress, my refuge. I was glad to be leaving Marie Antoinette’s former apartments, with their host of memories, and the haunting presence of the late queen. I realized, as I left, that I had been living under her shadow for many years and I was stepping out from under that dark penumbra.

  When I reached Malmaison, and drove up through the front gate, I was much moved to see that all the servants and tenants from the estate farms had assembled in the broad courtyard to wait for me. There were hundreds of them, the grooms and valets in their velvet livery, the maids in their long blue gowns and white aprons, the herdsmen in their muddy trousers and their jackets, the farmers and gardeners, even the laborers who were building a new wing on the house came down from the scaffolding to stand quietly, hands folded, in respectful attendance as I reached the main door of the house.

  They did not clap or cheer, as the crowds at the Tuileries had always done. But their silence was eloquent. And as I alighted from the carriage and began to pass among them, reaching out to touch as many hands as I could and saying “Thank you, my good people,” I heard many a voice call out, “Welcome home, Good Josephine.”

  52

  WE HAD BEEN HEARING for several years about The Austrian archduchess Marie Louise.

  She was very young, a child really, barely out of the schoolroom. But she was said to be tall for her age (she was only seventeen when Bonaparte divorced me), and haughty, as would be expected in a greatniece of the former queen Marie Antoinette, and she played the piano fairly well and knew how to sketch and draw.

  To be sure, she was gawky and ungraceful, and quite plain, with pop eyes and the family curse, the ugly Hapsburg lip; everyone agreed that in my prime, I would have outshone her as the sun outshone the stars. But then, I have no royal blood, and Marie Louise was an emperor’s daughter.

  I didn’t really know what to believe about her. Unkind people, people who wanted to wound me, remarked on her lovely complexion and shapely arms and hands and said that she had a good intelligence and the kindest eyes in the world; more tactful friends confided to me that her cheeks were far too red and her body far too fat for a girl of seventeen. At twenty-five, they whispered, she would look like a hefty Austrian barmaid, not an empress.

  But on one point all were agreed: Marie Louise would very probably give Bonaparte the thing he wanted most, a son. The Hapsburgs were fertile. Marie Louise’s mother had had thirteen children, her greatgrandmother had had twenty-six sons and daughters. She herself could surely be counted on to produce an heir to the imperial throne.

  Hortense, who to her chagrin had been appointed as lady-in-waiting to the future empress, told me quite a lot about her not long after she arrived in Paris.

  “She is afraid to meet you,” Hortense confided to me after she had been in attendance on Marie Louise for a few days. “She thinks you are beautiful, and she has no illusions about her own looks. She is only of average prettiness.”

  “Maybe she only says that because you are my daughter.”

  “No, I think she is being candid. At first I thought she might be trying to flatter you through me, but now I don’t think so. She is really quite innocent and trusting.”

  “Lord help her at Bonaparte’s court, with all the intrigue and spying and rivalries that go on!”

  “She fears all that as well. She didn’t really want to marry Bonaparte, but she agreed to in order to please her father. She adores her father. She told me that when she heard that Marie Walewska had had Bonaparte’s child she ran from the room and went to the chapel and begged her confessor to free her from having to marry him. She said she cried all night.”

  “Poor child.”

  “She asked me a lot of questions. She wanted to know if Bonaparte would cut off her head if she displeased him. Imagine!”

  “Tell her he won’t cut off her head, he’ll just divorce her.”

  “She wanted to know if Bonaparte is musical, and whether he likes to dance.”

  I had to laugh at that, since Bonaparte cannot carry a tune and hates to dance, though he does try on occasion.

  “She asked me, are there any museums in Paris? And would Bonaparte be offended if her wedding gown had English point lace instead of Brussels point. I said I thought she ought to avoid anything English.”

  “I must say she sounds like a nice, sensible girl.”

  “I think so. She deserves a better fate than being married to Bonaparte. But then,” Hortense added ruefully, “at least she isn’t going to marry a husband with the English disease.”

  The wedding was at the Louvre, and as Hortense told me afterwards, Marie Louise’s beautiful white satin wedding gown had not a scrap of English point lace. Eugene was a prominent member of the wedding party, as was Hortense, but I was given strict orders to stay away. Not that I would have wanted to attend! I had no desire to confront my young rival—for that is how the courtiers regarded her—or to be a spectator at my husband’s second wedding.

  As it turned out, I did well to avoid the ceremony, for it had a disastrous aftermath.

  A grand ball was held in honor of the newlyweds at a lavishly decorated ballroom rented for the occasion. Everyone of importance in Parisian society was present, besides all the court officials, prominent diplomats, surviving members of the old aristocracy and, of course, the Buonapartes— even pregnant Caroline.

  The ball began well. In honor of his bride, Bonaparte attempted to dance every dance (he had taken a few lessons) and his attempts were rewarded with polite applause, and shy smiles from Marie Louise. The grand room filled quickly, there was too little space for all the invited guests, and many others had managed to find their way in uninvited. Bodies were packed together. The heat in the room rose measurably. The dancing grew more lively.

  And then a woman screamed.

  Smoke began pouring from walls and doorways. Curtains caught fire, and went up in bursts of flame. Gowns were set burning, and then there was pandemonium as panicked women collided, their wide skirts igniting each other. Shouts and screams rose from hundreds of choking throats as the room filled with smoke and it was discovered that all but one of the exits was block
ed by flames.

  Bonaparte ungallantly took out his sword and hacked his way to the only open doorway, dragging his terrified bride behind him. Others were trapped, and trampled. Many burned to death. Many others were horribly disfigured. All the Buonapartes escaped, even the elderly Letizia, but Caroline suffered a painful miscarriage—and blamed Marie Louise.

  “You’ve brought a curse on us all,” Caroline shouted at her new sisterin-law as she was lifted into the imperial coach clutching her stomach.

  I heard about the whole ghastly episode the following day, from none other than Bonaparte, who rode to Malmaison in a great hurry and in the greatest distress. I could tell, from the way he instantly jumped down from his lathered horse, that his business with me was urgent, but I wondered, what could bring him here, all the way from Paris, and on the morning after his wedding night.

  “They are out to get me, all of them,” he shouted as he burst into my sitting room unannounced, his clothing disheveled and his sparse hair in disarray. “This is their doing, the plotters and counter-plotters. The ones who want me dead.”

  “What is their doing? What are you talking about?” I asked him.

  “The fire, the fire.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “The fire in the grand ballroom last night. Haven’t you heard?” I shook my head.

  “Arsonists. Plotters. They set the fire. The building burned to the ground. Dozens of people died. Caroline was taken suddenly ill, and has lost her baby.”

  “How terrible!”

  “They meant to trap me inside and kill me. They very nearly succeeded.” “But who?” I asked, feigning ignorance though I knew full well who the principal plotters were likely to have been. “I’ll find out. “I’ll kill them all. I swear it!”