“They think I will stop when I have conquered Russia, you know,” Bonaparte said, his mood suddenly shifting, his irritability retreating before a wave of reverie.
“They are wrong. The road to Moscow leads on, over frozen wastes and steppes, and tall high mountains, to the fabled land of India. Do you remember when I went to Egypt?”
“Of course, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“That was meant to be the start of a longer journey. I thought I would conquer the land of the pharaohs with ease, and then lay siege to Constantinople, and then go on to India, and complete my conquest of the world. That dream has not died.”
As he spoke he picked up an exquisitely carved porcelain figure of a young man from the desktop in front of him. He ran his hands over the smooth porcelain absentmindedly.
“Then I was a young commander, with much promise but no fortune. Now I am a rich man, even though my people are in distress. What better use of my wealth than to conquer the rest of the world? Besides, it is the only task left that is great enough to challenge my genius.”
With a snap he severed one of the porcelain figure’s legs and discarded it carelessly on the desk.
“I am writing to Tsar Alexander about this, to caution him. He has declared war on France. But he cannot declare war on my destiny!”
He is mad, I thought. He has taken leave of his senses.
“I am reminding the emperor that the course of human events is inevitable and that most men are mere pygmies. A few of us are giants. I am one of those few. The day of the giants has come.”
With a snap the remaining leg of the porcelain figure came off.
‘And what of the women?”
He shrugged. “Less than pygmies. Flies. Gnats.” He swatted an imaginary insect. “You will see,” he went on. “The world will see. I will wage a holy war against the Slav barbarians, and then conquer the Hindu heathens! I will civilize the globe!”
Waving his arms wildly, he flung the truncated porcelain boy into the fireplace where it smashed. “Now, leave me in peace. I must make my preparations. Soon the spring will be here and there will be grass enough for the horses, and the grand campaign can begin!”
MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY WAS APPROACHING, and I could not deny that my step had grown slower and my eyesight weaker. I was no longer spry, in fact my knees hurt when I walked around the lake where my black swans floated and I groaned a little each time I got up from a soft cushiony chair. I was not old yet, but I soon would be. How, I wondered, could I find the strength to follow Bonaparte eastward until I encountered the fer-de-lance and destroyed it?
Full of confusion, but concerned to find answers, I sought help from the one man who had always in the past come to my aid: my old friend Scipion du Roure.
I sent Scipion a letter telling him I needed to talk to him urgently and waited for a response. He sent word back that he would come to Malmaison as quickly as he could and in fact he made the journey from his home in Caen in record time.
I was watching for his carriage from my balcony. When it arrived I felt my spirits lift. I had not seen Scipion in several years—not since my divorce in fact. I knew that he had become a widower and was no longer an active naval commander. He had retired to Normandy, where he was still near the sea but within a few days’ journey from the capital.
With some difficulty Scipion alighted from his carriage and began to make his way toward the house, using a cane to support his bad leg, the old war wound from the naval battle off the coast of Cairo evidently plaguing him. I hurried downstairs to greet him and lead him into my private sitting room, where we could talk confidentially.
After hugging each other warmly and exchanging news of family and mutual friends, we began to talk in earnest. I opened my heart to Scipion.
“You may find what I am about to tell you somewhat fantastic,” I began, “but I urge you not to dismiss it, or to look on it as the product of a disordered mind. And remember, I am a child of Martinique, where sorcerers wield much power.”
“I would never dismiss anything that is important to you, Yeyette. And I remember Martinique and its distinctive culture well.” His grey eyes, hooded now and surrounded by wrinkles, looked at me steadily, expectantly.
“Well then, I recently had an important visitor ...” I described my encounter with the dying Orgulon and his message, and told Scipion what I thought it meant. I needed to find the dreaded fer-de-lance, I said, and kill it—and also destroy the demon that sent it. I needed to follow Bonaparte eastward, led by the new white light in the sky. When I finished I sat back and waited to hear what my old friend had to say in response.
He sat in thoughtful silence for a time, then looked over at me.
“What you say is quite fantastic, Yeyette, even preposterous. I cannot embrace it with my mind—but my intuition tells me that you sincerely believe what the old man told you. And as it happens, I believe that there is much evil being loosed in the world, far too much violence and havoc. Our emperor is at the center of it all.
“As you know, Yeyette, I have a son, Jean-Georges, who is an officer in the Rouen Dragoons. He is preparing to join the campaign. I have urged him not to go. In doing so I have abandoned all my old loyalties, my naval oath, even, one might say, my loyalty to France. But the life of my son is more important to me than any of these things, and I do not want to see that life squandered by a maniac who wears the name of emperor!”
I had never seen Scipion speak so vehemently. The words were wrenched from him, he was both angry and anguished.
“My son Eugene is with the army as well, as you know. Bonaparte has put him in command of many men. I do not want his life thrown away either.”
“Then let us work together to save our sons. I will help you, Yeyette. You intend to travel eastward. Very well. I can arrange passage for you by ship as far as Riga—the northern seas will be clear of ice in a few weeks— and from there I can direct you to contacts in Smolensk and towns nearby. Russia is vast, but I will do what I can to ease your way. I will give you names of people you can turn to if you need them. I will forewarn each one. Of course, you will need land transport, horses, money—”
“I have ordered a traveling coach,” I said, interrupting him. “I have the funds Bonaparte allots me, and I intend to sell two of my diamond parures to raise extra funds.”
“Better not to carry much money with you. Carry letters of reference and arrange for bank drafts instead.”
“When I was empress none of that was necessary,” I remarked ruefully.
“But you are not empress any longer. You must be prudent, and careful. Ah, Yeyette, how brave you are!” Scipion smiled and patted my hand. “Think what your Aunt Rosette would say, if she could see you now and find out what you are doing.”
I thought of Aunt Rosette as she had been in my childhood, always wearing her threadbare green gown with the crimson rosettes, their color faded to a dull pink.
“She would faint—if she were still living. She and my mother are both in their graves in the church at Les Trois-Ilets.”
“I’m sorry Yeyette.”
“They lived very comfortably in their old age, on the money I was able to send them. The slave rebellion left the plantation in ruins but mama and Aunt Rosette moved to Fort-Royal and were happy there, once all the turmoil died down.”
“No doubt they thought of themselves as royalty, with you becoming empress.”
“I’m glad mother died before I was divorced and disgraced.”
Scipion and I talked on, through the afternoon and all through dinner. He stayed for several days, helping me plan for the shipboard portion of my trip and advising me about how to prepare for the land portion. He talked with Christian and my tall, strong pseudo-cuirassier Edward Costello, both of whom insisted on going with me on my journey.
Scipion went home to Normandy for a few days, then on to Le Havre to arrange our sea passage, and finally returned to Malmaison to accompany us to the port.
It was a great deal for him to
undertake, on such short notice and with a need for secrecy. On his return to Malmaison he looked tired. One evening after dinner I insisted that he try to forget all that was on his mind and stroll with me through the gardens. Though he had to walk haltingly, leaning on his cane, he seemed to enjoy the brief respite from all that preoccupied him. June had come, and many of the flowering plants were in bloom.
“Is that jasmine I smell?” he asked as we passed a bush with a mass of white flowers.
“Yes. I’ve always loved it.”
“You wore jasmine in your hair on the night I first met you, at the ball in Fort-Royal. Do you remember?”
“Did I?” I was being deceitful, for of course I remembered, just as I remembered the pale yellow gown I wore on that night and the new yellow slippers that went with it. I remembered everything, that Aunt Rosette had been taken ill and had to go and lie down, leaving me unchaperoned, that I had agreed to meet Scipion in secret on the beach, and that he had kissed me under a mango tree.
“The scent stayed with me for days afterwards,” he said. “You were the most enchanting girl.”
I smiled. “All girls are enchanting at fifteen.”
“You were exceptional. Do you remember what I called you that night?”
“Bird of Paradise.”
We paused in our walking, breathing in the warm scented night air, recalling the sweetness of our past tryst. Frogs croaked, and somewhere in the distance birds were twittering.
“Dear Yeyette,” he began afresh, reaching for my hand. “When you return from your journey—”
“If I return,” I interjected.
“When you return, please tell me that we might talk of our future. We are both free now, we could marry.”
“Scipion, please, I cannot think of anything now but the task before me.”
“Then promise me that you will not reject the thought completely.” “You know that I have always been fond of you. Very fond.” I squeezed his hand, then released it. “Is there someone else?”
I paused, then admitted the truth. “Yes. But he has pledged himself to fight Bonaparte, and I have no idea where he is or how much danger he is in.”
“How terrible for you, my dear.”
We did not speak of Scipion’s suggestion again, but I saw the sadness in his eyes as he said goodnight to me that night, and the resigned look on his face when, our final preparations complete, our party climbed into the coach for the journey to LeHavre. I knew then that Scipion had come to Malmaison, not just because I had asked him to, but because he had been thinking of me with love, and intending to ask me to share his life.
56
I WAS PROUD OF MYSELF for the first three days at sea. Though our vessel, the schooner Gallimaufry, rose and dipped alarmingly as she made herway through the rough waters of the English Channel I did not get sick. I stood at the rail and watched the horizon, grasping at the nearest ropes to keep my balance, looking forward to evening when the comet became visible and shed its bright light among the stars.
On the fourth day, however, a storm blew down from the north and I had to stay below in my cabin, on my uncomfortable small bed, clutching my stomach and swallowing the bitter medicine Euphemia insisted that I drink. I was glad, then, that I had relented and let her come with Christian and Edward and me, despite her age and infirmities. At first I had said no when she wanted to come with us, but she argued and argued, and in the end convinced me that I had to have a maid.
“How can a lady travel without a maid? Especially a lady that was an empress?” Her indignation was strong, even if her logic was weak.
“I am traveling as plain Madame d’Arberg, Euphemia, not as a former empress, and I have Christian and Edward to look after me.”
She swore in her mother’s language. “I’d like to see Christian and Edward arrange your hair, or wash your underclothes, or mix your orangeflower water when you get frightened.”
“I can do for myself.”
She howled with laughter—at which I took offense, but then relented. She was right, of course. I needed a maid, and there was no time to find and train another one. Besides, Euphemia was my beloved guardian, my very dear sister, even, as I came to realize the older I got, my surrogate mother. Had I left her behind I would have missed her terribly.
Scipion had arranged passage for us aboard the French schooner which was bound for Riga carrying a cargo of provisions for the army, to be unloaded at the port, then shipped by wagon overland to storage depots at Minsk and Smolensk. We passengers were mere extra cargo, unimportant and largely ignored by the crew as they went about hoisting and striking sail, polishing their weapons and guns and cleaning the vessel, and above all, keeping watch for English ships.
“Can you swim?” Edward asked me on the day we boarded the Gallimaufry.
“Of course. I was raised in the Windward Isles. We swam every day.”
“Good. If we come under attack, rip off your skirts and petticoats and jump into the water. Swim hard for land. A ship of this kind never goes far offshore, so you can probably save yourself.”
Strong swimmer though I was, the thought was not comforting. The Channel waters were freezing cold, and the waves were high enough to obscure the coastline. I prayed that we would not come under attack.
The plan I had worked out, with Scipion’s help, called for us to travel by sea up the French coast and through the Dutch islands to Amsterdam, then to continue on via Hamburg and Gdansk to faroff Riga, where we, like the rest of the ship’s cargo, would go ashore and travel overland in hopes of encountering Bonaparte and his army somewhere west of Moscow.
Day by day I traced our progress, borrowing the captain’s sketchily drawn charts of the coastline. Strong winds drove us backwards at times, and frothy seas washed over our decks. As Edward had told me, the ship hugged the shore, but clouds often hid it, and though it was midsummer we had many days of rain.
We called in at Amsterdam and found the port full of news about Bonaparte’s campaign. He was said to be in Poland, on his way to visit his old love Marie Walewska. The army would rest in temporary camps near Warsaw, as many of the men were ill with fever.
We sailed on northward around the Danish peninsula, encountering a foreign ship, a privateer, that chased us for half a day before retreating into the mists of the Kattegat. I shivered night and day now, for we had entered the frigid Baltic and felt the chill of the far northern summer. Deep fogs swathed the barren coast and the sea looked grey and oily as we made our way along, inching ahead as it seemed to me.
At Hamburg we went ashore again and learned that the French had crossed the Niemen River into Russia, and were pursuing the Russian forces.
We were all finding the voyage tedious. The ship stank from the filthy bilge-water, there was no more fresh food (for we dared not go ashore in enemy ports to replenish our stores) and we rose each morning to the dull sameness of a stale routine.
Finally, after many weeks, we reached Riga, where French gunboats protected the schooner’s passage into the harbor. At last we were able to stand on dry land, our legs so unaccustomed to its rock-solid feel that we swayed as we walked.
Riga was full of conflicting stories about the grand French army. Some said a great battle had been fought and the French were in retreat, others that there had been no battle but the Russians were refusing to defend their land. It was rumored that French deserters were being rounded up and shot by the thousands. One persistent rumor was that Bonaparte was dead, eaten by wolves as he ran in panic through the forest. It was a very dramatic story—if hardly credible—and we heard it again and again as we disembarked and prepared for the next stage of our journey.
We were in Latvian territory now, and the dark-skinned, roundfaced Latvians, dressed in their jackets of furs and skins, tall fur caps pulled down over their foreheads, stared at us, curious to know who we were and where we came from. They muttered to one another in their own tongue, pointing at Euphemia and looking up at the exceptionally tall Edward i
n his cuirassier’s armor in some awe. I was dressed as a respectable French townswoman, Christian as my servant. To a Parisian observer the four of us, traveling together, would seem a conventional group: the well-to-do older lady, her maid, her servant and a soldier escort, brought along for protection. But to the inhabitants of Riga, where women never traveled without their husbands, fathers or sons, and where well-to-do women had dozens of servants, not just two, our party seemed very odd.
We were relieved when, our carriage loaded and our bags secured on top behind the coachman, we set out along the only road that led out of Riga, the narrow highroad that ran eastward along the foreshore until it turned and rose into pine-covered foothills.
Springs creaking, axles groaning, our carriage rolled and bumped along the ill-maintained road, clouds of choking dust rising into the still air. I had been cold when at sea, but now I sweltered in the baking hot sunshine, and drank often from the water jug at my feet. It was a thirsty landscape, with yellowing grasses at the verges of the road and harvesters moving through fields of rye and barley, slashing at the crops with scythes. The black earth was fertile; in some fields oats grew thick and green, clearly a second crop that would not be harvested for another month or more.
We stopped to water the horses and replenish our own vessels. Near the well sat a prosperous-looking peasant in a vest made of skins, pounding a shoe on a last. Christian approached him and, by an exchange of signs, received permission to draw water. This accomplished, Christian again engaged the man in a wordless conversation.
“I was asking him about the soldiers,” Christian told me when he returned to the carriage. “He says he hasn’t seen them, but he believes they are five days’ journey to the east of here.”
We went on, hoping to find an inn before nightfall, but though we passed through several small villages there were no inns. Nor were we offered hospitality in any of the houses—indeed the villagers were nowhere to be seen. We slept in our carriage, uncomfortably, exhausted and hungry.
Scipion had given me names of people he knew or knew of, people who could help us. But they all lived in cities, and there were no cities in eastern Latvia.
The Secret Life of Josephine Page 30
