The Secret Life of Josephine

by Carolly Erickson

  “What we need is a guide,” Edward announced. But how were we to find one?

  We went on, hoping to discover a source of help. I began to lose heart and reproach myself for failing to make wiser plans. The sky darkened and wept with rain, a warm autumnal rain that soon became heavy. The thick dust of the road turned to mud. Our poor horses slogged on, slowly, barely able to lift their hooves from the sucking quagmire.

  Hour after hour we inched ahead, until at dusk we heard a welcome shout from the coachman.

  “I see a light ahead,” he said. As we went closer we saw that the light was coming from the large window of a stone structure. We heard male voices singing. We drew into a muddy torchlit courtyard and at once bushy-bearded men in long black robes appeared, staring at our carriage. They called out to us.

  “Monks!” Christian said. “We are saved.”

  Our hosts, for that is what they proved to be, were Latvian Orthodox brothers. They welcomed Christian, Edward and the coachman into the refectory where their own evening meal was in progress—and oh how good the food smelled!—but they made it clear that neither Euphemia nor I could be allowed into their all-male precincts. We were shown to a barn and food and blankets were brought to us. Gratefully we ate and made beds for ourselves by piling up hay. The barn was dry, the lowing of the animals soothing, and we went to sleep to the sound of the pelting rain.

  57

  WE LEARNED NOT TO EXPECT INNS where we could sleep, or bakeries where we could buy bread, or blacksmithies where our horses could be shod and our carriage repaired. But we found what we needed: hospitality from monks and, later, from Russian villagers who offered us bread and salt, fresh horses at infrequent posting stations, and, after our carriage broke down, a sturdy wagon large enough to hold us all and our baggage as well.

  By the time we had been traveling for ten days we were bedraggled but road-hardened, accustomed to making our way through countryside where we knew no one and could understand little of what was being said around us.

  We discovered that uttering the name “Bonaparte” was enough to make all those near us cringe and cross themselves (they crossed themselves backwards, I discovered).

  “Franzki, Franzki,” they repeated fearfully, with gestures that made it plain they wanted no Franzkis, or Frenchmen, among them. Yet they did not shun us or threaten us, and only once, in a village where it was evident that cottages had been burned and we were offered no food (for there was none, we soon realized) were we spat upon and cursed.

  One morning after setting off quite early we began to hear, in the distance, a low rumbling sound. At first I thought it might be thunder but there was no lightning to be seen and unlike thunder, the sound was continuous, a perpetual grinding rumbling noise that did not go away or diminish. In fact, it seemed to become gradually louder.

  I listened intently, and could soon make out, above the rumbling, a jangling noise and then rhythmic thuds. There were muffled shouts, and now and then the crack of a whip.

  We had found the army.

  Before long we were on the verge of the worst congestion of vehicles I had ever seen. Baggage wagons, carts, gun carriages clogged and blocked the narrow road, while soldiers on foot and on horseback did their best to drive their way through the mass of wheeled vehicles. Slowly, churning the road to muddy tracks and clumps, the clustered mass of men and objects moved forward, leaving in its wake broken wagons and collapsed horses, their legs flailing vainly in the air.

  Our driver did his best to force our wagon through the tangle of vehicles, enduring the curses and threats of other drivers and the aggressive jockeying that nearly threatened to overturn us. We attracted no special attention, and were shown no courtesy. We had to fight for every foot of roadway. The profusion of legs, hooves and wheels parted when officers rode through, preceded by orderlies shouting “Make way! Make way for the general!” But such partings were rare, and we were not important enough to have a pathway made for us.

  We had found the army—but we had not found Bonaparte. When we called out to passing officers, inquiring where the emperor was, they gave us only the vaguest of replies.

  “He is up ahead,” they said, or “He has gone on in advance.”

  When evening came the men built camp fires and cooked soup in large cauldrons, each man in turn dipping his wooden bowl in the steaming mixture until all was consumed. Brandy-bottles were passed around, stories of past campaigns told. Longstemmed pipes were extracted from boots and precious tobacco smoked. Then, as the stars came out and the great comet flared in the western sky, the soldiers lay down around their dying fires, pulling their dirty overcoats over themselves, and slept.

  We slept too, Euphemia and I on a blanket under our wagon, Christian and Edward taking turns to keep watch near us. Our bellies were full, for we quickly discovered that the men in charge of the large leather-covered baggage-wagons were glad to sell us provisions.

  We continued to travel with the army until, a few days after we initially joined their caravan, an incident occurred that affected me profoundly

  We came within sight of a village and immediately there was much shouting of orders, with men running here and there and horses being saddled. A detachment of cavalry was formed, and as we watched, they rode swiftly to the village and began setting fire to every house in it. They did not spare the barns; as they went up in flames we could hear the frightened cries of the animals trapped inside. We saw no villagers, at first, but when the horsemen returned from their destructive raid they drove several dozen men ahead of them, roped together at the waist, their hands bound behind them.

  An officer barked orders and in response, a line of infantrymen formed. They began loading their muskets.

  I watched in horror as the victims were executed, each man reduced to a heap of flesh and pooling blood. They were the enemy, I knew. They were Russians, and the Russian tsar had declared war on the French Empire. Yet they were men, like the men that had offered us bread and salt and shared their shelters with us only a few days earlier. They had wives and children, mothers and fathers.

  “The Russian army does not spare the French, milady,” Christian said to me, observing my distress. “It is war.”

  I saw three villages burned that day, and many more men executed, and by the afternoon I was heartsore and weary. Was this what I had been sent to do, to follow Bonaparte’s army and watch villagers die?

  A large wagon broke down on the road, bringing the procession of men and carts to a temporary halt. I got down out of our vehicle to stretch my legs, and decided to walk along a path that led up the side of a hill. Walking felt good to me, there was a breeze and the air was fresh, free of the dust of the road and smelling faintly of woodsmoke.

  I reached the hilltop and sat down on the yellow grass, suddenly feeling the weight of my distress for the men who I had seen killed that day, and for all the others I knew must have died in the past—and would die soon.

  Where are their families? I asked myself. What will they do now? How will they bear their deprivation, and their sorrow?

  Knowing that no one could see me, I gave full vent to my tears, thinking of Eugene, and Scipion s son Jean-Georges, and all the other men and boys who were being led into danger for the sake of seeking glory and following the emperor, and all the Russian men and boys who would fight against them.

  At length I dried my eyes and looked out toward the horizon, where the sun hung low, its golden rays slanting down across the rolling plain and lighting the road. The enormous caravan of marching men and lumbering wagons, jostling carts and rearing, struggling horses spread itself out in a long undulant line below me, the sunlight glinting off the metal of the guns, the slow movement of the line of men sinuous and vaguely sinister.

  It was like a snake, I realized. Like a snake moving with slow and deadly precision toward its prey.

  All at once I knew, with a clarity that could not be denied, that I was looking at the fer-de-lance. This, Bonaparte’s army, was the de
adly fer-delance I had been sent to destroy.

  I stood then, overcome by the realization that I was looking at the terrible thing I had to kill.

  But how? Frighten it, Orgulon had said.

  Frighten the snake. Spread fear in the army. That was what I had to do. I stood where I was for a long time, doing my best to gather my thoughts. Then at last I descended the hill, filled anew with an urgent sense of purpose and hope, and confident that the help I needed would be at hand.

  58

  IT BEGAN ON THE HOT, dusty road to Ghbatsk. An Italian and a Bavarian got into a fight, and the Bavarian, who was bigger and stronger, called the Italian a coward, following which some Spaniards came to the Italian’s defense and soon there was a brawl.

  Officers intervened, and the melee was brought to a halt, temporarily, but the bad feeling lingered and more fighting broke out a few hours later.

  “The Germans don’t like the Italians very much,” I remarked to Edward, who was riding next to me in the wagon. The tall cuirassier agreed.

  “What if we started a rumor that the Italians were hoarding all the best grain?”

  “I think I can do that,” he said, smiling, and headed off along the road.

  I turned to Christian. “Is it true what they say, that the Russians have a million men under arms, and a thousand guns, while our own Grande Armee has only one-quarter that many?”

  “I’ll try to find out,” said Christian, and got down out of the wagon to mingle with the nearest detachment of soldiers. “That’s the sort of information every one of our men ought to have.”

  We spread rumors, we provoked violent arguments, we elicited anger and fear, jealousy and resentment. When after several days of heavy rain there was an outbreak of quinsy, with the men coughing and shivering and losing their strength, a new rumor was spread: that the Russians were poisoning our food stores in order to make the men sick.

  Now there was panic, and more demoralized men became ill. Rain continued to fall in sheets, hard, slanting rain that soaked bedding, flour, firewood, weapons and the precious cartridges needed to fire them. The four of us, Edward, Christian, Euphemia and I, took refuge under the leaky canvas cover of our wagon and tried to get warm.

  “I heard one of the Austrian officers say that Moscow is only about ten days’ march from here,” Edward told us. “Surely the Russians will offer battle any day now to prevent our army from entering the city.”

  “How can they fight in all this rain?” I wanted to know.

  “Weather never stops slaughter,” was Christian’s reply. “I ought to know. I was with the emigre army at the siege of Thionville. You never saw such storms! But the massacres went on just the same.”

  “I didn’t realize you had been a soldier, Christian. I thought you worked in the royal household from the time you were very young.”

  “You are forgetting, milady, that there was no royal household for many years. After they killed the king in ‘93 I went to Coblentz, to fight under his brother against the revolutionary armies.”

  I looked at my faithful servant with a newfound respect.

  “Then you are right at home.”

  “Let us simply say that these circumstances are not unfamiliar to me.” Edward laughed. “Nor to me.”

  “Humph!” It was Euphemia, wet and wretched, expressing her distaste. “I am no soldier. I hate all this—this misery! I want a dry room and a hot fire and a dish of good Carib crabs and plantains!”

  “I need you here, Euphemia. You insisted on coming. Remember why we came, and who sent us.”

  Despite the wet and cold, the sodden clothing and blankets, the fires that would not start and the deep, sucking mud that turned the road to quicksand, my own spirits were soaring. With the vital aid of Edward and Christian, I was succeeding in weakening the fer-de-lance. Every day more of the men were deserting, melting away into the countryside, abandoning their units. Stragglers, too ill or weak to march, sat by the side of the muddy road, in the rain, dejected and worn out. Each morning the corpses of those who had died the previous night were gathered and burned, their possessions quickly snatched up by the living.

  In their efforts to stir up discord and fear of the Russians among the men, Edward and Christian found allies by the dozens, officers and soldiers alike who had no heart for the campaign and secretly resented Bonaparte and his aims. The leaven of dissatisfaction continued to spread, indeed to increase as the soldiers became convinced that there would be a battle before the army reached Moscow.

  “Have you noticed,” I remarked on the first clear evening, “that the comet has grown brighter?” All those within the sound of my voice looked up at the sky apprehensively.

  “It is a bad sign, a sign that this is a year of misfortune. The brighter it grows, the greater the misfortune.”

  Whether because their fears affected their vision, or because, in their weary state, they were very suggestible, the men grew even more fearful and imagined that the great light in the sky was indeed becoming brighter.

  “Perhaps it is a sign of the last days,” some said. “The end of all things.”

  As expected, the Russians drew up their forces, at a place called Borodino, where three broad rivers ran together. The place was said to be heavily fortified, and the Russian army was said to be immense (though hardly a million strong, as our rumor had it) and determined to win at all costs.

  On the night before the two armies were set to engage, Bonaparte rode out along the battle lines, exhorting the men and encouraging them. I was not present of course but Edward was, and he came to tell us afterwards what the emperor said and how it was received.

  “Pay no attention to what you may have heard about the strength of the enemy!” Bonaparte shouted as he rode past the men. “We are invincible!”

  “But what about the comet?” came a voice from the ranks. “A sign of victory!”

  “Or disaster,” said a rash young soldier, who boldly challenged the emperor, stepping forward out of line as he spoke.

  Instantly, Edward told us, the emperor’s round face reddened and he brandished his whip, riding up to the boy and glaring down at him.

  “What is your name, soldier?”

  ‘Auguste Ibert, Your Imperial Highness.”

  ‘Auguste Ibert, you are a disgrace to France.” He beckoned to the two guardsmen who rode near him as escort. “Execute this man,” he said in an icy tone when they approached. Ibert was led away.

  “I watched him go,” Edward told us. “It was terrible. I have seen deserters shot before, and traitors, but I never sensed such outrage in the ranks. This execution almost led to a riot. The officers restrained their men, with great difficulty. Poor Ibert was tied to a stake within sight of us all and shot, and you could feel the men’s horrified reaction. At that moment they hated their emperor—though they feared him even more.”

  At dawn on the following day the Grande Armee, shrunken in size and strength, with many of the men filled with misgivings, faced the Russian foe and began their attack.

  We were several miles away to the west of the battle front, deep in a protected culvert, along with dozens of other supply wagons and powder wagons and carts and scores of noncombatants. I had no wish to observe the fighting, dramatic spectacle though I was sure it would be. I was worried about Eugene (who had no idea I had been traveling with the army; I was plain Madame d’Arberg, just another superannuated camp follower, and no one took any particular notice of me). I wanted Eugene to be safe, yet nothing mattered more to me than that our army, this improbable congeries of Frenchmen, Germans, Poles, Dutch and Germans from all corners of Europe, should lose its deadly, venomous force and be defanged. And I wanted it to happen right away.

  The thunderous noise of hundreds of guns, all pounding at once, the ground shaking under us with the terrible force of their repeated explosions, was enough to make me hold my palms over my ears and cringe in dread.

  So this is what battle is like, I thought. This earsplitting, ceasel
ess noise that cuts through to my very bones and makes them shake. It went on for hours, the relentless pounding and shaking. The air filled with smoke, and the reek of powder.

  And then the wounded began staggering in.

  A dressing-station was hastily set up near where our wagon stood. Dazed, bleeding men entered the tents where surgeons in red-stained leather aprons waited to treat them. Some were calling out, frantically, for help. Others came in twos and threes, leaning on each other for support. The weakest crawled on hands and knees or dragged themselves over the dry grass toward the tents, their faces distorted, grimacing with pain.

  Edward and Christian joined the stretcher-bearers and went out to the battlefield to bring in more men. Euphemia was put to work tearing cloth into strips for bandages and I went into the nearest tent to assist the surgeons.

  Before long hundreds of injured men were stumbling in or being carried to the tents, filthy, sweat-soaked soldiers and officers, their once smart, clean uniforms grimed with blood and ash and the black smears of gunpowder. Many were brought in on stretchers, more dead than alive by the look of them, and laid before the open tent-flaps in untidy heaps. Some were delivered by being laid on top of long muskets that formed makeshift planks.

  “Brandy! Bring me that brandy,” the surgeon nearest to me shouted. I brought it and the surgeon poured some over the gory leg of an officer. The man screamed.

  “He’s lost too much blood. Hold him down.”

  Orderlies forced the wounded man’s shoulders to the table on which he lay and pinned his arms to his sides. With others I held his uninjured leg down, so that the surgeon could treat the bleeding one. Swiftly the surgeon cut away reddened flesh and shattered bone, while the patient, his screams subsiding, fainted and lay still.

  Hour after hour, as the earth beneath the tent grew red and the surgeon’s apron became covered in fresh gore, the parade of hurt and dying men continued. The air reeked of ordure, flies swarmed over the living and the dead, the latter unceremoniously piled in mounds and covered in canvas for there was no one to bury them. The terrible carnage went on, the thunderous cannonade as well, until around midafternoon the guns stopped firing and we all paused to listen to the quiet.