The Dark Secret of Josephine

by Dennis Wheatley

  Barras considered for a moment. ‘It is a most ingenious scheme; but before it could be put into operation there are several objections which would have to be overcome.

  Firstly she does not love him.’

  ‘That is what makes the plan all the sounder. If she did she could not be trusted; as things are she can. Somehow we will persuade her to accept him.’

  ‘Perhaps that could be done. But the Army of Italy is not mine to give. Carnot was greatly impressed by Buonaparte’s plan for the destruction of the Austrians, so might agree; but Rewbell is the stumbling block. He would certainly refuse, as he has several times expressed the opinion that Buonaparte is getting too big for his boots and that we shall be well rid of him if we send him to England.’

  ‘If you can win Carnot over, Letourneur will follow his lead; and that will give you a majority.’

  For a further quarter of an hour they discussed the plan in detail. At length, Barras said: Then I will see La Belle Creole tonight, and if you will call upon me at the same hour tomorrow I will let you know the result of our talk.’

  The evening Roger attended Madame de Chateau-Renault’s salon, as it was there he had first met Josephine, and he felt that, now she had become such an important pawn in his game, he would do well to develop her acquaintance. His hope of finding her there was realised, and having engaged her for some time in conversation he remarked that he had heard that she had two very beautiful children. She replied with becoming modesty, yet her pride in them was evident. He then said how fond he was of young people, and asked permission to call upon her so that he might see them. Her consent was readily given and she invited him to take tea with her the following day.

  Next morning, eager to learn how his plan was working, he waited as arranged on Barras. The Director told him that matters had not gone too badly, then he said:

  ‘To be the wife of the Commander of the Army of Italy is a position which any woman might envy, and Madame de Beauharnais is much tempted by the idea. But she is still troubled with grave doubts, and she did not disguise from me that she was greatly worried about some other matter. What it is she would not confide in me, but I’ve a shrewd suspicion that Citizen Fouché is at the bottom of it. Not once, but several times, she dragged his name into our conversation and begged me to get him made a junior Minister, or give him some other considerable post that would rescue him from the poverty and disgrace into which he has fallen. But he is a rogue and mischief-maker of the first order, and I had to tell her frankly that I’d lift not a finger to help him.’

  ‘It is unfortunate that some private worry should be distracting her mind at this particular time,’ Roger remarked. ‘However, it is good news that where previously she made a mock of the little Corsican you have now persuded her to consider him seriously. What is the next move to be?’

  ‘I shall see her again, of course, and continue to press her. It might help now, though, if she could be encouraged to it from some other angle. Do you know her well enough to call on her and, apropos of nothing in particular, sing Buonaparte’s praises?’

  ‘With that very object in mind I got her to invite me to take tea with her this evening.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Barras smiled. ‘Keep in touch with me, and I will inform you of any fresh developments.’

  At six o’clock Roger had himself driven to the house that Barras had lent La Belle Creole. It was a small two-storey villa at the end of a long passage and its entrance was flanked by two stone lions. On arriving there he recognised it as the petite Maison that the wife of Talma, the famous actor, had formerly been given by one of her rich lovers; so it had a somewhat dubious reputation, which matched Josephine’s own. Roger had already learned that although quite a number of ci-devant nobles frequented her twice-monthly ‘drawing-room’, very few of their wives did so, and he wondered again why a woman of her age and circumstances should hesitate to make a marriage which would both restore her respectability and secure her future.

  He was shown into a drawing-room at the back of the house with two frenen windows opening on to a little garden. There a few moments later Josephine, accompanied by her pet poodle Fortune, joined him.

  She received him with the unaffected grace that was one of her principal assets, and in the intimacy of her own apartment he soon began to realise more strongly than he had previously done the peculiar quality of her attraction. It lay in a melting expression, languorous grace of movement, and a mysterious suggestion that her body, if embraced, he would be found to be quite exceptionally soft and yielding. After a few minutes she called in her children and presented them to him. The girl, Hortense, promised to be a beauty, as she had a good skin, a profusion of fair hair and a pair of large dark-blue eyes. The boy, Eugène, who was getting on for fifteen, was a fine manly lad, and it was obvious that both of them adored their mother.

  While Roger had served on Barras’s staff during the previous October, he had seen quite a lot of Buonaparte at the War Office; so, in due course, it was easy for him to bring the General’s name into the conversation, and speak of his fine qualities. Josephine did no more than murmur polite agreement, and began to fiddle a little self-consciously with the tea things; but young Eugène took up the tale with unrestrained enthusiasm. The Corsican was now his hero; the episode of the sword was told in glowing phrases, and it transpired that, when old enough, he had been promised a commission.

  ‘If you are to become one of General Buonaparte’s officers you will also need pistols,’ Roger remarked. ‘Have you any?’

  ‘Alas, no, Monsieur,’ came the quick reply. ‘After my father’s death, my poor mother was compelled to part with nearly all his things in order to feed us.’

  ‘Then Madame,’ Roger bowed to Josephine, ‘permit me, I pray, the pleasure of presenting your charming son with a brace of weapons to go with his sword.’

  At first Josephine demurred, but she was quite used to accepting gifts from men; so she needed only a little pressing to agree on behalf of her boy.

  The matter had only just been settled when the Deputy Fréron was announced. Roger had got to know him well at the siege of Toulon and had met him on many occasions since. He was now a man of thirty, and after the coup d’état of 9th Thermidor, in which he had played a vigorous part, he had become more strongly reactionary than any other of the ex-Terrorists. As Fouché had told Roger some months before, Fréron, with extraordinary astuteness had used his paper L’Orateur du Peuple to make himself the leader of the jeunesse dorée; but his past was far from having been forgotten by Roger.

  It was Fréron who, while Représentant en Mission at Marseilles, had ordered a volley to be fired into a mass of Royalist prisoners; and, when they had fallen in a screaming, bloody heap, called out: ‘All of you who are not dead, stand up, and you shall be spared.’ Then, when the survivors took him at his word and staggered to their feet, he had ordered a second volley to be fired.

  To find such a man in the house of a woman whose husband had been guillotined was no more than a symptom of the times, and Roger had no reason to believe Josephine to be particularly high principled; but he was slightly nauseated by what followed. Fréron had not come there to pay his respects to Madame de Beauharnais; almost at once he began openly to ogle pretty little Hortense. Then he produced some tickets for a public ball at the Hotel de Richelieu and asked if he might take the mother and daughter to it; upon which the young girl jumped for joy. Roger made suitable excuses and took his leave.

  Having allowed a day to elapse, so that he should not appear to have an ulterior motive in his visits, on March the 2nd, somewhat later in the evening, Roger called on Josephine again. With him he brought a case containing two fine silver mounted pistols, which he had bought the day before. Eugène was delighted with them, as they were far more beautiful and expensive than anything he had expected. At the sight of them, Josephine became somewhat thoughtful; then after a while she sent her children out of the room. When they had made their adieux she said to Roger:r />
  ‘Monsieur, please tell me why since we have no claim on you other than the honour of a slight acquaintance, you have made my son this magnificent gift?’

  He smiled. ‘Madame, I will at least take the credit for a genuine wish to give so promising a young man pleasure; but, since you ask me, I will confess to having also had the hope that should General Buonaparte come to hear of it, he too will be pleased by this small attention to a family in which he is so deeply interested.’

  ‘You have, then, heard of the attentions with which he has honoured me?’

  ‘More, Madame. When I was last with him he positively raved to me about you. In fact, unless you take pity on him I really fear that from unrequited love of you he will be driven out of his mind; and that would be a great loss to France, for I am convinced that a splendid future lies before him.’

  ‘So others also tell me; and I have formed the greatest respect for his character. But, at times, he makes me almost afraid of him.’

  ‘You have no need to be. Look at the affection with which your children speak of him. Young people have an instinct for judging the true disposition of their elders. And for them you could not find a better step-father in the whole length and breadth of France.’

  ‘There is much in what you say, Monsieur.’

  ‘Indeed there is. Once married to him you would have no more anxieties. As his wife all Paris will bow before you. When little Hortense becomes of an age to marry, a score of rich and titled suitors will be contending for her hand. You will be able to make a match for her such as her beauty deserves. As for Eugène, since it is his wish to be a soldier, to rob him of the chance to attach himself to one who promises to become the first soldier of the day would be little less than cruel.’

  Josephine nodded. ‘I have thought much upon the same lines, and these arguments weigh greatly with me. Should I accept him it will be because the interests of my children are so near to my heart. But there are other considerations. For one, it would be childish of me to attempt to hide the fact that I am past my first youth. So volatile a man might soon turn to other distractions, and….’

  Josephine got no further; for at that moment, Madame Tallien was announced. Her entrance deprived Roger of the chance of reassuring his hostess about the power of her charms and, to his intense annoyance, of saying numerous other things about her mooted match with Buonaparte that, having broken the ice, he had hoped to say to her that evening.

  Not long afterwards Buonaparte arrived, and, knowing that he would wish to have Josephine to himself Roger took an early opportunity of offering to see Theresa Tallien home. She too appreciated the situation and, although she had been there less than a quarter of an hour, with her usual good nature she readily consented. Just as they were leaving, she said to Josephine:

  ‘Do not forget, my dear, that we have an appointment to visit Madame Le Normand together at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. We will go masked, of course, and I will call for you in a hackney coach, as the appointment has been made simply for two ladies, and it will be all the greater test of her powers if we can continue to keep our identities a secret from her.’

  ‘I had not forgotten,’ Josephine laughed. ‘I adore fortune tellers, and I do hope that this renowned sibyl will predict exciting futures for us both. Adieu, sweet Theresa! Adieu till tomorrow!’

  On the way downstairs Roger asked the stately Theresa for Le Normand’s address, saying that he must, some time, consult her himself. She gave it to him and in her coach he saw her to her front door, but politely declined an invitation to come in; whereupon she insisted on it taking him back to La Belle Étoile. There he went up to his room, loosened a floor board, and took from beneath it one of the purses of gold that he always kept hidden against emergencies. Then, going out again, he walked through a misty drizzle that had just begun to Le Normand’s house in the Rue de Journon.

  At first the woman who answered the door there refused to admit him on the plea that her mistress had to conserve her powers, so never saw clients after six o’clock. But Roger clinked his gold and slipped her a piece, which induced her to let him in and lead him to a parlour on the ground floor.

  As she lit the candles in it he saw that on a table in its centre there lay scattered face up a pack of Tarot cards, and among them a large crystal on an ebony stand. There was no stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling, no tambourines, or other charlatan’s aids, left about; but Roger had not expected there would be, as he had often heard of Le Normand and she had the reputation of a mystic with genuine gifts. She had according to current belief, correctly predicted the dates upon which numerous people who had consulted her would be sent to the guillotine and, with great boldness, foretold to Robespierre his approaching fall.

  When he had waited there for a few minutes a middle-aged woman came in. Her clothes were of rich material but untidily worn, and beneath, the fine lace draped over her head wisps of grey hair stuck out. She had big eyes, very widely spaced, and regarded Roger from them with quiet self-composure. Having curtsied to his bow, she asked:

  ‘What does the Citizen require of me?’

  ‘I come,’ Roger replied, ‘not to ask you to tell my fortune, but on a business matter. First let me make it clear that I respect such gifts as yours; I have a dear friend who has several times foretold the future correctly for me, but through her I have also learned the limitations of such powers. They cannot always be called upon at will. Therefore, when used professionally there are times when aids having nought to do with the occult must be employed to give a client satisfaction.’

  A slow smile dawned in Madame Le Normand’s large eyes, and she said: ‘Since the Citizen is so well informed upon such matters, I will not deny that a skilful probing of the enquirer’s circumstances is often most helpful in becoming en rapport.’

  Roger bowed. ‘I can then aid you beforehand with regard to two ladies who had an appointment to consult you at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. The taller of the two is Madame Tallien, the shorter and slighter Madame de Beauharnais.’

  ‘Why does the Citizen bring me this information?’

  ‘Because I wish you to exert a beneficial influence on the mind of Madame de Beauharnais. She has recently received an offer of marriage, but is hesitating about accepting it. That she should do so is greatly in her interest, because her present position is precarious; whereas this match would both secure her own future and ensure a most promising future for her two children. The proposal does not come from myself but from General Buonaparte. It would, I think, be overdoing matters to disclose his name, but I should like you to speak well of him, as a man of generous disposition and a soldier of great promise, who will bring happiness to the woman he marries.’

  Producing the silk net purse through which the gold glittered dully, Roger laid it on the table and added; ‘If you are willing, I should like to leave this with you; so that you may buy some article of value, by which to remember your part in promoting the fortunes of a widow and two orphans.’

  The sibyl took up the purse and held it tightly clasped in both hands for a few moments, then she said quietly: ‘Citizen, you have lied to me. This purse may contain louis d’or but it is, nevertheless, foreign gold. It was not concern for a widow and two orphans that brought you here tonight. You have some other motive for desiring this marriage to take place. And endeavour to alter a person’sTate by such means always recoils on the head of him who makes it. It will do so in your case. Yet I will do as you wish; because never before have I felt so strongly the influence that guides me, and I already know beyond any shadow of doubt that to do so will be for the glory of France.’

  ‘Citoyenne,’ Roger replied a trifle huskily, ‘what you tell me is most perturbing; but in this I have no personal end to gain, and I honestly believe that this marriage will be to the advantage of Madame de Beauharnais; so I can only hope that Fate will let me off lightly.’

  Her strange, widely-spaced eyes held his for a few seconds, then she said: �
�I believe you. It must then, be not you who will suffer, but the cause you serve.’

  As the door of the house closed behind Roger, he found himself badly shaken. For the first time it occurred to him that it might have been better to let Buonaparte break himself once and for all on the shores of England, than simply to get him out of the way for the time being by engineering his being sent to Italy, from whence he might return covered with glory to become an even greater menace But on second thoughts he decided that he was playing the right game. With England practically denuded of troops, the risk that the invasion might succeed was too great a one to take. Even now that awful possibility was far from having been ruled out, as it was by no means certain yet that Josephine would accept Buonaparte; or, even if she did, that the Directors would finally decide to give him the Army of Italy.

  On the latter question Roger was given better grounds for hope when he went to see Barras the following morning. General Schérer had returned Buonaparte’s plan to Carnot with a curt note to the effect that he had no use for it, and that if the Directory were set upon it they had better send the rash fool who had made it to carry it out. Thereupon Çarnot had decided to support a policy of taking him at his word. But the proposal had still to get through the Comité.

  It was Barras’s vote which would now proye the deciding factor; but, in spite of all that Roger could say about the criminal lunacy of an attempt to invade England, the Director made it clear that he would not support the proposal that Buonaparte should supersede Schérer, unless the plan for exerting a secret influence over the Corsican by means of Josephine could be carried through. He added that no time must be lost in getting a definite decision from her, as once the proposal came officially before the Comité it would have to be settled one way or the other.