Marianne and The Masked Prince

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  The amused Duroc found himself gazing into a pair of eyes bright with a thousand stars. He laughed.

  'I knew that would please you better. All the same, do not hope for too much. The name you bear has protected you from an open scandal. That does not mean that all will be honey in private.'

  'Why should you think that?'

  Duroc took out his snuff-box, helped himself to a pinch and nicked the fallen grains off his splendid suit of purple velvet and silver. Then he gave another laugh.

  'The best answer to that question, my dear, is in the fragments of one of the finest Sèvres vases in the palace, shattered by his majesty's own hand on the day he learned of your marriage.'

  'Are you trying to frighten me?' Marianne said. 'Far from it, you cannot think how happy you have made me! I was frightened, I confess, but that was just now…'

  It was true. She had been frightened of his formal politeness, his social smile, his indifference. The worst of his rages, yes, but not that! It was the one thing before which Marianne felt helpless.

  ***

  The Emperor's office at Saint-Cloud opened directly on to the great terrace, gay with roses and geraniums. Striped awnings were stretched outside the windows and ancient lime trees cast a gentle shade which made the sunlight that lay full on the wide lawns seem more dazzling by contrast. The furnishings were little different from those in the Tuileries, but the businesslike atmosphere was softened by the summery scents and the beauty of the green and golden gardens, laid out for a pleasure-loving age.

  Dropping her shawl over the arm of a chair, Marianne walked over to one of the tall french windows, seeking in the view before her a distraction from what she imagined would prove a long wait. In fact, she had hardly reached the window before the Emperor's brisk step was heard on the tiled floor of the corridor outside. The door opened, clicked shut, and Marianne sank once again into her curtsey.

  'There is no one who can curtsey like you,' observed Napoleon.

  He was still standing by the door, hands clasped in the familiar way behind his back, watching her. But there was no smile on his face. As before, he was merely stating a fact, not paying a compliment designed to please. In any case, before Marianne could think of an answer, he had crossed the room and seated himself at his desk, motioning her to a chair as he did so.

  'Sit down,' he said briefly, 'and tell me.'

  Feeling a little breathless, Marianne sat down mechanically while he rummaged among the heaps of maps and papers that cluttered his desk, apparently paying no further attention to her. Now that she could see him better, it seemed to her that he was looking both fatter and tired. His smooth, pale skin had a yellowish tinge, like old ivory. His cheeks had filled out, stressing the dark shadows under his eyes, the rather weary curl to his lip.

  That royal progress through the northern provinces must have been terribly tiring, Marianne thought, resolutely putting away the memory of Talleyrand's hints about the principal occupation of the imperial pair. But his eyes had glanced up at her for a moment.

  'Well? I am waiting...'

  'What should I tell?' she asked quietly.

  'Everything, of course. This astonishing marriage! I do not ask the reason. I know it.'

  'Your majesty – knows it?'

  'Naturally. It appears that Constant has a fondness for you. When I heard of this marriage, he told me everything, meaning, I am sure, to spare you the chief part of my anger.' It may have been the remembrance of this anger that made Napoleon bring his fist down suddenly on the desk. 'Why did you say nothing to me? I believe I had a right to be told, and that at once.'

  'Certainly, sire, but may I ask your majesty what difference it would have made?'

  'Difference to what?'

  'To the course of events, shall we say? And after the way we parted, on the night of the concert, I can hardly see how I could have approached your majesty for another audience to tell you the news. I should have feared to intrude on the festivities attending your marriage. It was better for me to disappear and make my own arrangements in view of the coming event.'

  'Your arrangements would appear to have been adequate to the occasion,' he said with a sneer. 'A Sant'Anna! Confound it! No mean achievement for a —'

  'Permit me to interrupt you, sire,' Marianne said coldly. 'Your majesty seems in danger of forgetting that the character of Maria Stella was no more than a mask. It was not she who married the Prince Sant'Anna but the daughter of the Marquis d'Asselnat. Among our kind, such a union was merely natural. Indeed, your majesty is the only person to express surprise at it, to judge what I have heard since my return. Paris society has been much more surprised by —'

  Again the imperial fist came down with a crash.

  'Enough, madame! You are not here to teach me what may or may not be the opinions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. I know them better than you! What I wish to hear is how your choice came to fall on a man whom no one has ever seen, who lives shut up on his estates, hidden even from his own servants, like a kind of living mystery? I do not imagine he came here to find you?'

  Marianne could feel the anger in him throbbing in her own veins. She lifted her chin and clasped her gloved hands together in her lap as she always did in moments of stress. Outwardly calm, despite the alarm within her, she answered him: 'A kinsman of mine arranged the match, for the honour of the family.'

  'A kinsman? But I thought – oh, I see! I'll wager by that you mean the Cardinal San Lorenzo, that impertinent fellow to whom the fool Clary gave his carriage to please you, against my expressed commands. A plotter, like all the rest.'

  Marianne permitted herself a smile. Gauthier de Chazay was out of reach of the imperial wrath. The admission she was about to make could do him no harm.

  'Wager, by all means, sire, for you will win. It is quite true that it was my godfather who, as head of my family, made the choice for me. That, too, was natural.'

  'There I cannot agree with you.' Napoleon rose abruptly and began to stride up and down the carpet of his office in one of his characteristic nervous pacings. 'I cannot agree with you at all,' he said again. 'It was for me, the father, to choose the future of my child. Unless,' he added cruelly, 'unless I am mistaken in thinking myself the child's father!'

  Instantly Marianne was on her feet, her cheeks on fire, her eyes blazing.

  'I never gave you the right to insult me, or to doubt me either! And I should like to know what arrangements your majesty could have made for the child other than to have forced his mother into some marriage or other!'

  There was silence. The Emperor coughed and shifted his eyes away from the sparkling gaze fixed on him in almost insolent interrogation.

  'Naturally. Unfortunately, it could not have been otherwise, since it was not possible for me to acknowledge the child. At least I could have entrusted you to one of those I trust, a man I knew intimately and could be sure of.'

  'Someone who would shut his eyes and take Caesar's mistress – and the dowry that went with her. For you would have given me a dowry, would you not, sire?'

  'Naturally.'

  'In other words: a complaisant husband! Don't you understand,' Marianne cried passionately, 'that that was precisely what I could not have borne: to be given away, sold would be more accurate, by you to one of your people! To be obliged to accept a man from your hands!'

  'Your noble blood would have rebelled, I take it,' he said, scowling, 'against giving your hand to one of those upstart heroes who make up my court, men who owe everything to their gallantry, to the blood they have shed…'

  'And to your generosity! No, sire, as Marianne d'Asselnat I should not have blushed to wed one such, but I would have died rather than that you, whom I loved, should give me to another. By obeying the cardinal, I did no more than follow the noble custom which requires a girl to accept blindly the husband chosen for her by her family. In that way I suffered less.'

  'So much for your reasons,' Napoleon said, with a chilly smile. 'Now let me have your – husban
d's. What made a Sant'Anna take to wife a woman already with child by another?'

  Marianne snapped back at him instantly:

  'The fact that that other was yourself! Prince Corrado married the child of Bonaparte's blood.'

  'I understand less and less.'

  'Yet it is very simple, sire. The Prince is, by what they say, a victim of some malady which he is determined not to pass on to his posterity. He had therefore condemned himself of his own will to seeing his ancient name die with him, until, that is, Cardinal San Lorenzo told him of me. His pride was too great to allow him to consider adopting a child, but that pride did not apply in your case, sire. Your son will bear the name of Sant'Anna and ensure that it shall survive!'

  There was silence again. Slowly, Marianne made her way over to the open window. She felt suddenly stifled, overcome by the weird knowledge that she had lied in her portrait of Corrado Sant'Anna. Sick? The man she had seen mounting Ilderim with such mastery? It was impossible! But how could she explain to the Emperor what she could not explain even to herself? His voluntary seclusion, the mask of white leather which he wore on his nocturnal rides? She saw again that tall, energetic figure glimpsed beneath the flowing black cloak billowing out with the speed of his gallop. Sick, no! But some mystery there was and it was never wise to present Napoleon with a mystery.

  It was he who broke the silence.

  'Very well,' he said at last. 'I accept that. It is a valid reason and one that I can understand. Moreover, we have nothing against the Prince. He has always behaved as a loyal subject since our accession to power. But one thing you said just now struck me as strange.'

  What was that?'

  'You said: by what they say, the Prince is a victim of some malady. That suggests that you have never seen him.'

  'Nothing could be more true. I have seen nothing of him, sire, beyond a gloved hand which emerged from a black velvet curtain and was joined to mine in the marriage ceremony.'

  'You have never seen Prince Sant'Anna?'

  'Never,' Marianne assured him, aware once again that she was not telling the truth. She meant, at all costs, to keep from him the knowledge of what had taken place at the villa. No good could come of telling him about the phantom rider, much less of her strange awakening after that enchanted night in a bed strewn with jasmine flowers. She was rewarded for her lie at once for at last Napoleon smiled. He came towards her, slowly, until he was almost touching her, and looked deeply into her eyes.

  'So,' he said, and his voice was low and husky, 'he has not touched you?'

  'No, sire. He has not touched me.'

  Marianne's heart trembled. The Emperor's eyes were as soft now as a moment before they had been cold and implacable. She saw again, at long last, the look that he had worn in their days at the Trianon, the look she had so longed to see again, the charm that he could use to such good effect when he wished and the caressing expression in his eyes before they made love. For days, and nights too, she had dreamed of that look. How came it, then, that now it gave her no joy? Napoleon laughed suddenly.

  'Don't look at me like that. Good God, anyone would swear you were afraid of me! Don't worry, there is nothing more to fear. All things considered, this marriage will do very well indeed and you have carried off a master stroke! By heaven, I couldn't have done better myself! A splendid marriage and, what is more important, a marriage in name only. You have made me suffer, you know.'

  'Suffer? You?'

  'Yes, I! I am jealous of what I love, am I not? Well, I imagined so many things ?'

  And what about me? Marianne thought, with the bitter memory of that terrible night at Compiègne vividly in her mind. Thinking I should go mad when I learned that he could not wait even a few hours to get the Austrian into his bed.

  The sudden spurt of resentment was so strong that she did not realize all at once that he had taken her in his arms and was murmuring words in her ear that grew ever huskier and more passionate.

  'You, my green-eyed witch, my beautiful siren, in another man's arms, another man kissing and fondling your body… I almost hated you for doing that to me and just now, when I saw you again… so beautiful, more beautiful even than I remembered… I wanted to...' The words were lost in a kiss, a kiss that was greedy, demanding, almost brutal, full of selfish passion, the caress of a master to his willing slave, yet even so, Marianne could not resist it. The mere touch of this man whom she had made the centre of all her thoughts, all her desires, still acted on her senses like the most relentless and demanding of tyrants. In Napoleon's arms, Marianne melted as completely as on that first night at Butard.

  Already he had released her and had moved away, calling: 'Rustan!'

  The magnificent Georgian's turbanned head appeared, shining and expressionless, to receive the Emperor's curt command.

  'Let no one in here until I call. On your life!'

  The Mameluke bowed his understanding and withdrew. Napoleon grasped Marianne by the hand.

  'Come,' was all he said.

  He almost ran with her to a door cut in one of the panels of the wall, disclosing a small, spiral staircase up which he hurried her at a breathless pace. They emerged into a small apartment furnished with the tasteful luxury generally associated with rooms designed for love. The predominant colours were a glowing yellow and soft, rather faded blue. However, Marianne had little time to look at her surroundings, hardly time to think of those who had been before her in this discreet love nest. As deftly as the best of lady's maids, Napoleon had already taken out the pins that held the white satin turban and unfastened the dress. It slid to the ground, followed almost at once by the shift and petticoats. All this at incredible speed. This time, there was no question of the slow, tender preliminaries, the skilled, voluptuous process of undressing of that night at Butard, which had made Marianne a more than willing prey, and had given such delight to the early stages of their love-making in those days at the Trianon. In no time, the Serene Princess Sant'Anna found herself clad only in her stockings, sprawled across the sunshine yellow counterpane in the grip of a man bent only on ravishing her, like some marauding trooper, without a word spoken, merely covering her lips with frantic kisses.

  It was so brutal and so swift that this time the famous charm was given no chance to work. In a few minutes it was all over. His majesty popped a kiss on the end of her nose, and patted her cheek.

  'My good little Marianne,' he said, with a kind of sentimental fondness. 'You are truly the most delicious woman I have ever met. I fear you will be able to make a fool of me all my life. You make me mad.'

  These kind words, however, were powerless to comfort his 'good little Marianne' who, in addition to her frustration and fury, had a disagreeable sensation of being made ridiculous. She discovered angrily that, just when she had believed that she had really found her lover again she had merely served to slake the sudden, violent passion of a married man, who was probably dreading being caught at any moment by his wife and already regretting his loss of control. Outraged, she snatched up the yellow counterpane to cover her nakedness and stood up. Her hair fell loose to below her waist, enveloping her in a shining black mantle.

  'I am infinitely obliged to your majesty, I am flattered that your majesty is still pleased with me,' she said coldly. 'May I hope for your continued goodwill?'

  He frowned, then he too rose and grinned.

  'So you're sulking now, are you? Come now, Marianne, I know I have not been able to give you as much time as I used to, but you are a sensible girl and I think you must realize that many things have changed here, that I cannot be as I once was with you…'

  'As a bachelor! I know,' Marianne retorted, turning her back on him to restore some order to her hair in the glass over the fireplace. He followed her and, putting his arms round her, dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. Then he laughed.

  'You should be very proud. You are the only woman who could make me forget my duty to the Empress,' he said, clumsily making bad worse.

  'Indeed,
sire, I am proud,' Marianne said gravely. 'I am only sorry that I can make you forget for so short a time.'

  'Duty, you understand…'

  'And the desire to get an heir soon!' she finished for him, thinking to goad him, but to no effect. Napoleon bestowed a radiant smile upon her.

  'I hope he will not make me wait too long! Of course I want a boy. I hope you will give me a fine boy, also. We will call him Charles, if you agree, after my father.'

  Marianne was dazed. He was talking of children now, and as naturally as if they had been married for years. She had a perverse urge to contradict him.

  'It may be a girl,' she said. It was the first time such a possibility had occurred to her. Until then, she had always been convinced for some reason that the coming child would be a boy. But tonight it was quite impossible for her to put him out of temper. He answered gaily.

  'I should be delighted to have a girl. I have two boys already, you know.'

  'Two?'

  'Why, yes. Young Leon, who is some years old now, and little Alexandre, born last month, in Poland.'

  Marianne was silent at this, more deeply hurt than she cared to show. She had not been aware of the birth of Marie Walewska's son and she was inexpressibly shocked to find herself put on the same level as the Emperor's other mistresses, her child placed firmly in a kind of nursery for imperial bastards.

  'Congratulations,' she said grittily.

  'If you have a daughter,' Napoleon went on, 'we will call her by a Corsican name, a pretty name! Letizia, like my mother, or Vannina – I like those names! Now, hurry up and get dressed or people will start to wonder at the length of this audience.'

  Now he was worrying what people would say! Oh, he had changed, he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into his role of married man! Marianne dressed herself with angry haste. He had left her alone, perhaps out of gallantry but more probably because of his own impatience to be back in his office. He merely told her to come down when she was ready. Marianne's haste was as great as his. She was eager now to be gone from this palace where, she knew in her heart, a perilous rift had occurred in her great love. She would find it hard to forgive him for this hurried interlude.