Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

  “So, Rose, where exactly is this husband of yours?” Minerva asked, peering into the study.

  “Her husband who loves her madly.”

  “Thérèse!”

  “How romantic.”

  “How inconvenient.”

  “He’s in Nice, taking command of the Army of Italy,” I explained with pride.

  “So are we in an interesting condition yet?”

  “It’s a little early, don’t you think? He left two days after we were married.”

  “It only takes me one minute,” Thérèse groaned. “And look at me, twelve babies,” Minerva boasted. “My husband only has to smile at me and I’m in an interesting condition.” “We’ve noticed.”

  “I’ve noticed that most of the women of Paris are in an interesting condition these days.”

  “It’s the style—even virgins are stuffing their gowns with pillows.” “Did you hear? Even Madame Lebon is in an interesting condition.” “No.”

  “Yes. Finally. After five years of marriage, she went to a German doctor. He told her that barrenness is cured by the presence of immoderate heat in a woman accompanied by turgescence.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I think what it means is that a woman must … you know, spasm.”

  “In order to have a child?”

  “Apparently, this is a common German belief.”

  “I’ve never ‘spasmed’ with my husband, and believe me, I’ve had quite a few children by him.” “What’s a spasm?”

  “The doctor told Madame Lebon that if she were …” Fortunée rubbed her fingers together. “Then that proved a spasm had occurred.” “Hardly!”

  “What is this, Rose? It is a wig?” Minerva picked up the mass of ringlets.

  “Rose is now Josephine,” Thérèse said, slipping on the golden curls.

  “You’re changing your first name?”

  “Bonaparte wants me to.”

  “I thought his name was Buonaparte.”

  “He’s changing it.” Everything was changing!

  “Oh, a wig could be handy. No one would recognize you,” Fortunée said.

  “I bought twenty-seven of them. Only twenty francs each, so I should be able to make a nice profit on them.”

  “Real hair. Nice! But why so cheap?”

  “Well …” Thérèse grimaced. “That’s the thing.”

  “Oh no,” Minerva whispered.

  “The … guillotine?” Madame de Crény squeaked.

  “Hair is hair, isn’t it?” Fortunée Hamelin said with a shrug. “I’ll take three.”

  Lisette entered the room with a tray of clattering glasses and an open bottle of champagne. She placed it on the side table and stood, smoothing the folds of her ruffled tulle apron.

  “Speculation? Loo?” We settled on Speculation, Fortunée insisting on an ante of fifty francs to begin with, “to get the blood racing.”

  “Oh, I feel lucky today!” Madame de Crény said, wiggling her silver-painted fingernails before shuffling the cards.

  Thérèse raised her glass, her ringlets bouncing. “To Josephine Bonaparte.”

  * A new calendar had been established during the Revolution. The ten-day week ended in Décadi, the official day of rest. The names of the months were changed as well: Vendémiaire (the month of vintage), Brumaire (the month of fog), Frimaire (the month of frost) and so forth. Nevertheless, many continued to observe the old calendar, causing considerable confusion.

  * Hysteric water: a mixture that was said to cure uterine disorders—”an excellent water to prevent fits, or to be taken in faintings.” It was made of a mixture of roots of zedoary (similar to ginger), lovage and peony, parsnip seeds, mistletoe, myrrh, castor oil and dried millipedes steeped in mugwort tea and brandy.

  * Fanny Beauharnais, a bohemian poet, is related to Josephine through her first husband. She is Émilie’s grandmother and Hortense’s godmother. She is being sued at this time by a young woman claiming to be her illegitmate daughter.

  * The List was a listing of émigrés and relations of émigrés forbidden from entering France. Having left the country because of the Revolution, émigrés and even their families were considered enemies of the Republic. Those listed lost all civil rights, had their property confiscated and risked execution if discovered on French soil. The names numbered over a hundred thousand. To be “erased” meant to have your name taken off the List.

  ** In addition to Josephine and Thérèse, the group included Fortunée Hamelin, Madame de Châteaurenaud (called Minerva), and Madame de Crény. Fortunée Hamelin (nineteen) is a créole like Josephine. She is famous for her wit, her daring (un)dress and her dancing. Minerva (thirty-six) is a voluptuous woman known for a mild, sweet manner and an interest in the occult. Madame de Crény (thirty-five), met Josephine when Josephine’s first husband, Alexandre, forced her to live in a convent. Thérèse Tallien (twenty-three) is one of the famous beauties of the day. A wonderful teller of stories, she describes herself as a comedian.

  * Drawers—or pantaloons—were considered men’s wear, worn only by women of ill-repute.

  In which the past continues to haunt me

  Mid-afternoon, March 28, 1796.

  Good news: thanks to Barras, the sequester has finally been lifted on Alexandre’s property.*

  March 31.

  The Department of Confiscated Goods SW 24 is located in a former convent on Rue de Grenelle, not far from the Invalides. I presented my letter of authorization to the man at the gate, and then again inside to a man sitting at a desk playing solitaire. He held my document to the eight lit candles in a silver candelabra, squinting at the seals and stamps before pulling a ring of keys from a desk drawer (lying next to a pistol) and barking at a man with a matted beard snoring on a sofa: “Gaspard, you dolt!” Taking up a tin lantern, the yawning Gaspard gestured for me to follow him up a set of narrow, dark stairs and through a series of rooms, each one filled from floor to ceiling with crates labelled Comte this, Marquise that—the boxed remnants of lives lost, lives taken.

  In the last of the rooms, Gaspard unlatched unpainted wooden shutters over a small window, illuminating a harpsichord, several (lovely) harps, statues, large oil portraits of men on horseback, women with their children … I turned away from their staring eyes. It was only by chance that I had survived.

  “316, 317, 318 … 322.” Gaspard indicated a line of rough-hewn wooden crates on the floor, each labelled Vicomte A. de Beauharnais.

  “Is this all there is?” I asked. Seven crates.

  April 1.

  I am overcome with the vapours. I asked Lisette to go for Dr. Cuce, to bleed me, but she offered to do it herself, from my foot. I owed the doctor money, and so I took the chance. Lisette made the cut quickly and with confidence; the bright blood flowed into the chipped porcelain bowl. I feel faint, but pure.

  Late afternoon.

  Stronger now. What happened:

  I had risen early in order to help clear a spot in the study for the crates to go. But shortly after eleven, Lisette announced a caller: Louis Bonaparte.

  “A young man, heavy-lidded eyes. Italian, I think.” Lisette has become forthright in her descriptions.

  I was puzzled. I’d never heard of a Louis Bonaparte.

  I ran my hand over my hair. I’d dressed in a gown of washed-out blue gauze, the flounce in need of mending—appropriate for a day of going through the musty crates, which I expected to be delivered at any time. “Tell him I’ll be a moment,” I said, pulling on a pair of silk stockings. I slipped a blue velvet pelisse on over my chemise and rouged my cheeks. An embroidered muslin veil thrown over my shaggy hair gave me a fashionably Roman look. Bien.

  The young man stood to greet me, slipping a green leather book into the inside pocket of his tailcoat. It was Luigi, Bonaparte’s young brother, the brother he regarded as a son! “Napoleon told me to change my name to Louis,” he explained. He looked to be Eugène’s age, although I understand him to be a year or two older. “I beg you to forgive
my calling at such an early hour, Citoyenne Bonaparte,” he said respectfully and with a melancholy air. He’d been at a spa in Châtillon and was now on his way to Nice, he explained, to join his brother’s staff, as aide-de-camp.

  I welcomed him warmly and asked if he would care for a coffee, tea or small beer. He confessed to a longing for my Island coffee, which his brother had told him about. “Alas, the last of my Martinico beans are gone—but my cook, who is himself from the Islands, has discovered an excellent substitute bean from the southern Americas.” I rang for Lisette, requesting coffee, chocolate liqueur and a basket of the biscuits my cook had made this morning.

  We talked of the spa he had been at, his coming voyage, the danger of ruffians on the roads, the performance of Voltaire’s Brutus he’d seen at the Theatre de la Republique the night before. We agreed that the great actor Talma was “diverting beyond moderation” (his words). I told him Talma was an acquaintance of mine, and that he had even once lived in this very house, which astonished him—perhaps because it is so modest an abode. In short, a pleasant conversation.

  It was just as Lisette appeared with the coffee that I heard Fortuné barking out on the verandah. “I’m having some things delivered,” I explained, standing. “No, please, stay, finish your coffee.”

  Louis downed his coffee and stood, taking a biscuit. “I must be going in any case,” he said, accompanying me to the front steps. Two carters were unloading one of the crates—a heavy one, I gathered, from their strained expressions.

  “You’ve made a purchase of a National Property?” Louis asked, observing the seals.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said, not wishing to explain that these crates contained my first husband’s effects.

  The crates practically filled the tiny study. My manservant shifted a few so I could squeeze between them. Then he got a crowbar and began prying off the tops.

  The first crate contained household items: china, linens, musty bed curtains. There were surprisingly few personal possessions: an inkstand, an oak box with mother-of-pearl inlay, a blue glass jar of metal military buttons. Some clothing: a pair of riding boots that Eugène might be able to use. Four riding crops, one with a gold handle. But no pistols or swords—stolen, no doubt. And no silver, either. A leather portfolio contained financial records, letters of correspondence. I put these aside for Aunt Désirée and the Marquis. (I did not wish to read them.) And, as I feared, a velvet bag of small linens, garters, a mother-of-pearl hair ornament: Alexandre’s “trophies.” I threw these away, but then perversely retrieved the hair ornament, which I fancied.

  And then there were the books: four large crates. Water had damaged one of them: the pages of the texts were swollen and dusty with mildew. I instructed my manservant to burn these in the garden.

  In the remaining crates were a number of valuable texts:

  -a complete set of Diderot’s encyclopedia, the pages uncut

  -the complete works of Voltaire

  -a lovely edition of Cicero’s Treatise on Laws with an embossed morocco cover and hand-stitched spine

  -a folio Bible, much thumbed (surprisingly)

  -Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men There were a number of books about Freemasonry, the natural world, art and architecture. At the bottom of the last crate were a few novels (including, in plain wrapper, The Life of Frétillon the Wriggler). And at the last, a sheaf of music and an oak box of artist’s supplies. These would be for Hortense.

  But other than that, little of value. My children’s inheritance.

  Dear Rose,

  I will be coming to Paris to purchase fabric for my wedding dress on the 4th of April. Will you be in? Perhaps I could pick up the correspondence you mentioned. I was heartbroken to learn that all that lovely silver was missing. Ruffians! It was in the Beauharnais family for six generations.

  Your loving Aunt Désirée

  April 4, late afternoon.

  Aunt Désirée hadn’t even taken her gloves off before she began to lecture. “Your scullery maid should have disappeared when I came into the room,” she said, running her fingers over my shelves to see if they’d been properly dusted. “She should avert her eyes. And your lady’s maid is wearing silk. It makes a rustling sound that is suggestive to men. There will be trouble, I guarantee it. Servants should wear only linen of a dull colour, and certainly no powder. My priest gave me an excellent book on service. I’m reading it out loud to my servants after our evening prayers. You do say a prayer with them all at the end of the day?”

  “Things have changed, Aunt Désirée,” I said weakly.

  She gave me a scathing look. “Rose, my dear child, I had hoped that by now you would have realized that this foolishness about equality has nothing whatsoever to do with servants. It is God’s will that they serve us.”

  She stayed for one hour. I’ve collapsed, exhausted. At least she didn’t get onto the subject of my Corsican husband, “the barbarian.”

  Nice, 10 Germinal

  I haven’t spent a day without loving you; not a night has gone by without my taking you in my arms. I haven’t even taken a cup of tea without cursing the glory and ambition that separate me from the soul of my life. As I attend to business, at the head of the troops, while touring the camps, you alone are in my heart.

  And yet you address me formally! How could you write such a letter? And from the 23rd to the 26th, four days passed. What were you doing that you could not write your husband? My spirit is sad; my heart is enslaved; my imagination frightens me.

  Forgive me! My spirit is occupied with vast projects, yet my heart is tormented by fears. —B.P.

  April 9.

  “I can’t tell you what I suffer the moment I take up a quill,” I confessed to the Glories. “My first husband detested my letters, and now Bonaparte.” It seemed to be my fate—my curse.

  “He’s angry because you addressed him formally, as vous?”

  “But that’s how a wife is supposed to address her husband.” The crown of Madame de Crény’s hat was garlanded with tulips secured by a wide bow of black and white striped satin.

  “Unless you’re the baker’s wife.”

  “How egalitarian do we have to become?”

  “He’s ardent, I suppose,” I said with a disheartened sigh.

  Fortunée Hamelin scoffed. “That usually means quick.”

  April 10.

  I’m nineteen days late.

  April 11.

  I’m exhausted and have a pain in my side that the motion of a carriage seems to inflame. Troubling conversations at both schools about the children. Too fatigued to explain. For now, fifteen drops of laudanum* and to bed.

  April 12, 1:00 P.M., still in my flannels.

  I feel rested, restored (although that pain persists). What happened—

  When we let Hortense down at her school, I was told Madame Campan wished a word with me. I asked Eugène to wait and went inside.

  “My purpose in summoning you, Madame Bonaparte,” Madame Campan informed me, “is to discuss the possible establishment of the flux. Now that your daughter has turned thirteen, things will begin to move quickly. It is best to think ahead.”

  It took me a moment to understand what she was referring to. “In my family, we called it the flowers,” I said, feeling a bit silly.

  “Many do.” The headmistress’s leather chair creaked as she leaned back. “Or the ordinaries. Our dear departed Queen called it the general. The general has come, she would say, or the general is late, or early, depending on his whim.” Her voice betrayed a quaver. The stoic headmistress would invariably weaken recalling her years as lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette. She cleared her throat. “What I wish to ask you is this: would you like me to send a courier when the time comes? I flatter myself on the importance of my role in the hearts and minds—the souls!—of my charges, but when the general calls to escort a girl into the realm of womanhood, it is her mother who should be at her side.”

  “Of �
� of course,” I stuttered.

  Madame Campan smiled and leaned forward. “No doubt you have given thought to the matter of corsets.”

  I nodded, but this time the schoolmistress frowned. “I must advise you to refrain from corsetting your daughter. Such a practice might damage her organs. Your daughter is approaching the age of womb disease—one can’t be too careful. Madame Bonaparte, you look concerned. Have I alarmed you?”

  At Eugène’s school the pattern was repeated: my presence was requested by Citoyen Muestro, the headmaster. Eugène groaned, which gave me fair warning that the news would not be good—and it wasn’t. Eugène was failing all his subjects, I was informed—all but horsemanship. And furthermore, he’d participated in a prank on the cook, causing a “ghost” to rise up in the henhouse, very nearly giving the man apoplexy. I left the schoolmaster’s office shaken, his threat ringing in my ears: “If your son does not begin to apply himself, we will have to ask you to withdraw him from this institution.”

  Eugène thrust out his chin. “I don’t care! I hate school,” he said, putting away the scrapbook he was working on.

  “You’re only fourteen, Eugène. You have to go to school.” I made a place for myself on his narrow bed. “You will never get to be an officer if you don’t get an education.”

  “What about General Hoche? He’s General-in-Chief and he never went to school.”

  Hoche? It startled me to hear my son speak Lazare’s name. Startled me and weakened me. Eugène had only been twelve when his father had died. Throughout that terrible first year he’d been sullen, moody, angry. It had been angels, surely, who had sent us Lazare Hoche, a man with a heart so generous that he could heal even the most shattered soul—my own, Eugène’s. He’d taken Eugène into his care, into the army as his aide and apprentice, cared for him like a son. But General Lazare Hoche has a wife and a child of his own—and Eugène now has a father.

  April 13.

  I’ve been all this morning looking through a book Madame Campan has loaned me, A Treatise on All the Diseases Incident to Women. It was written by a physician to King Louis XV. Madame Campan told me Queen Marie Antoinette herself consulted it. There is a great deal in it on all manner of complaints. For example, on the subject of the flowers (the morbid flux, the author calls it):