Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

  The menstruous Purgation is a Flux of Blood issuing monthly from the Uterus. Galen, in his Book of Bleeding, attributes the Origin of the Menses to a Plethora. Does not, says he, Nature herself cause an Evacuation in all Women, by throwing forth every Month the superfluous Blood? I imagine that the Female Sex, inasmuch as they heap up a great quantity of Humours by living continually at Home, and not being used to hard Labour or exposed to the Sun, should receive a Discharge of this Fulness, as a Remedy given by Nature.

  1. The first Fact of this morbid Flux is that it has a stated Time wherein it appears, and this ordinarily from the Age of thirteen to sixteen Years.

  2. It is known by Experience that the Menses generally cease betwixt forty-five and fifty Years of Age.

  So, it is indeed possible that Hortense, having turned thirteen, might soon begin her periodical sickness. The author cautions against exposing girls of this age to spicy foods or to music in an immoral key. If only I knew which musical keys were immoral!

  April 15.

  A persistent pain in my side and a feverish feeling. And still no sign of the flowers.

  April 17.

  The pendulum clock had just struck two when I heard a horse cantering down the laneway. I went to the front steps. It was Eugène, dismounting a grey gelding covered in lather. He threw the reins around the stone lion statue and bounded up the steps two at a time. “You’re riding alone?” I asked, embracing him. The road between Paris and Saint-Germain was isolated, known to be dangerous. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” His eyes were red-rimmed. Why? “Has something happened?”

  “Maman, it’s about General Hoche,” he said, catching his breath. He pulled a torn sheet out of his vest pocket, a page from Les Nouvelles. The newsprint shook in his hand. I squinted to make out the small type: General Lazare Hoche has been killed in the Vendée.

  “Eugène, it can’t be true.” Barras would have notified me immediately. But my son was not convinced. “If you like, I’ll go to the palace,” I assured him. “Director Barras will know for sure.”

  It was cold in the Luxembourg Palace in spite of the enormous fires burning, the carpets, the hangings, the drapes of crimson damask. And strangely quiet but for the rhythmic swish of the porters’ brooms, cleaning up after the daily mêlée of petitioners. I followed the footman through the cavernous reception rooms, my thoughts on that scrap of newsprint folded into the palm of my glove.

  Four workmen regilding the wainscotting in the Grande Galérie fell silent as I went by. Only five months before the once-elegant palace had been fit only for vermin and bats. Slowly Barras was having it entirely restored. Slowly it was beginning to look like a palace again—and every bit as intimidating. I glanced in a looking glass, adjusting the tilt of my hat. I was calling on the most powerful man in the French Republic, I reminded myself. It was hard to believe. My dear, eccentric friend, Paul Barras, was now ruler of the land. “Père Barras,” Thérèse and I called him, because of his big-hearted generosity.

  “Is Director Barras taking callers?” the footman asked Barras’s elderly doorkeeper, who motioned me in with a flourish.

  “Entrez!” I heard something shriek from within.

  “Bruno, was that a parrot?”

  The doorkeeper grinned, his three front teeth missing. I stepped into the room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Barras preferred rooms dark, draped in velvet—a gaming-room ambience.

  “Pretty lady!”

  “Well said!” Barras was stretched out in his favourite chair, a multicoloured bird perched on his white-gloved hand. “Meet Igor, a gift of the Sultan of Turkey—along with a tiger. But I sent the tiger over to the Jardin des Plantes and kept this clever fellow. It’s a little frightening how quickly he learns.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” The parrot imitated Barras’s soft chuckle perfectly.

  “Look—Toto’s gone into hiding,” Barras said with a grin. Only the nose of the miniature greyhound could be seen peeking out from under his desk.

  “I had a parrot in Martinico.” A vile creature. Cautiously, with one eye on the bird, I kissed my friend’s cheek. Barras was wearing a Florentine purple taffeta jacket I’d not seen before. It was pulled in at the waist; he looked as if he might burst. Yes, a corset was likely, I thought. And it was true, I decided: he had died his hair black.

  Barras eased himself up and nudged the bird onto the perch of a cage set in the window alcove, disentangling a claw from his lace cuffs.

  “Damn the Royalists,” the bird shrieked.

  Barras threw a gold-fringed velvet cover over the cage. “Brandy?” he offered, pouring himself a tumbler. I declined, taking the chair he indicated with a wave of his glass. He sat down across from me, crossing his legs at the ankle. Toto made a mad dash across the room and bounded onto his master’s lap. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” he asked, stroking the dog’s head. “I rather expected you at my salon this evening. You’ll return tonight? The Sultan will be here and I wish to give the impression of a harem.” A roguish grin.

  I pulled the article from inside my glove, unfolded it and handed it to him. “Eugène saw a report in Les Nouvelles that concerned him.” My voice was not as calm as I had hoped.

  Barras patted the pockets of his waistcoat, withdrew a gold-rimmed lorgnon and pushed it into his eye socket. “Lazare … killed?” He let out a laugh.

  I felt a tingling sensation in my chest. “So, it’s not true?” I said, sitting forward. Eugène would be anxiously awaiting my return.

  “Certainly not. Wishful thinking on the part of some Royalist, no doubt. You can’t believe journalists. Haven’t I taught you anything? Lazare is unkillable—you know that.”

  He put Toto down and accompanied me to the door, leaning on my shoulder. “But one question, my dear, before you go.” Smiling his charmingly crooked grin. “Why such a fret over Lazare Hoche?” Tweaking my chin. “Madame Bonaparte.”

  * Josephine’s first husband had been convicted (falsely) of conspiring to get out of prison. He was executed, and his property confiscated.

  * Laudanum: a solution containing opium, used widely in the eighteenth century for pain, particularly for “women’s complaints.”

  In which I learn the Facts of Life

  April 20, 1796.

  I’ve been to see a doctor about the cessation of my monthly illness. “You’ve recently married, Madame?” he asked.

  “My husband is in Italy now.”

  “He left—?”

  “Twenty-one Ventôse.”

  Then he asked a number of questions. Are my breasts knotty? (No!) Have I experienced a feeling of fearfulness? Anxiety? (Yes, yes.) Do I suffer from toothache? (All my adult life.) Do I desire to eat loathsome and unwholesome foods such as carrots, raw turnips, roast pig? (I confessed I loved carrots.) Do I fear dying? Do I have forebodings and gloom? Am I overtaken by a fear of undefined evil? Do I suffer from heartburn?

  “Excellent, you will carry to term,” he said, apparently satisfied with my answers.

  “Do you mean, Dr. Cuce, that I am with child?” “I confirm it.” “But Dr. Cucé—”

  “No need to be fearful, Madame,” he said, polishing his spectacles with the corner of his jacket. “Although it is not advisable for a woman to procreate after the age of thirty, you need not be concerned about consequences of a fatal nature. You have, as you informed me, already produced two children by your first husband, a procedure that has effectively opened up the channels.”

  “Dr. Cuce, it’s just that I do not feel that I am …” My breasts are in no way tender and my belly is not distended. “And what of the pain I am suffering? What of the fever?”

  “The pain is …?” He poked his manicured finger in my side.

  “Sometimes quite bad,” I said, “and at other times only an ache.” At that moment, a steady, throbbing, painful ache.

  “A minor inflammation of the stomach.” He wrote out a recipe for a purging diet-drink and an herbal tea to soak my feet
in.

  Twenty livres—on account.

  Thérèse kissed me on both cheeks and on my forehead, as if bestowing a blessing. “That’s wonderful news! Bonaparte is so efficient.”

  “I just wished I believed it. I’m not in the least bit tender, and this pain is so …” Worrisome.

  “Did you take the hartshorn, nutmeg and cinnamon powder I sent you? Did you boil it in springwater, as I told you?”

  I nodded. “And then I tried a remedy my Aunt Désirée sent me, along with her special prayer. And then another my scullery maid swore on the head of Brutus would curb a morbid condition.”

  “And nothing helped?”

  I shook my head. Something was wrong.

  April 21.

  An amusing caller this afternoon—he helped chase away the vapours.

  “Captain Charles.” He introduced himself with a theatrical bow. He is young, in his early twenties I would guess, with an alert pixie look. A pretty man, exceptionally well made and with good features, excellent teeth. His thick black hair was pulled back into a braid. His sky blue hussar uniform brought out the extraordinary colour of his eyes—a light aquamarine blue. (Who is it he reminds me of?) “I’ve just arrived from Marseille,” he explained, “where I was entrusted with a letter for you.” As if by magic, he pulled a document from behind the marble bust of Socrates.

  I smiled behind my fan.* A trickster!

  The letter was in a woman’s hand, the script ill-formed, like that of a child. “It’s from General Bonaparte’s mother?” My son has told me of his happy marriage, and henceforth you have my esteem and approval. “How kind of her to write,” I said, suspecting, however, that Bonaparte had dictated her letter as well.

  “Yes, the General’s mother is so very kind,” he echoed, but with a curious long-suffering look that made me wonder if he meant the opposite.

  I heard the businesslike clicking of my pug dog’s nails on the parquet floor. Fortuné entered the room with the air of a master. “What a charming little dog!” Captain Charles stooped down, holding out his hand.

  Charming? Most people consider my surly pug ugly. “I beg you to be cautious, Captain. My dog has been known to bite.”

  Fortuné approached the captain’s hand and sniffed it. The captain picked Fortuné up and, with a playful growling sound, rubbed his face in Fortuné’s fur. “He’s never allowed a stranger to touch him,” I said, astonished as much by Fortuné’s response as by the captain’s.

  April 27.

  “My protégé has done it!” Barras slid off his horse. I came to the garden gate, wiping my hands on my apron. He stepped over the little fence and folded me in his arms, twirling me. “I told them he could do it, but this—this is a miracle.” He was in his directorial robes still; one end of the scarlet cape caught on a rosebush.

  “Paul, wait.” I disentangled him from the thorn. My scullery maid stood frozen in the process of hanging a carpet over the stone wall, her head craned over her shoulder.

  “It’s unbelievable. Even I never expected …!” He was short of breath from such a show of youthful vigour, and dangerously flushed.

  “Now, Père Barras,” I said, motioning him toward the garden bench, “perhaps I could persuade you to take a seat? And then—at your leisure! I wouldn’t want to rush you!—if you could tell me, what is this miracle?” I removed my apron and used it to brush off the stone bench. “And which protégé?” For Barras had many.

  He paced back and forth on the narrow path, kicking up stones. “Your husband. Who else?”

  “Bonaparte?” I sat back, tilting my straw hat so that it blocked out the sun in my eyes.

  Barras clapped his hands. “He’s had a victory!”

  I smiled, incredulous. Already?

  “Yes—at Montenotte.” He waved his hands in the air as if deranged. “And with that starved, pathetic little Army of Italy that the Directors were so reluctant to grant him.” Pacing again, flinging his cape over his shoulder. “Haven’t I always said I have an eye for talent? I told them he could do it. And now they’ll have to admit that I was right. Ha!”

  April 29.

  Another victory! This one at Millesimo. I’ve pinned a map to the wall in the study and have tagged it with flagged pins, just as Bonaparte did when planning his campaign.

  April 30.

  And yet another at Dego! “I can’t take all this celebrating!” Barras groaned, holding his aching head.

  17 Floréal, Luxembourg Palace

  My friend,

  Please forgive this letter—I’m tied up in meetings with the Directors all day. I wanted you to be the first to know: your husband has had four more victories, and in only four days! Twenty-one Austrian flags captured! Im ordering a fire-rocket show over the river—hang the expense. At this rate, Bonaparte will be opening the Pope’s treasure chest soon.

  I advise you not to grant any interviews to journalists, who will be pressing, I warn you. All information must come from the Directory.

  Are you unwell? Thérèse mentioned that you’ve been in bed with a fever. This news will cure, I’m sure. Gather your strength—there will be ceremonies on end.

  Père Barras

  Note—I’m negotiating to buy Grosbois. Imagine, the previous residents were the royal family. With luck and a little persuasion (of the gold variety), the royal estate will be mine for a song. It would take millions to make it habitable again, however.

  May 4.

  Fever, pain again, quite sharp this morning. Dr. Cucé coming soon. 3:00 P.M.

  Dr. Cucé actually bowed before me. “Madame Bonaparte!” he exclaimed, pronouncing it “Bonne à Pare Té.” “All of Paris is delirious! Four more victories and in only four days. My wife was beside herself when I informed her that my honoured patient is Our Lady of Victories. And when she learned that I would be coming to attend to your health today, she practically fainted dead away. If I may be so bold, might you have a small token, something the Hero of Italy has touched? A handkerchief would be excellent, but better—perhaps one of General Bonne à Part Té’s hairs? I’d happily waive my fee. No! I insist, don’t get up. I’ll look myself. In this drawer? This brush?” I nodded, too fatigued to protest and chagrined that the brush had not been cleaned. “Ah, oui!” the doctor exclaimed, extracting a long, dark hair and holding it to the light. He turned to me, his eyes gleaming. “For my wife, of course. You know how women are?”

  May 5.

  Confined to bed still. Thérèse was just here with herbals and good cheer. She showed me an account in the journal Ami des Lois. Apparently, someone had sent in verses written in my honour—unsigned, however.

  “But I think I know who wrote them,” she said. “Wide-Awake.”

  Captain Charles? (Thérèse has dubbed the amusing trickster Wide-Awake because he’s always so bright.) “Don’t be silly, Thérèse,” I said, pulling the coverlet under my chin. “He’s a decade my junior.” And in any case, I suspected that the pretty captain might be the type of man who only coquetted with women—nothing more.

  “Young men adore you. Look at Bonaparte—he’s six years younger than you. And what about Lazare? How many years younger is he?”

  “Five,” I said, blushing.

  [Undated]

  Slowly, I begin to get better. I detest being sick.

  May 6.

  It was late morning—I’d just had a bath—when I was informed that there were two men downstairs wishing to see me. I considered telling them I wasn’t receiving, for I’m not yet fully recovered. “I think one might be your husband’s brother,” Lisette told me.

  Bonaparte’s older brother Giuseppe tipped his bicorne hat and bowed from the waist. “I’m called Joseph now,” he informed me, displaying the tips of his even teeth. “Charmed to meet you at last.” He is both taller and older than Bonaparte, a soft-spoken man with an indolent look. He was expensively if curiously turned out in a yellow tailcoat and matching knee breeches, a little cut-and-thrust sabre covered with gems dangling from his hi
p. Colonel Junot, one of Bonaparte’s aides, stood beside him, cracking his knuckles.

  “What a surprise!” I greeted my brother-in-law. “I can’t tell you the pleasure this gives me,” I said again, aware that I was exclaiming too much. Should I address Bonaparte’s brother by his Christian name? Should I offer my condolences on his wife’s being delivered of a stillborn? What were the customs in Corsica?

  Joseph pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it theatrically with his eyes closed, as if overwhelmed with feeling. I waited for him to finish. “My brother desires me to tell you of his overwhelming love,” he said.

  “Bonaparte has often told me of his love for you,” I answered, wondering how I might dry his spittle from my hand. I motioned to Lisette to serve cordials, swiping my hand against my skirt and through the air as I did so, as if I were an exuberant sort of woman. “When did you arrive in Paris? I long for news of Bonaparte. Four victories in four days—it is impossible to imagine!”

  “General Bonaparte rode five horses to death,” Colonel Junot said, cracking his knuckles again.

  Mon Dieu, I thought. “Your journey, how was it?” I asked, my voice thin.

  “We came the long way, by sea,” Joseph said. “But you will be happy to know, kind sister, that the return shouldn’t take longer than one week now that the passage over the Alps has been secured by treaty. Comfortable lodgings have been prepared for you.”

  Lodgings? I closed my fan. I didn’t understand.

  “You are to join my brother in Italy, kind sister.”

  I pulled my train to one side and sat down on the chair next to the harp. “Forgive me, but I’m not sure if I am able to—” Would it be improper to inform him of my interesting condition?