Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

“You do not understand, kind sister,” Joseph said softly, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “My brother, the General, he—”

  “The General must not be disobeyed,” Junot said, twisting his fingers but failing, this time, to crack them.

  They left soon after. I’ve ordered my coach-man to harness the horses—I must talk to Barras.

  5:00 P.M., or shortly after.

  Barras frowned. “But that’s impossible. The Directors must first give their consent.”

  “They seem to be unaware of this.”

  “The fact is, the Directors wouldn’t permit you to go, we wouldn’t grant you a passport. It’s simply not safe yet. And besides—” He propped his chin in the palm of one hand, regarding me with his puppy-dog eyes. “I doubt that it would be in our best interest, frankly. You’d distract the Liberator of Italy from his military duties.” He made a lecherous grin.

  “So the Directors wouldn’t allow me to go to Italy?”

  He shook his head, the feather in his cap bobbing.

  I left shortly after, but not until I’d promised Barras I would attend the first weekend gathering at his new country château. “It will be wonderfully restful,” he promised me.

  May 19 — Grosbois!

  I am sitting in a chair that was likely sat in by Louis XIV, the Sun King. I am writing at a desk where treaties have been drafted, staying in a château where the great men of history have slept.

  I am, frankly, stunned by the magnitude of Grosbois, now Barras’s country estate. This is a castle.

  “What it is, is a headache,” Barras said, pointing out all the repairs that are needed to the roof, the foundation, the windows. For it has fallen, to be sure, into neglect. It took two manservants eight full days just to capture and kill the vermin, he told us. (All the vermin.)

  We are a small party: Thérèse and Tallien (recently reconciled but already bickering, alas), Julie and Talma* (also together again), a Deputy Dolivier (who is also a banker), Fortunée Hamelin (thankfully, her pompous husband stayed at home), Ouvrard and his wife, Lucile Beaucarnot, a singer with the Opéra (Barras’s current favourite) and her comely young brother. They are all out walking now, in search of views. I did not feel robust, so I declined.

  In any case, it was an excuse to enjoy a short but delicious sleep under silk sheets—under the purple,** Aunt Désirée would say. Soon I’ll ring for Lisette and begin dressing for dinner. The water in the basin has been scented with rose petals; a crystal bottle of the finest claret has been placed on the table in front of a flower-filled fireplace. I can smell bread baking.

  Three cooks are at work preparing what will no doubt be yet another of Barras’s sumptuous feasts. (The menu is before me now.) Barras has arranged for a string ensemble to play as we dine. And then after, sated no doubt, we will retire to a golden salon where Talma will read, I will play the harp while Lucile Beaucarnot sings and—eventually, inevitably!—Thérèse will have us aching with laughter over her hilarious imitations. “And then the game room,” Barras warned us with a wicked grin, flinging his scarlet cape over his shoulder. He is clearly happy in this role, the grand master, orchestrating our pleasures. I am only too willing to oblige.

  Late (I’m not sure of the time).

  We gathered for dinner at five in full dress. (My new cream-coloured muslin gown embroidered with gold thread was perfect for the occasion.) “May I have the honour?” Barras offered me his arm. We led the small procession into the ancient dining room.

  “A fresco by Abraham Bosse?” Thérèse inquired. The walls were painted with a medieval scene.

  Barras shrugged. “I just live here.”

  “How old is this place?” Ouvrard said, examining the massive fireplace that dominated one end of the room. He is a tall man, young (in his mid-twenties), exceptionally well-made. The wealthiest man in the French Republic, it is said.

  “It has been a royal domain since the thirteenth century. Le Monsieur was the last resident,” Barras said. Le Monsieur, the Pretender, the brother of King Louis XVI—and, according to Royalists, King. “We walk in the footsteps of history.”

  “You walk,” I corrected him.

  We were seated, we ate, each attended by a silent valet. We drank, we got noisy: I took in the news. The deficit was a concern: two hundred and fifty million. The government was going to sell a number of National Properties in an effort to raise money.* The Directors were considering introducing new taxes: a patents tax, a stamp duty, land tax. There was talk of a tax on doors and windows, which led to a heated debate.

  Dinner Menu

  FOR THE TABLE OF CITOYEN DIRECTOR AND GENERAL BARRAS DéCADI, 30 FLORéAL

  12 PEOPLE

  1 soup

  1 appetizer

  6 main dishes

  2 roast dishes

  6 side-dishes

  1 salad

  24 dessert dishes

  four

  Monk small onion soup

  Appetizer

  Sturgeon broiled on a spit

  Main dishes

  Confidence man sautéed turbot fillets

  Eel tartare

  Cucumbers stuffed with marrow

  Chicken-breast in a puff pastry shell with Béchamel sauce

  John Dory fish in a caper sauce

  Partridge fillets in rings

  Roast dishes

  Local gudgeon

  Carp in a court-bouillion

  fide-dishes

  Snow eggs

  White beetroot sautéed with ham

  Madeira wine jelly

  Orange blossom cream fritters

  Marie Antoinette lentils in a cream of concentrated veal broth

  Artichoke hearts in a shallot vinaigrette

  falad

  Shredded celery in a herb-mustard mayonnaise

  Twenty-four desserts

  “The peasants will be forced to live in the dark,” Thérèse objected.

  “The English do it,” Ouvrard observed. “They’ve done it for years.”

  “And look at the state of their peasantry.”

  “The English are taxed for living,” Tallien said. “For breathing.”

  “But they don’t have a deficit,” Deputy Dolivier said.

  “And they don’t have every Royalist country in Europe waging war on them for daring to embrace democratic ideals. The fact is,” Barras said, assuming his Director’s tone, “it costs us a great deal to keep our men in arms. Over half our revenues go to the Ministry of War. A standing army of five hundred thousand requires … How much would you guess a day, simply in sacks of wheat? Over six hundred,” he said, not waiting for us to guess.

  “Six hundred and fifty,” Ouvrard corrected. “Seven hundred head of cattle, seventy thousand sacks of oats—a day. The horses alone require two million bales a day.”

  “Spoken as an army supplier,” I said.

  “Yes, and proud of it,” Ouvrard said earnestly. “Although I’m afraid that the title would not be considered worthy in most gatherings.”

  “Everyone’s quick to accuse army suppliers of corruption,” Barras said, “but the fact is that the French Republic would have collapsed long ago without them.” He made a signal with his hand; the twelve valets moved in unison, filling our glasses with Madeira, taking away the dishes. Then he pulled a deck of cards from out of the side table, threw a sack of coins on the table. “Shall we have a quick game before dessert? How about five hundred to start?” He leaned toward me. “I’ll advance you,” he whispered, tossing out a second sack. “That’s for Madame Bonaparte, lads, but be careful.” He winked at his guests, “She plays to win.”

  (I did: fifteen hundred.)

  May 21—back home in Paris.

  Indisposed again—fever, terrible pain. It was a mistake to go to Grosbois.

  I hardly have the strength to hold this quill! I’ve been examined by three doctors—Thérèse’s, Barras’s and my own Dr. Cuce. They stood about my bed scratching their heads. Last night the pain was so violent, I feared I
would not see the dawn.

  May 24.

  The flowers came on suddenly and frightfully. And with such pain! I feared I was going to die. I felt light, as if I could float. I felt myself flying. Lisette covered me with a bed sheet. “I’m sorry about the mess,” I said, closing my eyes.

  Later.

  “Madame Bonaparte, you are healing, the morbid condition of the uterus has improved, but I regret to inform you that you are not …”

  Not with child, alas. “Was I before, Dr. Cuce?”

  He scratched his chin. “A mole, perhaps?”

  A mole?

  [Undated]

  From Madame Campan’s book:

  A Mole is a Mass generated in the Uterus, which may be mistaken for an Infant in the Womb. Physicians affirm that all Moles are real Conceptions which cannot happen unless there has been some Intercourse between the two Sexes. Nor do they believe that a Woman can become pregnant through Imagination. Hence as often as we meet Moles, we may assure that there has been Co-habitation with Man.

  May 28.

  I started a letter to Bonaparte, to tell him, but couldn’t.

  Headquarters at Milan, 20 Prairial

  Every day death leaps around me: is life worth so much fuss? Farewell, Josephine. Stay in Paris, do not write; at least respect my solitude. A thousand knives stab my heart; do not plunge them in deeper. —B.P.

  23 Prairial

  Josephine, where will you be when you get this letter? If in Paris, my misery is certain! I have nothing left but to die. —B.P.

  Late afternoon, around 4:00.

  Thérèse saw the distress in my eyes. “What is it?”

  I confessed to her my fears. I told her how disturbing Bonaparte’s letters were. “I don’t know what to think. He says things that frighten me. It’s as if he’s in a fever. I’ll get a letter telling me to be careful, to take care of my health, not to come to Italy—and then a few days later I get a letter saying that he’s going to kill himself because I haven’t arrived!”

  “Do you think he might be a little …?” She made a twirling motion at her temple.

  Tears spilled down my cheeks. “No, of course not.” Although, in fact, that was my deepest fear. “It’s just that he becomes so upset, I fear he might …”

  “Step in front of a cannon?”

  I nodded, staring down at my hands. They were the hands of an older woman—not my hands, surely. “He wants me with him.” “So go.”

  “Thérèse! A battlefield is no place for a woman. And what about Hortense and Eugène?”

  “Your Aunt Désirée will look after them.” “But my health—” “Is improving.”

  I sat back. “You really think I should?” I felt as if I’d been condemned.

  She took my hand. “Remember how it was during the Terror, how we were fighting for something bigger than we were?”

  I nodded impatiently. What did that have to do with it?

  “It’s not over yet,” she said. “I know, we like to think it is. We dance, we play cards, we go to the theatre. I admit it! I’m the first one at a fête and the last one to leave. And why not? We’re the survivors. Death tapped us on the shoulder and we escaped. Life is short, so why not enjoy it? But we’re fooling ourselves. The Republic is faltering. Everything our loved ones died for is at stake. Our beloved Republic is falling and yet we dance on, trying to ignore it.”

  “But Thérèse, what does this have to do with whether or not I should go to Italy? Saving the Republic has nothing to do with me,” I said, a feeling of anger rising up in me.

  “Would you concede that it might have something to do with your husband?”

  Yes, I did believe it possible, that much depended on Bonaparte—why, I could not say. In my most secret heart, I believed he could save us—and worse, that we needed to be saved.

  Noon, 27 Prairial

  My life is a perpetual nightmare. A deathly premonition stops me from breathing. I no longer live. I have lost more than life, more than happiness, more than repose. I am almost without hope. If your illness is dangerous, I warn you, I will leave immediately for Paris. —B.P.

  * Josephine had bad teeth and was in the habit of smiling with her lips closed or behind a fan.

  * Julie Careau and the great actor François Talma had lived in Josephine’s house when previously married.

  ** Under the purple: royal life.

  * With the Revolution, the government had seized Church property, as well as the estates of émigrés and arrested aristocrats. From time to time, in order to raise money, the Republic put these properties up for sale—usually at a very good price.

  In which I finally depart

  June 19, 1796, early, not yet noon.

  Barras was resistant at first. “It’s victory nerves, that’s all,” he insisted.

  “Paul, this is serious. It’s more than nerves.” I dared not tell him the full extent of my fears, that Bonaparte might be mad.

  “Look, it’s simply unreasonable of him to expect you to join him.”

  “Please, listen to me!” Barras looked at me, startled. I’d never raised my voice to him. “If … if I don’t go to Italy,” I said, more calmly this time, “Bonaparte will come here.” This was the one argument that was likely to persuade him, I knew.

  “To Paris? He would leave his troops in the middle of a campaign?”

  Yes, I nodded. He would. He will.

  “That would get him court-martialled.”

  I nodded. Ruined! Shot!

  “That’s strange. He didn’t mention any of this in his last letter to me.” He looked over the stacks of paper covering his desk. “Here it is,” he said, holding a letter up and squinting at it. “Just the usual business—his conditions for the armistice agreement with the Pope.”

  “Bonaparte is dealing with the Pope?”

  Barras smirked. “Getting a little high and mighty, one could say?”

  “It’s the Republic he represents that is high and mighty.”

  “That’s the problem—that’s what’s getting the Directors so upset. Bonaparte doesn’t represent the Republic, and yet he’s acting as if he does. Ah, here’s the part.” Barras cleared his throat and read out loud. “‘I hate women. I am in despair. My wife does not come—she must have a lover who is holding her in Paris.’“ Barras looked at me, amused. “So who is this lover?”

  “The only man who has been admitted to my bedchamber of late is my doctor, I’m afraid. Fevers are not conducive to romance.”

  “I must say, you do look frail. Are you even well enough to travel?”

  Early evening—Fontainebleau.

  “Oh!” Aunt Désirée cried out when she saw us. “I wasn’t expecting you. Hortense, look at you, a little lady in that bonnet. And you, Eugène, such a handsome lad. You’re growing like a cabbage.”

  Hortense jabbed her brother in the ribs. Eugène grabbed her wrist and tried to pin her arm behind her back.

  “Children!” I stooped to give my aunt a kiss, glaring at Eugène. “Why don’t you two go out to the stable to make sure the horses are taken care of.”

  “My groom will look after your horses,” Aunt Désirée said, tightening the sash of her squirrel-lined dressing gown.

  “The children need to be outside,” I whispered as they raced for the door. “It’s a long ride from Saint-Germain.” The walls shook as the front door slammed shut. “And besides, there is something I need to talk to you about, Aunt Désirée—privately.” I settled into the armchair next to the sofa.

  My aunt gave me a baleful look over the top of her thick spectacles. “I warn you, Rose, I’m out of salts.”

  “Still?” I paused. “I have to go to Milan.” “To Italy? But isn’t that where the fighting is?” “I know, Aunt Désirée, it’s just that—”

  “How would you get there? The roads are so perilous. Even between Fontainebleau and Paris, one risks getting robbed. And what about your health? Just look at how pale you are.”

  “I’m needed there,
Aunt Désirée, my husband—”

  “A woman belongs with her children. And what about our wedding? The Marquis and I can’t get married without you.” Sniffing.

  I was dismayed. My aunt never used to cry, and now it seemed she was crying all the time. “I have a suggestion to make. Perhaps the priest could marry you and the Marquis before I leave.” “When will that be?”

  “Possibly next week,” I said, my voice faint.

  “Next week!” my aunt shrieked. “Father Renard was reluctant to marry us next month even.”

  “Perhaps I could explain the problem to him.” Pay him a goodly sum. Or promise to.

  “But Rose, my gown isn’t finished. It isn’t even begun.”

  I heard the children’s voices in the foyer. I put my finger to my lips, shush!

  “The children don’t know?”

  “What don’t we know?” Hortense asked, pulling off her hat.

  Eugène grinned at his sister. “A mystery,” he hissed.

  “You’re going to have to tell them sometime,” Aunt Désirée said angrily, taking up an embroidery hoop and jabbing a needle into the tautly pulled fabric.

  Not now! But it seemed I had no choice. “I’m going to be making a trip,” I told them reluctantly.

  “Oh?” Hortense looked apprehensive.

  “To Milan,” I said, with an apologetic dip of my head.

  “Where’s Milan?” Hortense asked Eugène.

  “To the war?” Eugène spoke the word with reverence.

  “You’re leaving us, Maman?” Hortense’s straw hat fell to the floor and rolled for several feet before falling over with a soft poof. She backed out the door.

  “Hortense!”

  I was breathless when I got to the park. “Hortense!” I stopped, catching my breath, one hand pressed against the pain in my side. It was growing dark, the shadows disappearing.

  I heard a sob from behind a stone wall. Hortense looked so small sitting in the dirt. I gathered her in my arms. “Sweetheart.” I stroked her hair. She was shaking. “Oh, my big girl,” I whispered, swallowing hard.

  I heard the creaking of wagon wheels, the lazy clip-clop of a horse’s hooves on the cobblestones on the other side of the wall. Hortense took a jagged breath. Then, between sobs, it all came out. I would not see her in the year-end play. All the other parents would come, but who would be there to see her? And, at year end, when all the girls went home, where would she go?