Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

  “Maybe Eugène would heal if his head spirits were soothed,” Mimi suggested to me later.

  Head spirits? And then I remembered. According to voodoo beliefs, head spirits imparted ancient wisdom—without them, one was at the mercy of life, a boat without a rudder.

  “A ritual headwashing—to cleanse him, appease the spirits.”

  “Yes,” I said. Anything.

  “No,” Eugène said, his cheek muscle twitching.

  “But what would be the harm? It’s no different from getting your hair washed.”

  “It’s stupid, that’s why.”

  “Perhaps, but … I’ll buy you that horse you’ve been wanting.” “The black thoroughbred?” His mouth fell open. “Really? But it’s four thousand francs.”

  I shrugged. Somehow. “Tonight?” A deal.

  Gathering the ingredients proved easier than I expected. The stall in the market Mimi knew about had everything we needed.

  At two in the afternoon I corralled Eugène. “Quiet,” I commanded whenever he protested. Mimi mixed the ingredients, chanting, the words coming back to her slowly. She worked her strong fingers into his scalp. I poured buckets upon buckets of clear water over my son’s head, murmuring, I baptize thee, I baptize thee, I baptize thee.

  “That’s it?” Eugène asked, rubbing his hair dry.

  October 25.

  One full day, and still no twitch.

  3:00 P.M., a quiet moment.

  Hortense, although polite toward Bonaparte, continues to regard him as a stranger. “I am fine, General Bonaparte,” she’ll say, or, “Good morning, General Bonaparte.” Will he ever be Papa to her?

  Eugène also calls Bonaparte “General,” but with warmth in his voice. They shared a tent in Egypt, and it is easy to see that they’ve become close. He’s started a new scrapbook, I’ve noticed, this one on Bonaparte’s battles—his victories. Already it is thick. It sits on the shelf next to his childhood books, his scrapbooks on his father and Lazare. “You need room,” I told him. “Perhaps you should store these ones in the basement.”

  He ran his fingers over the old scrapbooks, considering. “No, Maman, there is room for them all,” he said, putting them back on the shelf.

  This pleased me, I confess.

  Early evening.

  “The Directors had the nerve to put me on half-pay,” Bonaparte exploded, coming in the door. I was in the drawing room with Hortense, trying to make conversation with Fouché and Bonaparte’s brothers, Joseph and Lucien. “They treat me like a civil servant.”

  I suggested to Hortense that she go.

  “Did you talk to Director Sieyès?” Lucien demanded.

  I took up my embroidery hoop, my needle. Why would Bonaparte want to talk to Sieyès? And why would Lucien want him to?

  “Uff. How anyone can stand the man is beyond me,” Bonaparte said, scratching. He’d broken out in boils and was irritated to distraction by a rash.

  Joseph noisily sipped his tea. “He would be useful, however.”

  “Essential,” Lucien echoed.

  Bonaparte scowled. In Egypt he’d been a king. In Paris he was merely a civil servant, a penitent begging favours at the feet of the five Directors—a cabal of old fools, he called them. “Although he is right about the constitution. It is unwieldy,” Bonaparte went on, talking to himself, thinking out loud. “Five directors is too many. A three-man executive would be more efficient, one person in charge, the other two advising.” Bonaparte paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, his hands behind his back. “And the constant change-over is only creating chaos. We’ve been reduced to a parliamentary comedy. There is such a thing as overdoing it—holding elections every year has exhausted the population. But the trick will be to change the constitution within the law.”

  “To do that,” Fouché said evenly, “you must have the support of both the Revolutionaries and the Royalists.” He’d powdered his hair in an unsuccessful attempt to disguise its ugly red colour.

  The three Bonaparte brothers turned to Fouché, as if surprised to discover that he was in the room.

  “And do I have that support, Citoyen Fouché, Minister of Police?” Bonaparte asked.

  Fouché took out a battered tin snuffbox, tapped it, then pried it open with his thumbnail, which was long, pointed and yellowed. “Yes, General, I believe that you do,” he said slowly, taking a sniff of snuff without offering any. “Or, to be more precise—I believe that you will.”

  October 26.

  Bonaparte and I set out at seven this evening to see Diderot’s Le Père de famille. I was looking forward to an evening of entertainment.

  Now it is only one hour later and we are already back home, frustrated and dejected—and a little overwhelmed, for as soon as the people recognized Bonaparte they started to cheer and scream, drowning out the voices of the actors. We had to leave in order that the performance could go on. We are prisoners of their adulation.

  * The young considered it fashionable to look old as well as rumpled: shirts were slept in to give the right effect, servants given new clothes to “break in.”

  * Bernadotte had married Eugenie-Désirée Clary, Joseph’s wife’s sister (and Napoleon’s former fiancée). Bernadotte will be crowned King of Sweden, and their son will marry one of Eugène’s daughters.

  * In Egypt Tallien became blinded in one eye, possibly due to untreated syphilis. On his return he is captured by the English. He does not arrive back in France until 1801, only to discover that his wife Thérèse is living openly with Ouvrard. They divorce and he ends his days in poverty.

  * The stone slab found near the city of Rosetta provided the key to scholars on how to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Stone is now in the British Museum.

  In which I must make a choice

  October 27, 1799.

  Lieutenant Lavalette gazed around our drawing room. He looked lost, somehow, one of the world’s innocents. He clasped my hand, his fat cheeks flushed pink from the cold. “Please tell me, how is Emilie? How is my wife? I did not know! Oh, but I would not have been able to live had I lost her.”

  “You’ve not seen her yet? You’ve not been out to Saint-Germain?” “I understand you and the General will be going out tomorrow morning.”

  “And Hortense, and Eugène. Do you wish …? Would you like to come with us?”

  “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed, clearly terrified to go by himself.

  October 28.

  We set out for Saint-Germain early, Bonaparte, Lavalette, Hortense and I in the carriage, Eugène riding beside us on Pegasus, his splendid new horse. The road was a bit heavy in spots, so it was noon by the time we pulled into the school courtyard.

  “General Bonaparte, we are honoured.” Madame Campan, wrapped in a black cape, dipped her head. We were ushered into her office—all but Hortense, that is, who went running to find Emilie (to warn her). A bell sounded; the ceiling shook with the sound of stampeding girls. “I’m to fetch your wife, Lieutenant Lavalette?” Madame Campan asked.

  “Madame Campan, if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell Émilie myself,” I said, moving toward the door.

  It had been over a year since I’d been in the upper storey of the school. The air was heavy with the smell of pomade and starch. Two girls in the green hats of second-year students were gliding down the hall, arms linked, giggling as they slid on the waxed parquet.

  “Hortense is in that room,” the girl with golden ringlets said, pointing across the hall.

  The door creaked open. “She refuses to go downstairs,” Hortense whispered, stepping aside. Emilie was huddled on a narrow bed in the corner, her scars inflamed.

  I sat down at the foot of the bed. “Are you afraid, Emilie?” Her husband certainly was.

  “No!”

  “What is it then?”

  “I don’t want to be married.” (I thought, If you only knew, poor girl, how lucky you are.) And then, her voice low, “To him.”

  Lieutenant Lavalette’s eyes filled with tear
s when he saw his wife’s scarred face. I’d prepared him as best I could, but even so, the sight could only have been a shock, she is so terribly disfigured.

  “Ah, so it is true. You’ve been poxed,” Bonaparte said.

  Emilie stood in the doorway, her reddened eyes fixed on the toes of her lace-up boots. “Yes, General Bonaparte. Sir.” She glanced at Eugène, nodded a furtive, shy greeting. Eugène went up to her, pressed his cousin to his heart. I was touched by my son’s tenderness. He’d so comforted Émilie when she was a child of four, and he not much older. “Your husband saved my life,” he told her. “More than once.”

  Lavalette flushed modestly, clutching his hat.

  And now perhaps this gentle man might save the heart of this girl, I thought—if only she would let him.

  October 29, early morning.

  “You paid 325,000 for it?” Bonaparte regarded the château of Malmaison, its crumbling façade, the roof in need of repair, the cracked glass on a second-storey window.

  “But Bonaparte—” I started to remind him that he himself had offered 300,000, but thought better of it. “It’s less than one hour from Paris and the grounds are superb. Plus, the winery alone brings in an income of eight thousand francs annually.” Well, seven. “The agent felt it was an exceptional value.”

  “The chicken coop has more prestige.”

  But by the end of the day, after riding the property on horseback, looking over the sheep herd and talking with the estate-steward about the sugar content of this year’s grape harvest, even Bonaparte had begun to succumb to the charm of the place. At nightfall we sat by the roaring fire playing backgammon, while Hortense played a new composition she had written on the piano and Eugène mended fishing gear.

  At nine Bonaparte and I retired, taking candles up to our drafty little bedroom ourselves. We slid between the frigid bed sheets, our teeth chattering, our feet seeking the hot brick wrapped in flannel. Then, in our little cocoon of warmth, we talked and loved, talked and loved.

  Evening—Paris.

  We’re back in the city. This afternoon I’ve meetings with tradesmen. Bonaparte wishes work done on Malmaison—renovations, furnishings, gardens! He loves it there.

  October 30.

  “What are you thinking?” I nudged Bonaparte with my toe. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, motionless as a statue.

  “That I should talk to Director Gohier,” he said finally, as if waking from a trance.

  “Concerning …?”

  Fauvelet came to the door, a stack of journals under his arm. “The General’s bath awaits,” he said grandly.

  Bonaparte stood, took the tiny cup of Turkish coffee his secretary handed him, downed it in one swallow. “Concerning getting elected director.”

  3:00 P.M.

  “Basta.” Bonaparte pulled at his boots, kicking one free. It went flying across the foyer and hit the door.

  “Director Gohier wasn’t helpful?” I followed him, retrieving his boots. They were filthy, in need of a polish.

  Bonaparte threw himself down on a chair and glared into the fire. He was wearing the pair of leather breeches that the actor Talma had lent him, so that he would have something presentable to wear to meetings with the Directors. They should have been returned. I tugged at his toe to get his attention.

  “I told him I wanted to be a director.”

  “And what was his response?” Both in Italy and in Egypt Bonaparte had proved his genius for administration. If he were one of the five Directors, perhaps the Republic would—

  “He laughed at me! ‘You’re too young, the constitution doesn’t allow it, it wouldn’t be legal.’“ Bonaparte’s voice was mocking. “Legal! The constitution is strangling this country and they refuse to do anything about it. They pray at the altar of the law, as if it were the word of God, this thing, this constitution they serve. They forget that it is the other way around—we made the laws, we created the constitution and we can change it.” Pacing, his hands behind his back. “And if they won’t, I will!”

  October 31.

  A hectic but exciting day at Malmaison, planning gardens, supervising improvements. Hortense’s new horse was delivered, a lovely bay cob mare. It raced around the paddock, whinnying to Pegasus. “Thank you for the horse, General Bonaparte,” Hortense said, addressing her stepfather as if he were a guest—an honoured guest, but a guest none the less.

  In the late afternoon the four of us—Bonaparte, Eugène, Hortense and I—surveyed the grounds on horseback, talking with the workers. Then Eugène and Bonaparte raced their horses back to the château.

  “You know, Hortense, it would please Bonaparte if you called him Papa,” I said to her, our horses walking lazily.

  “Yes, Maman,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears.

  [Undated]

  This evening I noticed Bonaparte standing in front of the pianoforte, studying a sheet of music—Partant pour la Syrie, a marching song Hortense wrote when she was sick with worry about her brother in Egypt. “That’s one of Hortense’s compositions,” I said.

  “It’s good,” he said thoughtfully, flicking one corner with his fingernail.

  November 1—back in Paris.

  “Do you know what Minister Fouché told me?” Fortunée Hamelin asked, stooping to tie the leather thong of her Roman-style sandal. “He suspects someone fairly high up in the government may be in league with the Royalists.” She sat up, demurely tucking a breast back into her bodice.

  “How high up?” Madame de Crény asked, playing a card. “A director.”

  “Can’t get any higher than that.”

  “That’s interesting. I heard that one of the directors was sending copies of all the minutes and correspondence to England.”

  “What an awful thought!”

  “And so, of course, everyone suspects Barras.”

  “Ah, poor Père Barras, everybody’s favourite bad boy.”

  “My linen maid is convinced the Royalists gave Director Barras five million.”

  “I heard two million.”

  “Rumours!”

  “But that’s not the worst of it.”

  “Oh?”

  “The worst of it, is they’re saying that General Hoche found out, and so Barras had him—”

  No! Don’t say it.

  “—poisoned.”

  And now, alone in my dressing room, I prepare for bed. I’ve bathed, powdered, done up my hair in a pretty lace nightcap. Waiting for Bonaparte, who is in meetings still. It is a peaceful picture I see in the glass, a woman writing in her journal. The candlelight throws a soft halo of light. Yet within me there is no peace, for I am disturbed by some of the things that the Glories said this afternoon. Gossip, I know, but even so, an evil seed of doubt has been planted in my heart. I think I know Barras—but do I? I thought I knew Lisette.

  November 2, late.

  Thérèse looked like a goddess of fertility, comfortably enthroned in Ouvrard’s opulent box at the Opéra-Comique. At six months, her belly prominent, her bosom abundant, she was a vision of voluptuous femininity.

  “I feel I haven’t seen you for a decade,” I said, kissing her. “Sorry I’m late.” The three hammer strokes had sounded as I’d entered the lobby, but then there had been greetings to exchange with Fortunée Hamelin and Madame de Crény.

  On stage two actors were engaged in a heated debate, two ladies under a “tree” looking on, bemused, fluttering enormous feather fans. “You haven’t missed anything.” Thérèse took my hand and didn’t let it go.

  The two men began chasing the two women around a bush. The people in the pit stood up and started yelling, waving their arms. “Is Ouvrard not here?” I asked.

  “He detests opéra bouffe.” Thérèse leaned forward into the glare of the gaslights. “Oh, there he is—with Talleyrand. Ah, and look—” She nodded to the left. “Our newly elected President of the Five Hundred.” She stuck her nose in the air, a mocking gesture.

  Lucien Bonaparte? I ducked back out of view
. “I told Bonaparte I was at the riding school. He doesn’t approve of the Opéra-Comique. He thinks I should only go to the Théâtre de la République.” But the truth was, I didn’t want him to know I was meeting Thérèse.

  “He’s getting to be such a snob.” But smiling. “How is our darling boy?”

  Thérèse considered Bonaparte a friend, but a history of favours and affection did not hold much credit in his eyes, I’d discovered—especially now, with her illicit pregnancy so visible. “Busy.”

  “I hear you’ve started your evenings again. From what I gather, all of Paris comes to your salon.” She poured a glass of champagne, handed it to me. “Don’t worry, darling, I won’t embarrass you. I’ve been a social outcast for so long it doesn’t even bother me.”

  A big man in the pit stood up and shook his fist at the stage. Others were pulling at him, trying to get him to sit down.

  “Well! I knew the loveliest ladies would be in Ouvrard’s box.” Barras, his legendary hat askew, appeared with Toto tucked under one arm, wrapped in a red cashmere scarf. “So the General let you out tonight, Madame Bonaparte?”

  “You brought Toto to the theatre?” I put out my hands.

  “He’s not feeling well. The two of us actually.”

  “He’s cold,” I said, tightening the scarf around the quivering creature. The miniature greyhound resembled a rat more than a dog. “You’ll join us, darling?” Thérèse asked.

  “Is the General among us?” Barras looked behind the curtain. A stone on his little finger caught the light—an enormous ruby. “Or is he still in hiding?”

  Barras had been drinking, I suspected. There was something dangerous in his manner. “I couldn’t induce Bonaparte to venture out,” I said. The public’s enthusiasm for my husband made appearances difficult. But I couldn’t say that to Barras.

  “A wise move. We’ve had reports that his army want to kill him—for deserting them in that godforsaken land.” He smirked. “For leaving them to die.”

  Thérèse threw me a look of caution.