The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte

by Chatlien, Ruth Hull

  Then her fear fell away as Jerome stepped into the firelight. “Are you safe?”

  “Yes. Oh, Jerome—” She rushed to him and clung to the lapels of his coat. “What was that horrible sound?”

  Jerome put his arms around her and patted her back. “Some wild thing catching its prey, I think. Many animals hunt at night.”

  Betsy began to cry. Hiding her face against his waistcoat, she murmured, “I cannot do this. Why did you insist on camping when there are perfectly good inns where we could stay?”

  “Shhh, Elisa. You are tired, and this is all strange to you. The fire will keep wild animals away, and I have my pistols. I will protect you.”

  She broke away from him and sat on a tree stump a few feet from the fire. “We don’t even know what kind of animal made that cry. There could be bears in the woods and—mountain lions. Oh, who knows what lurks out there!”

  Jerome squatted before her. “Elisa, you are not listening to me. Everything in life has danger, but I would not risk your safety needlessly. I swear that I will protect you.”

  His face was in shadow because his back was to the fire, so Betsy could not see his expression, but his tone was annoyed rather than reassuring. Betsy nodded to acknowledge his promise but did not speak. She felt drained of everything but fright.

  Wearily, she rose and gathered the food she had dropped when she heard the animal cry. She brushed dirt off the bread, sliced off the end of the cheese that had fallen on the ground, and set their dinner on metal plates. They sat on a log that had been left by the fire pit and began to eat, but Betsy had little appetite.

  Because she was so afraid, Jerome combined their bedrolls into one and held her tight. Betsy was certain that she would never sleep, but she soon fell into an exhausted slumber as a way of shutting out the terror.

  She woke the next day to the sound of birdsong and the sight of early morning sunlight slanting through leaves overhead. Jerome was snoring softly. She rose, used the latrine he had dug, and then returned to kneel by him. Taking a deep breath of cool air, Betsy felt like shouting in triumph that she had done something she thought impossible. Instead, she shook Jerome. “Wake up, sleepy. Dawn breaks.”

  He grunted and rolled over with his back to Betsy, but she tickled his side. “We made it through the night, husband, and I am filled with a passion for living this morning. Can you not think of anything better to do than sleep?”

  Gazing at her, he wiped the sleepiness from his eyes. “Elisa, you astonish me. You are rarely this lively in the mornings.”

  She laughed. “I had no conception that it could be so exhilarating to feel paralyzed by fear and overcome it. Is this what surviving a battle is like?”

  “In small measure.”

  Seized by mischief, she snuggled close to Jerome and growled into his neck. “I feel like a lioness.”

  Jerome rolled her onto her back and pinned her shoulders to the ground, but his eyes were alight with passion, not anger. “You may be a lioness, Elisa, but do not forget who is the lion.”

  Smiling, Betsy put her arms around his neck. Just before she kissed him, she whispered, “Then let me see if I can make you roar.”

  AFTER THAT, BETSY no longer requested that they spend the night in an inn, although they did occasionally stop for hot, plain-cooked dinners of fresh venison, quail, or fish if they reached an establishment at a propitious hour. Each night, they exercised caution while preparing their campsite, but although they saw a few more dead snakes on the road and sometimes heard strange noises in the night, Betsy grew accustomed to living outdoors. From learning to carry on despite her fears, she felt a growing confidence.

  The country they traveled through was nothing like the wilderness that Betsy’s father had predicted. Four days out from Utica, they were still finding bridges and sawmills. As they rode farther west, the region grew more heavily forested. Several times, they passed families in the process of clearing land and, in one case, building a log cabin.

  The weather was sweltering that day, so they stopped at the half-built cabin to ask if they could have water from the well. As they drank from a ladle that the husband provided, Jerome inquired about how to erect a log cabin. When he learned that all the process required was a sharp axe and mud, he asked permission to dismount to inspect the building. While the man showed Jerome how to notch the logs to make them fit together, his wife asked if Betsy would rather have fresh milk.

  “No, thank you, on a day like today, water is more cooling.” Betsy noticed the wife staring avidly at her clothes, as simple as they were. Although the woman was in her late twenties at most, she had dry, brown skin and rough hands. Impulsively, Betsy removed her hat and pulled off the rose-colored ribbon that circled the crown and formed a bow at the side. “This ribbon is not much, but may I offer it in thanks for your hospitality?”

  “Oh, ma’am, you should not have ruined your pretty hat.”

  “I want you to have this.”

  Hearing the approaching voices of the men, the woman plucked the ribbon from Betsy’s outstretched hand, stowed it in her apron pocket, and curtsied.

  Jerome mounted his horse and saluted the settlers before riding away. As Betsy brought her horse up alongside his, he said, “How should you like to settle in a place like this?”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “Do you know anything about farming?”

  “What is there to know? You clear the ground, plant the seeds, harvest the crops. I could build a cabin, and we would be beholden to no one. Napoleon could never touch us here.”

  Thinking of the loneliness and labor such a life would entail, Betsy wanted to cry. Then as she listened to Jerome rave about how he would hunt and fish and she would make their clothes, she saw that the prospect was not real to him. He was indulging in a romantic fantasy to convince himself there was a way out of the vise tightening upon them.

  Betsy decided to play along. “I should have to grow a vegetable garden and make preserves. We always had servants do such things at home.”

  “You are clever enough to do anything.” After a pause, he said, “I would like to see Napoleon’s face when he learns that we scorn his empire and its honors. He will regret his high-handedness when he realizes it has driven me away.”

  Betsy stifled her impulse to sigh. “I am sure he will, Jerome.”

  ON THEIR NINTH day out from Utica, they began to hear a low thrumming sound ahead of them. The further they rode, the louder it grew until it was a dull roar, like the distant sound of violent waves crashing on shore. “That must be the falls,” Jerome said. “Burr said that you can hear their thunder for twenty-five miles or more.”

  They did not reach the falls that night or even the next day, although the sound increased continually. Their tenth night out, as Betsy tried to fall asleep, she felt the noise vibrate inside her as a physical presence, and she wondered how anyone ever got used to the roaring.

  Early the next day, they reached the Niagara River. Riding on the northeast bank, they passed a place where the river divided to flow around a huge, heavily wooded island. Immediately beyond it, the river was about two miles wide, but the rocky gorge through which it ran quickly narrowed.

  The crashing water was deafening. Jerome gestured with his arm and led the way to a high point, where he dismounted. Betsy followed and saw that they were on a promontory overlooking two gigantic waterfalls. The near set of falls featured tons of water plummeting from a wide precipice. The more distant and even wider set of falls was curved like a horseshoe. The waterfalls were much taller than she had imagined; they looked to be more than twice the height of the Presidential Mansion. The cascading water churned and foamed, creating a thick white mist that rose for hundreds of feet.

  Jerome led their horses away from the promontory’s edge and tied them to a tree in a grove twenty feet away. Returning to Betsy, he slipped his arms around her waist from behind.

  The air was filled with a cool spray, and the thunderous sound enveloped them. Mesm
erized by the sight of the tremendous stream racing toward the precipice, Betsy felt that it symbolized the way she and Jerome were caught in the onrush of forces beyond their control. As she gazed upstream, she saw a dark shape moving in the water. A young deer struggled in the river, trying frantically to swim to shore, but the forward crush of the water was too powerful to escape. The animal swept over the edge of the falls and disappeared. Horrified, Betsy hid her face against Jerome’s chest.

  Was that to be their fate? By defying Napoleon, were they flinging themselves over a cataract to their own destruction? For each of the seventeen days of their journey, she had wondered what other course they could choose. They had joked about Jerome becoming a fisherman or a farmer, but neither had been a serious proposal. From early childhood, Jerome had only one end in mind, that of sharing his brother’s destiny. Could she deprive her husband of the only life he had ever craved? And what of her own dream of living in Europe and becoming royalty?

  Abruptly, Betsy drew down Jerome’s head and kissed him. He responded eagerly, and she stroked him through the fabric of his trousers. Jerome moaned and, seizing her hand, led her back into the shelter of the trees. Stopping by a tall oak with a wide trunk, he kissed Betsy again. Then after unbuttoning the front flap of his pants, he raised her skirt, lifted her so that her thighs rested on his hips, and bracing her against the tree, entered her.

  The roaring of the water, the insistence of her desire, and the driving energy with which Jerome pushed into her merged into one massive force, and Betsy cried out in exultation as she came to climax. Afterward, she found that a new and steely resolve had taken possession of her. Whether wisely or foolishly, she and Jerome had long since chosen their course. No matter whether they were destined to dash upon the rocks or be swept to safety, it was far too late for them to extricate themselves from the rushing torrent of fate that swept them toward the cataract. She could only pray that they survived.

  XIV

  IN mid-August Jerome and Betsy returned to New York by a northerly route that included a visit to Boston. When they finally reached Greenwich Village forty days after leaving for Niagara, they found Lieutenant Meyronnet living with Dr. Garnier and Le Camus, whom they had left occupying their house. The men were playing whist at the mahogany pedestal table in the drawing room on the evening the Bonapartes arrived home.

  Jerome strode over to Meyronnet. “Why did you not sail on the Didon?”

  “Because the French frigates are still here. The British did not break their blockade for some time, so Captain Brouard decided to wait upon your return to see if you are now willing to obey the emperor’s orders.”

  Posing with one arm held behind his back, Jerome gave Meyronnet his haughtiest stare. “Has Brouard decided to allow Madame Bonaparte to accompany me?”

  Meyronnet shot Betsy an uneasy glance. “No.”

  “Then my resolve has not changed.”

  “Bonaparte, think before you do anything rash. Captain Brouard asks you to attend a reception aboard ship to discuss the matter.”

  Jerome thrust out his chin. “There is little point.”

  Betsy crossed to Jerome and took his arm. “It does no harm to talk to the man. Perhaps a way exists to work this out that you have not considered.”

  “I will not compromise on the question of leaving you.”

  “I know that.” She gazed into his eyes so he could see her belief.

  After a moment, Jerome nodded and turned back to the table where the others had resumed their card game.

  Betsy decided to go upstairs and ask her maid Jenny, a girl she had hired in Baltimore, to prepare a bath for her. On her way from the room, she overheard Garnier tell Jerome that, while they were gone, Vice-President Aaron Burr had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and then fled to his daughter’s home in the South.

  “Merde!” Jerome exclaimed, a vulgarity he rarely uttered in her hearing. “I was looking forward to meeting him again and telling him about our excursion.”

  The next day, Betsy worked at checking their food supplies and sending their travel clothes to a laundress. At midday, she found Jerome in the sitting room writing letters. One was an appeal to Napoleon, in which Jerome begged for different orders that would allow him to bring Betsy to France: “Why do you, who claim to uphold public morality, wish to make a virtuous woman suffer the consequences of your anger toward me?”

  As Betsy read the letter, tears filled her eyes. She laid it on the drop-down writing surface of the secretary, and Jerome handed her the second letter, written to Minister of the Navy Decrès:

  I beg you to be so kind as to give my brother the enclosed letter. I explain to him my situation in this country, which daily becomes more cruel, and I urgently ask for orders to leave it. You have yourself been long in this part of the world, and can, best of all people, explain to him how out of place my life is here.

  Betsy did not believe that these entreaties would move the emperor, but later that day, another letter arrived that renewed her hope. In it, Samuel Smith informed them that his acquaintance General John Armstrong Jr. was about to travel to Paris as the new ambassador to France. Smith suggested that they entreat Armstrong to let Betsy sail with his diplomatic party while Jerome sailed aboard the Didon. Jerome instantly wrote the letter.

  Because of this new possibility, Jerome decided to attend Brouard’s reception after all. He returned from the event in an ebullient mood. “They addressed me as ‘Imperial Highness’ even though the emperor has not given me that title. I think they believe I must prevail.”

  Dismayed that his optimism could be restored by such flattery, Betsy held her tongue.

  A week later General Armstrong wrote that he would be honored to escort Madame Bonaparte and that she should board his ship in New York Harbor the afternoon of September 4. Accordingly, Betsy packed her trunk, and Jerome made arrangements to give up the house. He would sail on the Didon a few days after her departure.

  Anxious to be on her way, Betsy arose early on September 4, and they left the house in such good time that they reached the designated landing shortly before noon. However, no ship was moored near that pier. Perplexed, Jerome flagged down a passing boat and asked the crew if they knew where General Armstrong’s ship was docked.

  “That vessel left early this morning,” the skipper called back. “The ambassador took a sudden notion to leave before his scheduled time.”

  Jerome waved his acknowledgment and returned to Betsy, who stood next to their carriage. “Why would he leave without you?”

  “I suspect he reconsidered his position and decided that becoming embroiled in your family quarrel might damage his standing with the French government.”

  The next day Jerome sent word to Brouard that he would not sail aboard the Didon, and Betsy wrote her father that they were returning to Maryland and would stay at the Springfield estate.

  IN EARLY OCTOBER, Betsy’s brother Joseph rode to Springfield to say that their mother had been delivered of a girl during the night. Both mother and daughter were healthy, and Dorcas had asked to see Betsy and Jerome.

  They arrived at the Patterson house late the next afternoon. After hanging her cloak on a peg, Betsy started upstairs, but Jerome lingered in the hall. Gazing at him over the banister, Betsy said, “My mother asked for you too.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Elisa, I do not belong in a birth chamber. That is the province of women.”

  “Don’t be silly. All signs of the birth will have been cleared away long since.”

  With a grimace, Jerome followed her upstairs. Betsy knocked lightly on the bedroom door and entered. Seeing that her mother was awake, she said, “How are you?” Leaving Jerome at the door, Betsy crossed the room to kiss her mother’s cheek. Then Betsy knelt to look at her new sister, sleeping in a cradle by the bed. The two-day-old infant had a shock of red hair, and she held one fist beside her mouth as if she had dozed off sucking her fingers.

  Betsy picked up the baby. “What have you
named her?”

  “Mary Ann Jeromia.”

  “Oh.” Meeting her mother’s eyes, Betsy understood that she had chosen the name to proclaim that Jerome was as much her son as any of the children she had borne.

  Jerome drew near. “You would name her for me?”

  As Dorcas murmured her assent, Betsy transferred Mary Ann to her husband’s arms and showed him how to hold her. Watching him smile into the baby’s face, Betsy wondered if she had been wrong to dread having a child. A baby would give Jerome another person to fight for.

  THE NECESSITY FOR Jerome and Betsy to travel to France remained, as did the danger that British warships would waylay them. After conferring with his father-in-law, Jerome decided to make secret preparations to travel on a merchant ship leaving from a port they had not yet used. They sent one of Patterson’s agents to book passage for “Monsieur and Madame d’Albert” on the Philadelphia, soon to leave Port Penn, Delaware, for Cadiz, Spain. Garnier and Le Camus would accompany Jerome, and as her companion, Betsy invited her favorite aunt, Nancy Spear.

  After a two-day coach journey, they boarded the ship, which departed on October 24. Because the ship was often used to transport passengers, their quarters were slightly more spacious than those aboard the Didon, although the furnishings were basically the same—a bunk, a writing desk and chair, and a washstand bolted to the cabin wall. At first, the weather was beautiful, cool but clear with brilliant blue skies. Aunt Nancy proved to be a nervous sailor and remained in her cabin, but Betsy and Jerome spent most of that first afternoon strolling on deck enjoying the views of Delaware Bay.

  Toward evening, clouds massed over the land to the west, gusts of westerly wind blew with increasing force, and the temperature dropped. Betsy saw heightened activity among the crew as they worked to keep control of the ship, which was listing to port. As rain began to fall, Jerome hurried her below to their cabin.

  For hours, the gale lashed the ship, causing it to buck and roll. Betsy lay in the bunk, clinging to its railing to keep from being tossed about. Jerome sat beside her in the cabin’s single chair. Betsy’s stomach heaved along with the sea, and she vomited several times into the washbasin, which Jerome had moved onto the bed beside her. He did not get sick, in spite of being shut up with a retching wife, but he looked pale and agitated. Finally, after an hour, he said, “Elisa, do you feel well enough for me to leave you for a short while? I feel uneasy about Miss Spear.”