The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon's Court

by Michelle Moran

  I press my palms flat against my skirts and try to remember Maria’s instructions. When he asks whether he looks as I expected, I’m to lie and say, “No, sire, you look much better.” And when he inquires how the journey from Vienna has been, I’m to smile and tell him, “Too long for a bride desperate to meet her groom.”

  My speech will be a portrait by Gottlieb Schick. An umbrella here, a potted palm there. Everything planned, the entire set prearranged. I will take my place, and he will take his, and the picture we create for this new empire will be flawless.

  The door of the royal calèche swings open.

  The Ogre of France is standing before me.

  “Marie-Louise,” he says, and it’s as if Metternich’s painting has come to life, red velvet coat and all. He has not bothered to flatter himself through art. He has the same short legs and rounded stomach from his portrait. His hair, which I’ve heard was once long in his youth, is cropped short just below his ears. Despite the rain, he is wearing a white cloak embroidered in gold, and his boots are far too nice for this weather. Pomp and ceremony, I think.

  Caroline claps with joy to see her brother, and Collette begins fanning herself with her hand. But the emperor doesn’t look at either of them. His gray eyes are too busy appraising me.

  “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, sire.” I offer him my hand, exactly as my father told me to do, and the look on the emperor’s face is rapturous.

  “Tell me,” he says, “do I look as you expected me to?”

  “No. You are more”—I lower my head in what I hope looks like modesty—“far more handsome in person.”

  I peek up through my lashes, and his smile is so wide that I’m embarrassed for him. He is forty years old, with a reputation so dark that Genghis Khan would be ashamed to own it. Does he really believe that a nineteen-year-old girl can be enamored with him?

  “And your father?” he asks suddenly. “How did he command you to behave toward me?”

  It takes all of my resolve not to tell him the truth. Not to say, “He warned me about your ambition. How you can sing love songs by night and kill a thousand men by day. How nothing will stop you from taking what you want.” But I know my lines, and I recite them for my father. “To obey you in every way,” I tell him.

  Napoleon closes his eyes, as if my words have transported him. “Marie-Louise,” he says when he opens them again, as formal as if the two of us were sitting at court, “will you accompany me to my carriage?”

  Caroline exclaims, “What about—”

  Napoleon shoots his sister a look, and immediately she is silent. “We will see you at the château.” He holds out his hand for me, and I take it.

  There are umbrellas as far as the eye can see, and every servant rushes forward in an attempt to shelter us.

  “Just one,” Napoleon snaps. “One.”

  A single man steps toward us, and Napoleon nods. “Thank you, Méneval.” He clears his throat. “To our calèche.”

  He will not keep up this facade forever. At some point, possibly even tonight, the charm will fall away, and I must be ready. Inside the coach, a handsome man in his forties is waiting. He is sitting across from a pretty young woman who pats the seat next to her, indicating where I should sit. But no one speaks, and when the door is shut and the horses take off, everyone waits for the emperor.

  “My bride,” he says at last. “Marie-Louise, this is Joachim Murat, the king of Naples and Caroline’s husband.”

  I incline my head. “An honor to meet you.” How can he live with Caroline for a wife?

  “The pleasure is mine,” he says. He is dressed in a white coat with gilded epaulettes, and if I’m not mistaken, he has gone to great lengths to arrange his black hair in long, tight curls. He would be laughed out of court in Austria for this. But he seems harmless enough.

  “And this is my stepdaughter, Hortense Bonaparte, the queen of Holland.”

  I incline my head again. “Your Majesty.”

  “I am to be your Mistress of the Robes,” she says quietly, and I realize with a start that my husband has commanded his own stepdaughter—the child of Joséphine—to wait on me.

  “Oh,” I say, and the three of them watch me, but nothing else comes. I am not like Metternich, who can spin his shock into pretty words. I need time to prepare my flattery and lies.

  When the silence continues, Napoleon clears his throat. “All of France has been waiting for this moment,” he declares. “The day when the heir of Alexander the Great took a Hapsburg princess for a wife. Look.” He reaches out and with a swipe of his hand, he pushes aside the brocade curtains. “The Château de Compiègne.”

  It is larger than any palace I have ever laid eyes on. It looms over the horizon like a marble bird, with great glass wings and a beak of stone. Even in this pouring rain, it is magnificent.

  “There’s nothing like it in all of Austria, is there?”

  I look up at the soaring windows. I’m tempted to lie, but I tell him the truth. “No.”

  “Of course not. The greatest Hapsburg emperors would be awed by this.”

  Such arrogance. I look to Hortense, to see what she makes of this statement, but her face is frozen in a welcoming smile.

  “This is one of the emperor’s three seats of power. The others are Fontainebleau and Versailles. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure,” says Caroline’s husband.

  “Yes.” I turn back to Napoleon. “And where does His Majesty spend most of his time?”

  Napoleon’s smile widens. He obviously takes pleasure in being addressed this way.

  “Fontainebleau,” he replies. “But you will find there’s not much difference between the three.” There is no time to ask what he means. Our procession has come to a stop in the cour d’honneur, and Napoleon is already putting on his gloves. “Your hat,” he says irritably, pointing to my bonnet. “It’s not straight.”

  I lift my hand to the fur-lined trim and can almost hear his thoughts: Joséphine would never have stepped out into the cour d’honneur without checking that her attire was flawless.

  “Here, let me do it,” Hortense says kindly. She unties the bow beneath my chin and sets the bonnet right. Suddenly, my heart begins to race.

  “Every person in France is waiting for you,” Napoleon warns. “The king of Holland, the Princess Borghese—are you ready?”

  No. But this is not the time to panic. I swallow my fear and nod.

  The coach door opens, and a sea of eager faces stare back at me, dripping with rain and oblivious to the weather. Someone shouts, “Vive l’empereur!” and the entire crowd takes up the chant. Then Napoleon laughs. “They never did that for your father, did they?”

  I despise this little toad. But I smile at him like a wife and stand like a queen.

  He raises my arm with his, and the entire courtyard erupts into cheers. The hundreds of dignitaries who have stood in the rain to wait for this moment press closely around us, and all of them are bidding me congratulations. “Your Majesty!” someone shouts. “Your Majesty!” A young man in heavy furs rushes forward, and he’s the same one who sheltered us with his umbrella.

  “Not now,” Napoleon says harshly. “Where is the cardinal?”

  “Doesn’t Your Majesty wish—”

  “My only wish, Méneval, is to discover whether we are officially married.”

  The young man looks stricken. “Yes. But in God’s eyes—”

  “God is for the common people, monsieur. Take us to my apartment.”

  Méneval glances at me as we enter the palace, and I am sure that my cheeks are the same color as his cloak. I think of Adam and the first time I invited him into my rooms. I was eighteen years old. A year before, the comte had divorced his wife of eleven years upon discovering her betrayal while he was at war. After this, he began walking the grounds of Schönbrunn each morning. I would find him sitting in the Gloriette, overlooking the vast baroque gardens of the palace, and whenever Sigi saw him, my spaniel would go mad with joy. Adam woul
d humor him by throwing a stick or scratching his long ears, and we came to know each other this way.

  Morning after morning I discovered what an extraordinary person he was. How his favorite painters were Francesco Guardi and Thomas Gainsborough, and how he saw himself as a soldier first but a collector second. His favorite antiques to acquire were Greek, then Roman, and finally Renaissance. We had known each other for more than a year when I suggested he visit me in my chamber. That night my ladies-in-waiting were dismissed, and I learned ways of preventing pregnancy.

  When Napoleon sent his stepson, Eugène, to arrange this marriage, there were two questions that Joséphine’s son never asked: is Ferdinand’s sickness an inheritable disease, and has Maria Lucia been touched? As we make our way through the palace, I wonder if Napoleon believes that I am a virgin, and if so, whether he might be angry enough to return me to Austria once he discovers the truth.

  “Your Majesty understands that the entire court is waiting beneath the grand staircase,” Méneval adds cautiously as we walk. “Everyone has been assembled there since noon. The Princess Borghese has just arrived, as has Madame Mère.”

  “They can wait a little longer.” Napoleon sounds amused. He takes my arm as we reach the staircase, and together we cut a swath through the glittering courtiers in velvet hats and heavily jeweled vests. “Where is he going?” I hear someone exclaim, then a woman gasps. “He’s not really going to take her—”

  Napoleon spins around. “Yes. I am.” The woman is shocked. “I’ll be back when I have reconquered Austria.”

  CHAPTER 11

  PAULINE BORGHESE

  Château de Compiègne March 28, 1810

  I DON’T BELIEVE YOU.”

  But Paul leans close to me during the final waltz and whispers in my ear. “It’s true,” he says simply. “Afterward she beat him at chess—”

  “Not the chess,” I hiss. “That she asked for it again!”

  He dips me back so that I’m looking up into his green eyes. “Her older sister probably told her what to say once he was finished,” he guesses.

  “She doesn’t have an older sister,” I snap, and as we stand face-to-face, I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. Napoleon has only known her for a day, and Paul has sworn she isn’t any great catch. But he wasn’t there for the carriage ride back, when anything might have happened between them. “He likes her. That’s what he said to you this morning, isn’t it?”

  He shrugs. “He likes all women—for a time.”

  “But this one’s a Hapsburg. And for all his talk about equality and common blood, I know the truth. He wishes he were royal.”

  Paul doesn’t argue. The music crescendos, and throughout the ballroom of the Château de Compiègne, hundreds of diamonds catch at the light. The gems dazzle from every surface: women’s necks, men’s cravats, the too-flirtatious Duchess of Devonshire’s hair. If the gods could see us now, they would stop time so that not a single one of us would age. Osiris, both the brother and husband of Isis, could immortalize us all in our perfection.

  Paul puts his hand on my back, and I enjoy the small thrill of scandalizing the members of the ancien régime. The Princess Borghese is dancing with her chamberlain! Then the floor begins to clear until we’re the only couple dancing. I catch the empress watching us as we go by, with her pretty blue eyes and a sweet-as-honey gaze. At every formal ball, at every weekend soirée, I am the one who ends the dance. It has been this way since my brother first held court, and it will be this way for as long as I am the Princess Borghese.

  I close my eyes, and for a moment, nothing but the music exists. There aren’t five hundred guests from all across Europe to see my brother wed his second wife. I’ve worn my white silk dress embroidered with gold lotus flowers, and the tiara in my hair has similar diamond blossoms. In the light of the hanging chandeliers, I must shine like white fire. I search for my current lover, de Canouville, in the crowd. His pretty face is next to Napoleon’s. Not surprising. My brother has always been a great admirer of beauty.

  “So what else have you heard?” I ask casually.

  My chamberlain hesitates. Then finally, as the music softens, he says quietly, “He advised Méneval to marry a German, since German girls are as fresh and innocent as roses.”

  I’m so shocked, I nearly forget that we are dancing. “He wants innocence?”

  “For now,” Paul is quick to say.

  But I feel a fire in the pit of my stomach that is all consuming. My brother, who had his way with the married Countess Walewska for the first time after she fainted dead at his feet, admires innocence? The same brother who enjoys spanking court women and then taking them to his chamber? The hypocrisy of it boils my blood.

  When the piano stops, I face Napoleon and make my deepest curtsey.

  “Very pretty.” Napoleon claps, and the entire court immediately follows suit. “Bellissima!” he exclaims in our native Italian. He beckons me with his eyes, and Paul leads me across the floor to where the emperor is standing.

  “That was very impressive,” Marie-Louise says, and though we met this morning, her tone is formal. “You’re a wonderful dancer.”

  I glance at de Canouville, who is watching me with open desire. “I’ve been dancing since I was a child in Corsica,” I reply. “I hope you dance as well. My brother likes watching beautiful women … waltz.”

  Marie-Louise inhales sharply, and my brother gives me a thunderous look. “Come with me,” he commands, and everyone steps away as if I’ve suddenly become poisonous.

  “Tonight,” I whisper in de Canouville’s ear as I pass. “My apartment at midnight.”

  I follow Napoleon through the ballroom’s double doors. He is breathing so heavily that one of the passing soldiers asks if he is well. “Fine,” he barks, and the young man steps back into the shadows. No one has dared to follow us, and our footfalls are the only sound in the marble halls. My brother waits for me to enter the library first, and once the door is shut, I placate him. “It was a joke.”

  “I will strip your title!” he shouts. “You will be nothing more than Madame Pauline!”

  He watches me in the flickering light of the fireplace, and for a moment, I am actually fearful. “My husband was a prince long before you were emperor,” I say at last. My marriage to Camillo makes me a princess, not my brother’s whim. Like his tender bride with Hapsburg blood.

  “I have summoned your husband to Paris,” he counters. “He’s to be at my wedding on the second of April.” I open my mouth to object, but he hasn’t played his final card. “For the occasion, you will be carrying the empress’s train in the chapel. You may be a princess”—he pauses—“but she is the empress of Rome.”

  “I will not carry her train,” I warn him.

  My brother’s lips twitch upward. “Jealousy has never become you, Pauline. And you most certainly will. Or you will find yourself living in Rome with Camillo.”

  I search his face to see if this is an idle threat, but his gaze is unflinching. “Why are you doing this to me?” In the light of the flames, he looks younger than his forty years. I imagine him in the blue and gold nemes crown, an Egyptian pectoral around his neck and a crook at his side.

  “It’s a silk train,” he says harshly, “not an explosive.”

  I cover my face with my hands. “I can’t live with Camillo. He’s a fool.”

  “I’ve had enough, Pauline.”

  I watch my brother walk behind his desk and seat himself heavily. He looks weary, as if this conversation has drawn everything out of him. “In four days there will be an official ceremony, and you will be standing in the Louvre with your sisters and Camillo.”

  “I want nothing to do with that man!” I shriek.

  “Then you should have considered that when you took your vows, but he will be staying here for my wedding.”

  “He will not live with me in Château de Neuilly,” I say flatly. My brother gifted me that house during his Spanish campaign. “I would sooner see Joséphine in it
than Camillo.”

  “Then you will send him to the Hôtel Charost!” he says angrily, referring to my property on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “But have a smile on your face come the second of April.”

  He storms past me, and I can see there’ll be no moving him tonight.

  CHAPTER 12

  PAUL MOREAU

  The Louvre, Paris April 2, 1810

  IT MAY BE THE GREATEST SPECTACLE PARIS HAS EVER WITNESSED, with soldiers marching down the Champs-Élysées in a steady stream of red coats and silver carriages as far as the eye can see. It costs a fortune to put on a parade like this, and the general populace feels that another war will bankrupt this empire. Yet everywhere I look there is joy—in the faces of the people crowding the streets, in the excitement of the courtiers who will grow rich serving our new empress.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Méneval says, and I suspect he has seen his share of processions in this country. We’ve been standing outside the Louvre for an hour; Napoleon loves pageantry. “Nothing will ever be the same in Europe after today. The daughter of Austria is marrying the ruler of an empire so vast that Charlemagne himself would be envious. What nation will challenge an alliance like this?”

  I try to imagine what peace will mean after decades of revolution and war.

  There would be no more public lists of the dead. No more burials of courtiers who rode out to war with their ambitious emperor simply because he wanted more land. And once there’s peace in Europe, why shouldn’t there be peace abroad? Why would France have need of colonies and slaves when there’ll be so much prosperity and happiness here?

  WHEN WE ARE finally inside the Louvre, we all walk to the room Napoleon has transformed into a stunning chapel of crimson velvets and silk. I take my place near Méneval in the brightly decorated pews and wonder if I am the only one who appreciates the irony that it was Marie-Antoinette, the great-aunt of the bride, who turned this palace into a public museum. Yet it was Napoleon, liberator of the people, who instructed the museum’s director to replace the paintings in the “chapel” with tapestries depicting her great-niece, Marie-Louise—and himself. I have heard rumors that when Monsieur Denon refused, telling him the paintings were too big to remove, Napoleon replied, “Very well. I’ll burn them.” The next day Denon discovered a method of taking them down.