Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  In the palace Napoleon and Josephine put on their coronation robes. Josephine’s almost bore her down, but she managed to steady herself till the Princesses had seized the train and taken the weight off her. Napoleon looked us over for the first time, as he tried to force his hands into a pair of stiff gloves. ‘Let us start!’ he said.

  Despreaux had divided the different insignia among us, and we were only waiting for his sign. But the sign didn’t come. Instead, we saw Despreaux whisper something to Joseph and saw Joseph shrug his shoulders. Napoleon meanwhile had turned away and was gravely examining his image in a mirror. What would the mirror show him? Only an undersized man in splendid robes, the ermine collar of which nearly reached up to his ears. It would show a man who had fished a crown out of the gutter …

  Our embarrassed whispering and awkward standing about reminded me of a funeral. I looked round to find Jean-Baptiste and saw him standing with the other Marshals, holding the velvet cushion with the chain of the Emperor’s Legion of Honour, and gnawing his lips thoughtfully.

  ‘What are we waiting for, Despreaux?’ Napoleon sounded impatient.

  ‘Sire, it was agreed that Madame Mère was to open the coronation procession and Madame Mère is—’

  ‘Mama has not come,’ Louis said, and there was a trace of glee in his voice.

  We knew that Napoleon had sent many couriers to Italy to ask his mother to be in Paris in good time for the coronation. When she could no longer resist the pressure she had said good-bye to her exiled son Lucien and set out for Paris.

  ‘We regret it very much,’ said Napoleon without any expression in his voice. ‘We will proceed.’

  The fanfares trumpeted and the procession began to move slowly and solemnly. First came the heralds, then pages in green, Despreaux, the sixteen Marshals’ wives stiff as marionettes, Securier and Murat. Then it was my turn. An icy current of air met me as I came out of the door carrying the cushion with the handkerchief in front of me like a sacrificial gift. From the crowds restrained by an impenetrable cordon of soldiers there came a few isolated shouts as I passed: ‘Vive Bernadotte – Bernadotte!’ I kept my eyes fixed on Murat’s gold-braided back and never let them stray.

  I entered Notre-Dame, which was full of the roll of the organ and incense, carried the cushion the length of the nave, and came to a halt at the very end, where Murat stepped aside and the altar and the two golden thrones appeared. On the throne to the left, rigid as a statue, sat a little old gentleman in white, Pope Pius VII. He had been kept waiting here by Napoleon for almost two hours.

  I took my place beside Murat and watched Josephine walk up towards the altar, her eyes wide open, a smile on her lips. She stopped in front of the first step to the double throne to the right of the altar, so that the Princesses who carried her train came to a halt immediately in front of me. Then Napoleon appeared with the paladins carrying his insignia, Jean-Baptiste among them.

  The organ played the Marseillaise, as Napoleon slowly made his way to the altar till he reached the side of Josephine. Behind him stood his brothers and his Marshals.

  The Pope rose and said Mass. When he had finished Despreaux gave a sign to Marshal Kellermann. Kellermann advanced and held the crown up to the Pope, whose delicate hands could hardly bear its weight. Napoleon let his purple gown slide from his shoulders; his brothers caught it and handed it to Talleyrand. Here the organ ceased.

  In a clear and solemn voice the Pope pronounced the words of the blessing. He raised the heavy crown, waiting for Napoleon to incline his head. But Napoleon did not incline his head. His hands in his gold embroidered gloves reached up and snatched the crown away from the Pope, holding it high in the air for a fraction of a second. Then he placed it slowly on his head.

  A movement of startled surprise went through the ranks of the spectators. Napoleon had broken the pre-arranged crowning ritual and had crowned himself! The rest of the ceremony, the handing over by the paladins of the different insignia, went smoothly, and Napoleon ascended the steps to his throne once more. Joseph and Louis took up positions on either side of the throne. ‘Vivat Imperator in œternum!’ came the voice of the Pope.

  The Pope now turned to Josephine, making the sign of the cross over her and kissing her on the cheek. Murat was to hand him her crown. But Napoleon intervened, coming down from his throne and stretching out his hand, whereupon Murat handed the crown to him instead of to the Pope.

  For the first time to-day I saw a smile on the Emperor’s face. Very, very carefully, so as not to disarrange her coiffure, he placed the crown on her babyish curls and then put his hand lightly under her elbow to conduct her up the steps to their throne. Josephine took a step forward, swayed and very nearly fell back: Eliza, Polette and Caroline quite deliberately had let go of the train in order to make Josephine fall, to make her ridiculous in the moment of her greatest triumph. Julie and Hortense, however, held on with all their strength, and Napoleon gripped her arm and supported her. Thus she escaped the indignity of falling, she only stumbled on the first step to the throne.

  Young girls of the old French nobility – the pure virgins whom Despreaux had had such difficulty in finding – approached the altar with wax candles in their hands, as the Pope and high clergy retired to the chapter house. Napoleon sat rigidly with eyes half closed. What, I wondered, was he thinking of now?

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. Now a muscle moved in it and, believe it or not, he stifled a yawn! At the same time his eyes chanced on me, he opened them wide and for the second time to-day he smiled, a good-tempered, lighthearted smile, that seemed to have come right out of the past, out of our garden in Marseilles when we raced each other and he let me win. ‘Didn’t I tell you,’ his eyes asked, ‘that time by the hedge, and you wouldn’t believe me? Didn’t you want me to be thrown out of the Army to make a silk merchant of me?’ Yes, there he sat with crown and ermine, and yet for one moment he was the Napoleon from the garden in Marseilles. The next moment I remembered the Duc d’Enghien, and Lucien the first of the exiles, and Moreau and all the others, great and humble, who followed them. I turned my eyes away and only looked towards the throne again when I heard the voice of the President of the Senate.

  He stood in front of Napoleon unrolling a parchment. One hand on the Bible, the other raised high, the Emperor repeated the words of the oath after the President. In a voice clear and cool Napoleon vowed to preserve and guard the religious, political and civil liberties of the French people.

  The clergy returned to accompany the Imperial couple out of the Cathedral. Cardinal Fesch found himself next to Napoleon; the Emperor with boyish pleasure dug his uncle in the ribs with the sceptre. The cardinal’s face expressed such horror at his nephew’s spontaneous gesture that Napoleon turned away with a shrug of his shoulders. Within a few seconds of this the Emperor turned round to Joseph and called out to him: ‘What would our father have said if he had seen us here!’

  Following Murat out of the Cathedral I managed to catch a glimpse of Etienne. He was sitting next to the green-turbaned Turkish Minister, staring open-mouthed in rapture after his Emperor long after he had disappeared from his sight.

  ‘Does the Emperor keep on his crown in bed?’ asked Oscar, when I put him to bed that night.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps it’s too heavy for him?’ he pondered.

  I laughed. ‘Too heavy? No, darling, not in the least. On the contrary!’

  ‘Marie says that the police pay people to shout “Vive l’Empereur!” in the street. Is that true, Mama?’

  ‘I don’t know. But you must never say such a thing.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it is—’ I wanted to say ‘dangerous’, but I suppressd it. We want Oscar to say what is in his mind, but on the other hand the Minister of Police banishes from Paris people who say what is in their minds, for instance Madame de Staël, the authoress and great friend of Madame Récamier. ‘Because your grandfather Clary was a convince
d Republican,’ I said.

  ‘I thought he was a silk merchant,’ said Oscar.

  Two hours later, for the first time in my life, I danced the waltz. It was at a great ball which His Imperial Highness, brother-in-law Joseph, gave for all the foreign Princes and diplomats and Marshals – and Etienne, as Julie’s brother, he had graciously invited too. Marie Antoinette at one time had tried to introduce the Viennese waltz at Versailles; but only those received at court ever saw it danced, and after the Revolution anything that reminded people of the Queen from Austria was taboo. But now these sweet rhythms from an enemy country have infiltrated into Paris life once more.

  I remembered that Monsieur Montel had shown me some waltz steps, but I had no idea how to dance them. Jean-Baptiste, however, who had been Ambassador in Vienna, showed me how to do it. He counted ‘one two three, one two three’ the way a sergeant does on the barrack square, and I felt like a recruit. But gradually his voice became gentler and gentler, he held me quite close to him, his mouth was in my hair, and we pirouetted and pirouetted till the illuminations of the ballroom in the Luxembourg had coalesced into a sea of lights.

  ‘I saw the Emperor flirt with you – one two three, one two three – during the coronation,’ Jean-Baptiste murmured. ‘I saw it, I saw it.’

  ‘I had the feeling his heart wasn’t in it,’ I said.

  ‘In what? In the flirting?’

  ‘Don’t be horrid! In the coronation, I mean.’

  ‘Don’t forget the rhythm, my girl!’

  I insisted. ‘A coronation ought to be something which you feel very deeply.’

  ‘Not Napoleon, my girl, not Napoleon. To him it is only a formality. He crowns himself Emperor and at the same time swears loyalty to the Republic, one two three, one two three.’

  Somebody shouted ‘To the Emperor!’ and glasses clinked.

  ‘That was your brother Etienne.’

  ‘Let’s dance on, let’s dance on,’ I whispered. His mouth was in my hair again, the cut-glass lustres glittered with all the colours of the rainbow, the whole room seemed to pirouette and sway with us. The voices of the many guests came as from a great distance …

  On the way home we drove past the Tuileries. They shone in splendid illumination. Pages with torches flickering red through the night stood guard. Somebody had told us that the Emperor and Josephine had dined alone and that Josephine had to keep on her crown because he liked her so much with it. After their meal the Emperor had retired to his study to pore over maps. ‘He is preparing his next campaign,’ explained Jean-Baptiste to me as we passed. Snow had started to fall and many torches went out.

  Paris, two weeks after the coronation

  A few days ago the Emperor handed over the eagle standards to his regiments. We all had to put in an appearance on the Champs de Mars, and Napoleon had again put on his coronation robes and his crown.

  Each regiment was given a standard with a gilded eagle and a tricolour underneath. The eagles must never be allowed to fall into the enemy’s hands, the Emperor said, and promised new victories to his troops. For many hours we had to stand on a platform and let the regiments march past. Etienne, who was up there with me, shouted himself hoarse with enthusiasm.

  It has started snowing again. The parade never seemed to be coming to an end and we all had wet feet. But it gave me time to think out the preparations for the ball of the Marshals in the Opéra. The Master of Ceremonies had hinted to the Marshals that they ought to give a ball in honour of the Emperor. It was to be the most magnificent ball imaginable, and therefore we had rented the Opéra.

  We Marshals’ wives held innumerable sessions and checked over and over again the list of people to be invited. We could not afford to forget or insult anybody. Monsieur Montel taught us how to receive the Imperial couple and how to escort Napoleon and Josephine into the hall. From Despreaux we heard that the Emperor would offer his arm to one of us whilst one of the Marshals would have to conduct the Empress to her throne. This information caused long and grave discussions as to which Marshal and which Marshal’s wife were to be chosen. At last we agreed on Murat, husband of an Imperial Princess, as the suitable man to receive the Empress. As for the lady, the choice lay between Madame Berthier, the senior in age, and myself, sister to Her Imperial Highness the Princess Julie. However, I succeeded in convincing the others that fat Madame Berthier was ideally suited to welcoming the Emperor. I didn’t want to do it, I was too furious with him, because he kept Jean-Baptiste waiting and waiting for the independent command which he so longed for, as far away as possible from Paris.

  On the morning of the great ball I had an unexpected visit from Polette, who turned up accompanied by an Italian violin virtuoso and a French captain of dragoons. She left them both in the drawing-room and retired with me to my bedroom.

  ‘Guess,’ she said, and laughed, ‘which of the two is my lover?’ She looked charming in her glittering attire and her skilful make-up, with priceless emeralds from the jewellery of the Borghese family in her tiny ears. Her eyes reminded me of Napoleon.

  ‘Well,’ she repeated, ‘which of the two is it?’

  I said I couldn’t guess it.

  ‘Both!’ she exclaimed triumphantly, sitting down before my dressing-table, on which the golden casket was still standing.

  ‘Whoever,’ she asked, ‘was so tasteless as to make you a present of a casket with such dreadful Imperial eagles on its lid?’

  ‘It’s your turn to guess now,’ I said.

  She thought strenuously. Suddenly she looked up: ‘Was it – tell me – was it—’

  I didn’t move an eyelid. ‘I owe this casket to the infinite goodness of our Imperial lord and master.’

  Polette whistled like a street urchin. ‘I don’t understand it,’ she said, ‘I don’t. I thought Madame Duchâtel, the court lady with the long nose, was his mistress of the moment.’

  I blushed. ‘On the day of his coronation he repaid an old debt to me from his Marseilles days. That’s all.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Polette protestingly, ‘of course, my dear child, that is all.’ She paused, meditating on something. Then she came out with it: ‘I want to talk to you about Mama. She arrived here, secretly, yesterday. I don’t think even Fouché knows that she’s in Paris. She’s staying with me and you must help them.’

  ‘Help whom?’ I asked.

  ‘Madame Mère, and him, Napoleone, the boy with the crown.’ She laughed, a rather forced laugh. ‘I feel rather bothered. Napoleone insists that Mama has to obey the court ceremonial and to be received in formal audience by him in the Tuileries with curtsies and all the trimmings.’ She stopped, and I tried to imagine Madame Letitia curtseying formally before Napoleon. ‘He is furious,’ Polette continued, ‘because she deliberately travelled very slowly in order to miss the coronation. And he is angry because Mama didn’t want to see his triumph. Yet he is longing for her, badly, and – Eugenie, Désirée, Madame la Maréchale, couldn’t you bring the two together? Manage a kind of accidental meeting, you know, and leave them alone at the moment of their reunion so that the court ritual doesn’t matter two sticks? Couldn’t you arrange that somehow?’

  I sighed. ‘You really are a dreadful family.’

  Polette didn’t mind my saying that. ‘You’ve always known that, haven’t you? You know, by the way, don’t you, that I’m the only one of us whom Napoleon really likes?’

  ‘I’d guessed that,’ I said, and remembered a morning in Marseilles when Polette went with me to the Town Commandant.

  ‘The others,’ said Polette, beginning to polish her nails, ‘the others only want to get as much as possible out of him. Incidentally, Joseph no longer seems to be considered the successor since Napoleon adopted the two little sons of Louis and Hortense. Josephine is on at him day and night to make one of her grandsons his successor. And, do you know,’ here Polette waxed indignant, ‘what is the vilest thing of all? She tries to convince him that it is his fault that they have no children! His fault, I ask you
!’

  ‘I shall bring Madame Letitia and the Emperor together,’ I put in quickly. ‘I shall arrange it at the Marshals’ ball. I shall send you word through Marie, and all you have to do is see to it that your mother comes to the private box which I shall indicate to you.’

  ‘You are a treasure, Eugenie! Heavens, I feel better now.’ Earnestly she started making up her face and lips. ‘The other day an English paper published a scandalous article about me. My violin virtuoso translated it for me. The writer of the article calls me a “Napoleon of love”. Such nonsense! We have completely different methods, Napoleon and I: he wins his offensive wars and I – I lose my defensive battles.’ A wan smile flitted over her face, as she went on: ‘Why does he marry me to men who don’t interest me in the least? First Leclerc, now Borghese. My two sisters have an easier time of it, they, at any rate, have ambitions. They’re not interested in people, only in influential connections. Eliza can’t forget that dreadful cellar dwelling in Marseilles, she is obsessed by fear that one day she may be a pauper again, and so she snatches possessions where she can. Caroline was so young at the time that she doesn’t remember it at all, but she’d be ready for any foul deed if it could help her towards a real royal or Imperial crown. I on the other hand—’

  ‘I fear your two knights are going to be impatient,’ I interrupted her flow.

  Polette jumped up. ‘You’re right. I must fly. Well then, I shall expect to hear from you, and I will send our madre to the Opéra. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Allons, enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé …’

  On Jean-Baptiste’s arm I slowly descended the steps to the strains of the orchestra, to welcome the Emperor of the French as the guest of his Marshals.