Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  Talleyrand is, with Fouché, the most powerful man in the service of Napoleon, although he resigned his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs last year, after a row with Napoleon in which he warned him against new wars. But apparently Napoleon couldn’t do without his diplomatic services. He appointed him ‘Vice-Grand Elector’ of the Empire and demanded that Talleyrand should continue to be consulted in all important foreign affairs. I’ve always liked this lame dignitary, a witty and charming man, who never talks about politics and wars to women, and I find it difficult to believe that he used to be a bishop. But he was, he was even the first bishop to take the oath to the Republic. That didn’t help him much with Robespierre, though, because of his aristocratic descent, and he had to flee to America.

  A few years ago Napoleon forced the Pope to absolve Talleyrand from his clerical vows. His intention in doing so was to force his Foreign Minister to marry and thus to stop him having so many mistresses. (Yes, Napoleon had become very virtuous, particularly where the ladies and gentlemen of his court were concerned.) But Talleyrand kept excusing himself, saying that he really couldn’t get married and that he had to live in celibacy. In the long run, however, he couldn’t escape and had to marry his last mistress. As soon as he had married her he was never seen with her in public again …

  Well, however that may be, this powerful man came to see us yesterday and asked: ‘How is it that I never see you in Paris now, my dear Prince?’

  Jean-Baptiste answered politely: ‘That cannot have surprised you, Excellency, as you may perhaps have heard that I am on sick leave.’

  Talleyrand nodded gravely and inquired whether Jean-Baptiste wasn’t feeling any better yet. As Jean-Baptiste goes out for a ride every day for hours and looks very bronzed, he had to admit that he was feeling a bit better.

  ‘Have you had any interesting news from abroad lately?’ asked Talleyrand. ‘A stupid question,’ I thought, ‘because he knows very much better than everybody else what goes on abroad.’

  ‘Ask Fouché,’ said Jean-Baptiste calmly. ‘He reads all the letters I get before I read them. Anyway, I have heard nothing of importance from abroad.’

  ‘Not even greetings from your Swedish friends?’

  This question didn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary. Everybody knows that Jean-Baptiste had been very magnanimous in Lübeck towards some Swedish officers by sending them home instead of keeping them prisoners, and it is only natural that these people with unpronounceable names should sometimes write to him. Yet this question seemed to have a certain significance, for Jean-Baptiste looked up at Talleyrand and tried to catch his eye.

  He nodded. ‘Oh yes, a few greetings. Did Fouché not show you the letter?’

  ‘Monsieur Fouché has a very great sense of duty, and naturally he showed me the letter. But I should not call these greetings quite unimportant. Neither unimportant nor, as yet, important.’

  ‘The Swedes deposed their mad King in March and made his uncle, Charles the Thirteenth, their King,’ said Jean-Baptiste.

  Here I pricked up my ears. ‘Really? This Gustavus who thought that he had been selected by Providence to defeat the Emperor has been deposed?’

  They didn’t answer me but continued to look into each other’s eyes. The silence became oppressive to me. ‘Don’t you think, Excellency,’ I said, to break this silence, ‘that this Gustavus is really mad?’

  ‘It is difficult for me to judge from here,’ said Talleyrand, and smiled at me. ‘But I am convinced that his uncle is of the highest importance for the future of Sweden. This uncle is rather senile and ailing and has no children either, if I am not mistaken, Prince?’

  ‘He has adopted a young relative and made him his successor, Prince Christian Augustus of Holstein-Sonderburg-Augusten-burg.’

  ‘How well you pronounce these foreign names,’ said Talleyrand admiringly.

  ‘I lived in Northern Germany long enough, one got used to these names there.’

  ‘You did not take an interest in the Swedish language, my friend?’

  ‘No, Excellency, I had no cause to do that.’

  ‘You surprise me. A year ago, when you were in Denmark with your troops, the Emperor left it to your judgment whether to attack Sweden or not. I remember writing to you about it. But you confined yourself to looking from Denmark across to Sweden and did nothing. Why not? I have always wanted to ask you about it.’

  ‘You say yourself that the Emperor left it to me. He wanted to help the Tsar to take Finland. Our help was not needed. It was enough, as you remarked correctly, to look from Denmark across to Sweden.’

  ‘And the view? How did you like the view of Sweden, my friend?’

  Jean-Baptiste shrugged his shoulders. ‘On clear nights one can see the lights of the Swedish coast from Denmark. But the nights were mostly foggy. I rarely saw the lights.’

  Talleyrand bent forward and tapped the golden knob of his walking cane, which he always carries with him on account of his lameness, gently against his chin. I couldn’t understand what pleasure he got out of this conversation. ‘Are there many lights in Sweden, my friend?’ he asked.

  Jean-Baptiste put his head on one side and smiled. He, too, seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of this talk. ‘No, only a few. Sweden is a poor country, a great power of the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Perhaps also a great power of – to-morrow?’

  Jean-Baptiste shook his head. ‘No, not politically, but perhaps in other ways. I don’t know. Every nation has possibilities once it is ready to forget its great past.’

  Talleyrand smiled. ‘Every individual human being, too, has possibilities once he is ready to forget – his little past! We know examples, my dear Prince.’

  ‘It is easy for you to talk, Excellency. You are descended from a noble family and you had a good education. Everything was easier, far easier for you than for those to whom you allude.’

  The blow went home. Talleyrand’s smile disappeared. Calmly he said: ‘I have deserved this reprimand, Prince. The former bishop apologises to the former sergeant.’ Was he waiting for a smile from Jean-Baptiste? Probably.

  But Jean-Baptiste sat bent forward, his chin in his hands, and did not look up. At last he said: ‘I am tired, Your Excellency, I am tired of your questions, tired of the Police Minister’s supervision, tired of distrust. I am tired, Prince of Benevento, very tired.’

  Talleyrand rose at once. ‘Then I shall hasten to put my request to you and go at once.’

  Jean-Baptiste, too, got to his feet. ‘A request? I can’t imagine how a Marshal in disgrace could do a service to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.’

  ‘You see, my dear Ponte Corvo, it concerns Sweden. I heard yesterday that the Swedish Council of State have sent some gentlemen to Paris to negotiate about the resumption of diplomatic relations between our two countries, which resumption I take to be the main reason for their change of sovereign. These gentlemen – I don’t know whether their names mean anything to you, a Monsieur von Essen and a Count Peyron – asked after you in Paris immediately on their arrival.’

  A deep frown appeared on Jean-Baptiste’s forehead. ‘These names mean nothing to me. Nor do I know why they should have asked after me.’

  ‘The young officers who were your guests after the capture of Lübeck talk a lot about you. You, my dear Ponte Corvo, are considered a friend of – hm – of the European North. And these gentlemen who have come as Swedish negotiators probably hope that you will put in a good word with the Emperor for their country.’

  ‘You can see how badly informed they are in Stockholm,’ said Jean-Baptiste.

  ‘I should like to ask you to receive these gentlemen,’ said Talleyrand in an expressionless voice.

  Jean-Baptiste’s frown deepened. ‘Why? Could I be of any use to them with the Emperor? No. Or is it your intention to tell the Emperor that I meddle in foreign affairs which are no concern of mine? I should be very grateful to you, Excellency, if you could tell me in so many words exactly what i
t is you want.’

  ‘It is so simple. I should like you to receive these gentlemen and say a few kind words to them. What words you are going to use I leave entirely to you, of course. Is that asking too much?’

  ‘I believe you don’t know what you are asking,’ said Jean-Baptiste tonelessly. Never before had I heard him speak like that.

  ‘I do not want the Swedes to get the impression that the Emperor has, let us say, temporarily dispensed with the services of one of his most famous Marshals. It would create the impression abroad of dissension within the circles close to the Emperor. You see, the reason for my request is a very simple one.’

  ‘Too simple. Far too simple for a diplomatist such as you. And far too complicated for a sergeant such as me.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand you, Excellency, really I don’t.’ He put his hand heavily on Talleyrand’s shoulder. ‘Are you going to tell me that a former bishop’s sense of duty is not as great as that of a former teacher of mathematics?’

  With a graceful movement of his cane Talleyrand pointed to his lame foot. ‘That is a lame comparison, Ponte Corvo. As lame as my foot. The question is, you see, to whom one feels one owes his duty.’

  At that Jean-Baptiste laughed, relieved, laughed far too loudly for a Prince, laughed as he must have laughed as a recruit in the Army. ‘Whatever you do, don’t you say that you owe anything to me. I should never believe that.’

  ‘Of course not. Allow me to arrange my thoughts in a somewhat wider context. You know, we former bishops had no easy time during the Revolution, and I withdrew from this perilous period by going to America. My stay there taught me to think not in terms of individual countries but of continents. I feel a duty towards a continent generally, a duty to our continent, dear Ponte Corvo. To Europe in general. And, of course, to France in particular. Good-bye, my beautiful Princess, farewell, dear friend – it was a most stimulating conversation!’

  Jean-Baptiste spent the whole afternoon riding. In the evening he did sums with Oscar and made the poor boy add and multiply till he nearly fell asleep over it and I tried to drag my tired son to bed. He has become far too big now to be carried to bed.

  We did not mention Talleyrand’s visit any more because of a dispute we had over Fernand just before we went to bed. Jean-Baptiste said:

  ‘Fernand complains that you are too generous with your money. Every moment you put a franc or two in his hand.’

  ‘But you told me yourself that we are rich now and that I needn’t economise any more. And if I wanted to please Fernand, this old school friend of yours, this most loyal of all loyal servants, there was no need for him to complain to you behind my back and say that I am too open-handed.’

  ‘Stop your tipping! Fernand gets a monthly salary from Fouché now and earns more than he knows what to do with.’

  ‘What?’ I was disconcerted. ‘Is Fernand stooping so low as to spy—’

  ‘My little girl, Fouché offered to pay him for spying on me, and he accepted because he thought that it would be a pity to forgo all that nice money. But, immediately after, he came to me and told me how much Fouché was paying him and suggested that I should deduct it from his salary. Fernand is the most decent fellow under the sun.’

  ‘And what does he tell the Minister of Police about you?’

  ‘Oh, there is something to tell every day. To-day, for instance, I did sums with Oscar, which ought to be very interesting to the former teacher of mathematics. Yesterday—’

  ‘Yesterday you wrote to Madame Récamier, and that annoys me very much,’ I broke in. Now we had reached a familiar subject, and we forgot all about Talleyrand.

  Paris, December 16th, 1809

  It was terrible, it was terrible and embarrassing for all those who had to be present. The Emperor had ordered all the members of his family, of his Government, of his court and all his Marshals to attend, and in their presence he divorced Josephine.

  For the first time after a long interval Jean-Baptiste and I had been requested to appear in the Tuileries. We were to be there at eleven o’clock in the morning. But I was still in bed at half-past ten. I had decided that whatever happened I wasn’t going to get up. The day was cold and grey, and I closed my eyes.

  ‘Whatever does this mean? You are still in bed?’ said Jean-Baptiste.

  I opened my eyes and saw Jean-Baptiste in his gala uniform covered with gold braid and medals.

  ‘I’ve got a cold. Please excuse me to the Lord Chamberlain,’ I said.

  ‘Like that day before the coronation. You know the Emperor will send you his physician. Get up at once and get ready. Otherwise we shall be late.’

  ‘I don’t think that this time the Emperor will send me his physician,’ I said calmly. ‘It might happen, might it not, that Josephine at the moment when she reads out her consent to the divorce looks round and catches sight of me. I expect that the Emperor wants to spare her that.’ I looked imploringly at Jean-Baptiste. ‘Don’t you understand me? I just couldn’t bear this ugly, this awful triumph.’

  Jean-Baptiste nodded. ‘Stay in bed, my girl. You have got a very bad cold. And take it easy.’

  He left and I closed my eyes once more. When the clock struck eleven I pulled the blanket right up to my chin. ‘I too am getting older,’ I thought, ‘I too shall have wrinkles round my eyes and no longer be able to bear children …’ In spite of my eiderdown I suddenly felt chilly. I called Marie and asked her for some hot milk. After all, hadn’t I got a cold?

  She brought the milk, sat down on my bed and held my hand. Before the clock struck twelve Jean-Baptiste returned and brought Julie with him.

  Jean-Baptiste undid his high embroidered collar and said: ‘That was the most embarrassing scene I have ever witnessed. The Emperor asks a bit too much of his Marshals.’ With that he left my bedroom. Marie left with him on account of Julie, whom she still has not forgiven although Julie is now a Queen without a country. How so? Because the Spaniards finally drove Joseph away. But no one in Paris may say so.

  Julie started talking at once. ‘We all had to take our places in the Throne Room, each according to his rank. We, I mean the Imperial family, stood quite close to the throne. Then the Emperor and the Empress entered at the same time, behind them the Lord Chamberlain and Count Regnaud. Count Regnaud kept close to the Empress, who was in white, as always. And powdered pale, you know. To look the martyr!’

  ‘Julie, don’t be so nasty about her. It must have been frightful for her.’

  ‘Of course it was frightful for her. But I’ve never liked her, I’ve never forgiven her for what she did to you at that time—’

  ‘She didn’t know anything about me then, and it wasn’t her fault,’ I said. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘There was a deathly silence. The Emperor started to read out a document, something about only God knowing how difficult a step this was for him and no sacrifice being too great for him where the well-being of France was concerned. There was also something in it about Josephine having been the sunshine of his life, of his having crowned her with his own hands and of Josephine’s right to the title of Empress of France for the rest of her life.’

  ‘What did he look like when he read that?’

  ‘You know what he looks like now on all public occasions: stony. Talleyrand calls it his mask of Cæsar. He put his mask of Cæsar on and read so fast that one had difficulty in following him. He wanted to get it over as quickly as possible.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Yes, then it all turned so terribly embarrassing. The Empress was given her document and she began to read out. At first her voice was so quiet that I couldn’t understand a word. Then, all of a sudden, she broke into tears and passed the paper to Regnaud, who had to read on for her. It was a dreadful sight.’

  ‘What did it say in her document?’

  ‘That she herewith stated, with the permission of her beloved husband, that she was no longer able to have children. And therefore the well-being of France demanded of her the great
est sacrifice ever to have been asked of a woman. And she thanked the Emperor for his kindness and was firmly convinced that this divorce was necessary so that a direct descendant of the Emperor could reign over France in years to come. But not even the dissolution of her marriage could alter her feelings in any way … All this Regnaud droned out as if it were some regulation, whilst the Empress kept sobbing most pitifully all the time.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we, the members of the family, went to the Emperor’s big study, where Napoleon and Josephine signed the document of divorce, and we signed after them as witnesses. Hortense and Eugene took their weeping mother away and Jerome said, “I am hungry,” which earned him a vicious look from Napoleon. The Emperor turned away, saying, “I believe there will be a bite for the family in the Great Hall. Please excuse me,” and left. Everybody rushed to the buffet, and then I saw Jean-Baptiste ready to leave. I asked after you and he said you were ill and so I have come along with him.’ She paused for a moment.

  ‘Your crown isn’t straight, Julie!’ As at all official functions, she was wearing a diadem shaped like a crown, and as always it wasn’t straight.

  She sat down at my dressing-table to put it right, powdered her nose and continued her chatting: ‘She’s leaving the Tuileries to-morrow to go to Malmaison, which the Emperor has given her. He has also paid all her debts, and she is going to have an annuity of three million francs, two million from the Exchequer and one from the Emperor. On top of that the Emperor has given her another 200,000 francs for the plants she had bought for Malmaison and 400,000 francs for the ruby necklace which a jeweller is making for her.’

  ‘And Hortense and Eugene, what’s going to happen to them?’

  ‘Hortense will stay on in the Tuileries, and Eugene remains Viceroy of Italy. After all, Napoleon adopted them, didn’t he? Imagine that Hortense still thinks her eldest son will be heir to the throne! She must be crazy! The Princess whom Napoleon is going to marry is a Hapsburg and that means that there will be plenty of offspring.’ She got up. ‘I must be off.’