Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  ‘You don’t say so, Your Excellency!’ Fouché exclaimed.

  Talleyrand smiled. ‘Does that surprise you? After all, the Emperor is leading the greatest army of all time against the Tsar. So, as a matter of course, the bells are going to ring again soon. Does it upset you, Your Highness?’

  ‘Of course not. On the contrary, I am, after all—’ I broke off. I was going to say ‘I am a Frenchwoman after all’, but I am not a Frenchwoman any longer and my husband had concluded a pact of friendship with Russia.

  ‘Do you believe the Emperor will win the war?’ Talleyrand asked.

  ‘He has never lost a war yet,’ I answered.

  There was a curious pause, Fouché regarding me intently whilst Talleyrand drank the really excellent tea slowly and with great enjoyment. ‘The Tsar has asked for advice,’ he said at last, putting down his cup.

  ‘The Tsar will sue for peace,’ I said, bored.

  Talleyrand smiled. ‘That was what the Emperor expected after the victory of Smolensk. But the courier who arrived in Paris an hour ago with the news of the victory at Borodino knows nothing about peace negotiations. And that in spite of the fact that this latest victory opens the road to Moscow.’

  ‘I suppose that means the end of the Russian campaign, doesn’t it? Have a piece of marzipan, Excellency.’

  ‘Has Your Highness heard from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince lately?’ asked Fouché.

  I laughed. ‘Oh yes, I forgot, you no longer supervise my correspondence. Your successor would be able to tell you that I haven’t heard from Jean-Baptiste for a fortnight. But Oscar has written. He is well, he—’ I stopped. It would bore the gentlemen to be told about my son.

  ‘The Swedish Crown Prince has been away from home,’ said Fouché, never taking his eyes off me.

  Away from home? I looked at them in astonishment, and so did Count Rosen.

  ‘His Royal Highness was in Abo,’ Fouché continued.

  Count Rosen gave a start. ‘Abo? Where is Abo?’ I asked him.

  ‘In Finland, Your Highness.’ His voice was hoarse.

  Finland again! ‘Finland is occupied by the Russians, isn’t it?’

  Talleyrand drank his second cup, and Fouché said with obvious enjoyment of the situation: ‘The Tsar had asked the Swedish Crown Prince to meet him in Abo.’

  ‘Say that again, very slowly,’ I asked.

  ‘The Tsar had asked the Swedish Crown Prince to meet him in Abo.’

  ‘But what does the Tsar want of Jean-Baptiste?’

  ‘Advice,’ said Talleyrand in a bored voice. ‘A former Marshal of France who knows the Emperor’s tactics thoroughly is an excellent counsellor in a situation like the present one.’

  ‘And as a result of the advice of the Crown Prince of Sweden the Tsar is not sending negotiators to the Emperor but letting our Army continue to advance,’ said Fouché. The note of enjoyment had gone out of his voice. It sounded quite flat now.

  Talleyrand looked at his watch. ‘The church bells will start ringing at any moment to proclaim the victory at Borodino. Our troops will be in Moscow in a few days.’

  ‘Has he promised him Finland?’ Count Rosen burst out.

  ‘Who was to promise Finland to whom?’ asked Fouché.

  ‘Finland? What makes you say that, Count?’ Talleyrand said.

  I tried to explain. ‘Sweden is still hoping to get Finland back. Finland is very dear to the hearts of the – I mean to the hearts of my compatriots.’

  ‘Is it also dear to the heart of your husband, Your Highness?’ Talleyrand pursued.

  ‘Jean-Baptiste thinks that the Tsar would on no account renounce Finland. But he very much wants to unite Sweden and Norway.’

  Talleyrand nodded slowly. ‘My informant hinted at a promise made by the Tsar to the Swedish Crown Prince to support the union of Sweden and Norway. Of course, after the end of the war.’

  ‘But isn’t the war finished once the Emperor has entered Moscow?’

  Talleyrand shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not know what kind of advice your husband gave to the Tsar.’

  There was another curiously heavy pause. Fouché took another piece of marzipan and smacked his lips.

  ‘But that advice which His Royal Highness is supposed to have given to the Tsar—’ Count Rosen began.

  Fouché grinned. ‘The French Army enters villages burned by their inhabitants. The French Army finds nothing but burnt-out stores. The French Army marches from victory to victory and – starves. The Emperor is forced to bring up supplies from his base, and he had not bargained for that. Nor had he bargained for the flank attacks of the Cossacks, who never come out into the open for a pitched battle. But the Emperor hopes to find all the supplies he needs in Moscow, a rich and well-provisioned town where he is going into winter quarters with his Army. You see, everything depends on the capture of Moscow.’

  ‘Do you doubt its capture?’ asked Count Rosen.

  ‘The Prince of Benevento said a moment ago that the church bells are going to ring at any moment for the victory of Borodino. The road to Moscow is clear. The Emperor will most likely be in the Kremlin the day after to-morrow, dear Count,’ Fouché said, still grinning.

  A great fear began to rise in me and choke me. In despair I looked at the two gentlemen. ‘Please will you tell me candidly what you have come for?’

  ‘I have been wanting to call on Your Highness for a long time,’ said Fouché. ‘And since I have learnt about the important part the Crown Prince of Sweden is playing in this gigantic conflict it is my heartfelt need to assure Your Highness of my sympathy. A sympathy of many years’ standing, if I may say so.’

  ‘Oh yes, of many years’ standing as Napoleon’s spy,’ I thought.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ I said, and looked at Talleyrand.

  ‘Is it so difficult to see through a former teacher of mathematics?’ said Talleyrand. ‘Wars are like equations. Even in wars one has to calculate with unknown quantities, and in this war the unknown quantity is a person who, since the meeting with the Tsar, is no longer – unknown. The Swedish Crown Prince has intervened, Madame!’

  ‘And what advantage does this intervention hold for Sweden? Instead of armed neutrality there is a pact with Russia!’ Count Rosen exclaimed passionately.

  ‘I am afraid Sweden’s armed neutrality does not impress the Emperor greatly. He has occupied Swedish Pomerania. You are not dissatisfied with the policy of your Crown Prince, young man, are you?’ Talleyrand said amiably.

  But my blond young Count didn’t give in so easily. ‘The Russians have one hundred and forty thousand men under arms, and Napoleon—’

  ‘Nearly half a million,’ Talleyrand confirmed. ‘But a Russian winter without proper quarters will defeat the biggest and the best army, young man.’

  Now I understood. No proper quarters! I certainly understood. Oh my God …

  At this moment Madame La Flotte flung the door open and shouted. ‘A new victory! We have won the battle of Borodino!’

  None of us moved. The sea of chimes seemed to drown me. ‘Napoleon wants to winter in Moscow,’ I thought. ‘What kind of advice did Jean-Baptiste give to the Tsar? Fouché and Talleyrand have spies in all the camps, they’ll always be on the right side at the right moment. Their visit to-day meant that Napoleon was going to lose the war, would lose it somehow sometime whilst the victory bells were still ringing out over Paris. Jean-Baptiste had intervened and assured its freedom to a small country in the North. But meanwhile Marie’s Pierre might freeze and Colonel Villatte bleed to death.’

  Talleyrand was the first to take his leave. Fouché, however, sat on, eating marzipan, smacking his lips and looking very self-satisfied. With the latest victory? Or with himself for having fallen into disgrace at a convenient juncture?

  He stayed till the bells had fallen silent. ‘The welfare of the French people is at stake,’ he announced, ‘and the people want peace. The Swedish Crown Prince and I have the same aim – peace!’ He bent over my h
and, but his lips were sticky and I withdrew my hand quickly.

  I went out into the garden and sat on the bench. All the fear I had felt inside the house came back, redoubled. In my restlessness and anxiety I asked for my carriage, and when I went out to it I found Count Rosen waiting to open the carriage door for me. I keep forgetting that I have a lord-in-waiting around me all the time. I should have preferred to be alone now.

  We drove along the banks of the Seine. Rosen was talking to me. I didn’t pay any attention till he asked me about Fouché’s title. He went on to tell me details Fouché had related to him about Jean-Baptiste’s meeting with the Tsar in Abo. A British embassy had taken part in it at one time, and it was rumoured that His Royal Highness was trying to engineer an alliance of decisive importance between Britain and Russia to which even Austria might secretly—

  ‘But the Austrian Emperor is Napoleon’s father-in-law,’ I argued.

  ‘That means nothing, Your Highness. Napoleon forced him into this relationship. No Hapsburg would ever have voluntarily accepted this parvenu into his family.’

  The carriage rolled slowly past the towers of Notre-Dame, black against the deep blue of the evening. I told the Count about my part in the coronation of Napoleon and that I had carried a velvet cushion with a lace handkerchief on it for the beautiful Josephine. ‘I shall introduce you to the Empress Josephine, Count,’ I said. The idea had come to me suddenly. I would show this little Count the most beautiful woman in Paris, who, having cried for two days and two nights after the divorce, had become her old self again, the best-made-up woman in Paris. I would show her to him and ask her at the same time how to use make-up. If the Swedes were meant to have a parvenu Crown Princess they should at any rate have a beautiful one …

  As soon as we got home I started writing my diary. Then Marie came and asked if Colonel Villatte had written and said anything about Pierre.

  I shook my head.

  ‘After this last victory the Tsar will sue for peace,’ said Marie contentedly, ‘and Pierre will be back here before winter comes.’ She knelt down before me and took off my shoes. There are many white strands in her hair, her hands are coarse from the work she has had to do all through her life, and every penny she has earned she has sent to Pierre. And now Pierre was marching towards Moscow. Jean-Baptiste, what was going to happen to Pierre in Moscow?

  ‘Sleep well, Eugenie, sweet dreams!’

  ‘Thank you, Marie. Good night!’ Exactly as it was in my childhood days.

  And who was putting Oscar to bed at this moment? One, two or even three adjutants or lords-in-waiting?

  Paris, a fortnight later

  Once again I was the black sheep of the family!

  Julie and Joseph came back from Mortefontaine to Paris and gave a banquet to celebrate the entry of Napoleon into Moscow. They asked me too, but I didn’t want to go and wrote to Julie that I had a cold. The very next day she was on my doorstep.

  ‘I very much want you to come,’ she said. ‘People talk so much about you and Jean-Baptiste. Of course, your husband ought to have marched with the Emperor to Russia. Then they would have had to stop spreading rumours about Jean-Baptiste being allied to the Tsar. I want this malicious talk—’

  ‘Julie, Jean-Baptiste is allied to the Tsar.’

  Flabbergasted, Julie stared at me. ‘Do you mean to say that it is all true, what people say?’

  ‘I don’t know what people say. Jean-Baptiste had a meeting with the Tsar and gave him advice.’

  Julie moaned and shook her head in despair. ‘Désirée, you really are the black sheep of the family!’

  I had been called something like that before, when I asked Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte to visit us in Marseilles. That was how it all began …

  ‘Tell me, Julie, which family do you mean?’

  ‘The Bonapartes, of course.’

  ‘But I’m no Bonaparte.’

  ‘You are the sister-in-law of the Emperor’s eldest brother.’

  ‘Among other things, my dear, among other things. Above all, I am a Bernadotte, the first Bernadotte, if you consider us as a dynasty.’

  ‘If you don’t come they’ll talk even more about you and they’ll know that Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte allied himself secretly to the Tsar.’

  ‘But, Julie, it’s no secret at all. Only the French papers mustn’t mention it.’

  ‘But Joseph has expressly demanded your presence. Don’t make trouble for me, Désirée.’

  I hadn’t seen Julie all through last summer. Her face looked aged and miserable. A tenderness arose in me for my old Julie, now a careworn, deeply disappointed woman. Perhaps she had heard about Joseph’s amorous affaires, perhaps he treated her badly because he himself gets more and more embittered, knowing that he owes everything to Napoleon. Perhaps she felt that Joseph had never really loved her and only married her for her dowry, a dowry which means nothing now to Joseph, who, through the money he made in property speculations and crown estates, is a very rich man. ‘Why then,’ I thought, ‘does she not leave him? Out of love? Sense of duty? Obstinacy?’

  ‘If I can do you a service in that way I shall come,’ I said.

  She pressed her hand against her forehead. ‘I’ve got these dreadful headaches again. Yes, please come. Joseph wants to prove, through your presence, to the whole of Paris that Sweden is still neutral. The Empress is coming too and all the diplomatic corps.’

  ‘I shall bring Count Rosen, my Swedish adjutant.’

  ‘Your what? Oh, of course. Yes, do bring him, we’re always short of men, with everybody in the Army. I am so anxious about this banquet. I only hope everything will go all right.’ Then she left.

  The tall bronze candelabra in the Elysée Palace shone brightly. I heard people talking behind my back and felt their eyes following me as I passed. But the presence of young Count Rosen reassured me and made me ignore whispers and glances. At the entry of the Empress the orchestra played the Marseillaise. Everybody present bowed deeply. I, however, as the member of a reigning house, bowed less deeply than the rest.

  The Empress – in pink, as ever – stopped and talked to me in her vague impersonal manner about the new Austrian Ambassador to Stockholm, a Count Neipberg, with whom she said she had danced the waltz at her one and only court ball before she married. I could only say that Count Neipberg must have arrived after my departure from Stockholm. Marie-Louise went on to talk graciously to someone else.

  At midnight the trumpets once more blared out the Marseillaise. Joseph stepped to the place beside the Empress and holding up his champagne glass he said: ‘On the 15th of September His Majesty the Emperor entered Moscow at the head of the most glorious army of all time and took up residence in the Kremlin, the palace of the Tsar. Our victorious Army will spend the winter in the capital of our conquered enemy. Vive l’Empereur!’

  I was emptying my glass slowly when Talleyrand appeared before me. ‘Has Your Highness been forced to attend?’ he inquired, pointing in Joseph’s direction.

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Whether I’m here or not is of no importance, Excellency. I know nothing of politics.’

  ‘It is strange that Fate should choose you of all people to play such a significant part, Your Highness.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked, terrified.

  ‘Perhaps one of these days I shall turn to you with a request of the greatest importance, Your Highness. Perhaps you will grant it. I shall address this request to you in the name of France.’

  ‘Would you mind telling me what you are talking about?’

  ‘Your Highness, I am very much in love. Don’t misunderstand me, please, I am in love with France, Your Highness, with – our France.’ He took a sip from his glass of champagne and continued. ‘I mentioned to Your Highness a short time ago that the Emperor is battling no longer against an unknown quantity but a very well-known one, a very well-known friend of ours. You remember, Highness, don’t you? Well, to-night we are celebrating the Emperor’s entry into Mosco
w, where the Grand Army is taking up its winter quarters. Do you think, Your Highness, that that is a surprise to our well-known friend?’

  My hand clutched the stem of the glass I was holding.

  ‘My brother should be very comfortable in the Kremlin. The Tsar’s residence is supposed to be furnished with oriental luxury,’ someone said close by. It was Joseph. ‘Magnificent,’ he continued, ‘that my brother managed to finish the campaign so quickly. Now our troops can stay the winter in Moscow.’

  But Talleyrand shook his head. ‘I am afraid I cannot share Your Majesty’s optimism. A courier arrived half an hour ago with the news that Moscow is burning, has been burning for the last fortnight, including the Kremlin.’

  In the flickering candlelight Joseph’s face looked green, his eyes were wide open, his mouth gaped with dread. Talleyrand, on the other hand, had his eyes half closed, unconcerned and unmoved as if he had been expecting for a long time this news which only arrived half an hour ago.

  Moscow was burning, had been burning for a fortnight!

  ‘How did it happen?’ Joseph asked in a hoarse voice.

  ‘Arson, no doubt. It broke out in different parts of the town at the same time. Our troops have been trying to cope with it in vain. Every time they thought they had the fire under control it started again in a different part of the city. The population is suffering terribly.’

  ‘And our troops?’

  ‘Will have to retreat.’

  ‘But the Emperor told me that under no circumstances whatever could he march his troops through the Russian steppe during the winter months. He counts on Moscow for his winter quarters.’

  ‘I am only reporting the courier’s message. The Emperor cannot billet his troops in Moscow because Moscow has been burning for the last fortnight.’ Talleyrand raised his glass towards Joseph. ‘Please act as if nothing had happened, Your Majesty. The Emperor does not want the news to become known for the time being. Vive l’Empereur!’

  ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Joseph repeated in a voice which had lost all colour.

  ‘Your Highness?’ Talleyrand raised his glass towards me, too. But I stood paralysed. I saw the Empress dancing with a gouty old gentleman, saw Joseph wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead, and said: ‘Good night, Joseph. Give my love to Julie. Good night, Excellency.’ And then I left, entirely against all etiquette, before the Empress had left herself. But what did I care about etiquette? I was dreadfully tired, and dreadfully troubled.