Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  ‘It was an unforgettable, a splendid ball,’ said the young Swedish Count on the way home.

  Quite! Unforgettable … ‘Do you know Moscow, Count Rosen?’

  ‘No, Highness. Why?’

  ‘Because Moscow is burning, Count.’

  ‘The advice His Royal Highness in Abo—’

  ‘Don’t let’s talk any more, please. I am very tired.’

  And Talleyrand’s ‘request of the greatest importance,’ what could it be? When would it be?

  Paris. December 16th, 1812

  Josephine at Malmaison showed me how to use make-up and powder in her own way and how to pluck my eyebrows in order to make my eyes appear much bigger. In the intervals of beauty treatment we made bandages for the wounded in the Russian campaign. Then, quite by chance, as Josephine was doing my eyebrows, I caught sight of this morning’s issue of the Moniteur, and in it I read Napoleon’s 29th Bulletin, the 29th Bulletin which told the world that the Grand Army was frozen, starved to death and buried in the snow wastes of Russia, that the Grand Army had ceased to exist.

  ‘Have you seen that, Madame?’ I asked Josephine, holding the paper out to her.

  ‘Of course. Bonaparte’s first communiqué for weeks. It only confirms what we feared: he has lost the war with Russia. I suppose he’ll soon be back in Paris. Have you ever tried to use henna when you wash your hair? Your dark hair would have an auburn glint in candlelight. It would suit you, Désirée.’

  ‘“This Army,”’ I read, ‘“which was still such a splendid body on the sixth, was quite different on the fourteenth. It had no longer any cavalry, any artillery, any transport. The enemy realised the calamity that had befallen the French Army and tried to put it to good account. He surrounded the columns with his Cossacks …”’ And the bulletin went on to describe in detail and in sober language how the greatest army of all time had marched to its doom. Of hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen, only six hundred were left, it said. The words ‘exhaustion’ and ‘starvation’ kept cropping up, and it ended with the words: ‘The health of His Majesty has never been better.’

  Looking up into the mirror my face was strange to me, so unfamiliar, so beautiful. I could look beautiful, after all. Returning to the bulletin I asked: ‘What’s going to happen now, Madame?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Life is full of possibilities, Désirée. He could make peace. Or he could continue to make war—’

  ‘And France, Madame?’ I shouted at her so that I made her start, but I couldn’t help it.

  Before my mind’s eye I saw men marching through the snowy wastes in their thousands, saw them fall, saw them keeping wolves at bay till the men could move no longer, saw them torn to pieces by the beasts, shot by the Cossacks, drowning among the ice-floes of the Beresina, death, death in all its terror … But His Majesty’s health had never been better, never. ‘And France, Madame?’ I repeated dully.

  ‘Why? Bonaparte is not France, is he?’Josephine smiled down at her gleaming nails which she was polishing. ‘Napoleon the First, by the grace of God Emperor of the French.…’ She winked at me. ‘By the grace of God! You and I know exactly how he got there, don’t we? Barras needed someone to suppress hunger riots and Bonaparte was ready to do it. After that, Bonaparte the Military Governor of Paris, Bonaparte the Commander-in-Chief in the South, Bonaparte the Conqueror of Italy, Bonaparte in Egypt, Bonaparte the First Consul—’ She stopped, then said with pleasure in her voice: ‘Perhaps Marie-Louise will leave him now that his luck has turned.’

  ‘But she is the mother of his son!’

  ‘That means little, very little. Whatever happens you must not forget what I told you about looks, Désirée. Promise me!’

  Looks, Moscow, make-up, death in the Beresina, I felt so confused I could say nothing.

  ‘Between ourselves,’ Josephine continued, ‘there are prouder dynasties than the Bernadotte family, Désirée. But the Swedes chose Bernadotte and he will not disappoint them. He knows how to govern, Bonaparte said so often enough. But you, my girl, you can neither govern nor do anything else. In that case you must do the Swedes at least the favour of looking pretty.’

  ‘But my turned-up nose?’

  ‘You can’t do anything about that. But it suits you, in your young face. You will always look younger than you are … Well now, let’s go down and make Theresa read the cards for us. Pity it’s raining, I should have liked to show the garden to your Swedish Count.’

  Going downstairs Josephine stopped suddenly. ‘Désirée, why is it that you are not in Stockholm?’

  I avoided her eyes. ‘Stockholm has a Queen and a Dowager Queen. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘You are not afraid of your predecessors, are you? Predecessors are never dangerous, only successors. Frankly, I was afraid you had come because you were still in love with him – with Bonaparte, I mean.’

  Down in her white and yellow drawing-room Josephine’s ladies and Polette were still busy with their bandages, Queen Hortense lay on a divan reading letters, and a very fat lady with an oriental scarf round her neck, which made her look like a gaudily coloured ball, was playing patience. My young Count Rosen gazed unhappily at the rain.

  When we entered all the ladies except Polette got up. The gaudily coloured ball sank into a deep curtsey before me.

  ‘Your Highness remembers Princess Chimay?’ asked Josephine. It’s Désirée when we are alone, it’s ‘Your Highness’ in public, I noticed. Chimay? It was the name of one of the oldest artistocratic French families. I was certain never to have met one of its members before.

  But Josephine laughed. ‘It’s Notre-Dame de Thermidor! My friend Theresa!’

  Oh, Josephine’s friend Theresa, the ex-Marquise de Fontenay who married the ex-valet and later Deputy Tallien! I invaded her house to look for my fiancé. But I had lost him there and found Jean Baptiste instead … Her reputation was worse even than Josephine’s, and Napoleon, who as Emperor had become very strict, had forbidden her the court. Theresa, fat and mother of seven children, got her own back on Napoleon by marrying Prince Chimay, whom the Emperor would have liked to see at court because of his very aristocratic descent. The Prince, however, did not go because of Theresa’s continued banishment from the Tuileries.

  ‘I am glad to see you again, Princess,’ I said.

  ‘See me again?’ Theresa’s eyes grew wide with astonishment. ‘I have not yet had the honour of being presented to Your Highness.’

  Polette interrupted us from the fireplace. ‘Désirée, the Empress has put her gold paint on your eyelids. It suits you. But tell me, is your adjutant there deaf and dumb?’

  ‘No, only dumb,’ Count Rosen said furiously.

  I realised it had been a mistake to bring the young Swede into this house. Josephine tried to mollify him by putting her hand on his arm, and at her touch I saw him give an almost imperceptible start. ‘When it stops raining I shall show you the garden,’ she said, smiling at him without showing him her bad teeth, and looking deep into his eyes. Then she turned to Hortense, whom she asked about Count Flahault, Hortense’s official lover since her separation from her husband.

  ‘He writes,’ said Hortense, ‘that from Smolensk onwards he has been marching by the side of the Emperor. The Emperor no longer has a horse because almost all the horses have been frozen to death or killed and eaten by the starving troops. The Emperor wears the fur coat which the Tsar gave him once, and a cap made of Persian lamb. He walks with a stick, accompanied by the Generals who have lost their regiments. He walks between Murat and Count Flahault.’

  ‘Nonsense, he walks with his faithful Meneval,’ said Josephine.

  Hortense turned over the sheets of the long letter she was reading and said: ‘No. Meneval collapsed of exhaustion and was loaded on to a cart together with other casualties.’

  A great silence fell on the room. The logs on the fire crackled, yet we felt very cold.

  ‘I shall arrange for a Service of Intercession to-morrow,’ Josephine said in a much
subdued voice, and asked Theresa to read the cards for Bonaparte. Notre-Dame de Thermidor collected her cards gravely, remarking that Bonaparte was King of Hearts as usual, divided them in two piles, made Josephine cut them, and began to lay the cards in the form of a big star. Josephine and Hortense looked on, breathless with excitement. Polette nestled close to me and tried to catch Count Rosen’s eye. But his eyes avoided our group, he probably thought us crazy.

  Theresa, having laid out her star and contemplated it in solemn silence for a long time, said at last: ‘It looks bad. I see a journey. A journey across water, a journey by boat.’ After another silence she repeated: ‘No, unfortunately, it does not look good.’

  ‘And I?’ Josephine wanted to know.

  ‘You? I see the usual thing, money trouble, nothing else.’

  ‘I am in debt again with Le Roy,’ Josephine admitted.

  Theresa suddenly raised her hand importantly: ‘I see a separation from the Queen of Diamonds.’

  That’s Marie-Louise,’ whispered Polette.

  ‘But I see nothing but calamity. By the way, what could the Knave of Hearts mean? He lies between him and the Knave of Clubs. The Knave of Clubs is Talleyrand—’

  ‘The other day it was Fouché,’ said Hortense.

  ‘Perhaps the Knave of Hearts is the little King of Rome,’ suggested Josephine. ‘Bonaparte returns to his child.’

  Theresa collected the cards and shuffled them once more to lay out a new star. ‘No,’ she said, ‘same thing again, the sea journey, financial troubles, desertion by—’

  ‘By the Queen of Diamonds?’ Josephine asked breathlessly.

  Theresa nodded.

  ‘And I?’ Josephine repeated.

  ‘I don’t understand. There is nothing between the Queen of Spades and the Emperor. All the same, he is not joining her, I don’t really know why not, Josephine. And there, you see, is the Knave of Hearts again, by the Emperor’s side, always by the Emperor’s side. Seven of Clubs and Ace of Clubs cannot get at him because of the Knave of Hearts in between. It can’t be the little King of Rome, it must be a grown-up. But who?’

  She looked round helplessly. We couldn’t give her any clue. She turned back to the cards, pondering. ‘It might be a female, a girl perhaps whom the Emperor does not treat as a woman, someone who has known the Emperor all his life and does not desert him in the hour of his need, perhaps—’

  ‘Désirée, it’s Désirée!’ Polette shouted.

  Theresa stared, uncomprehending. Josephine, however, nodded emphatically. ‘It could be,’ she said, ‘the little friend, a young girl of his early days. I really believe it is Her Royal Highness.’

  ‘Please leave me out of it,’ I said, and felt ashamed of all this in the presence of the young Count.

  Josephine understood and stopped the game. ‘I think it has stopped raining,’ she said to the Count. ‘Let me show you my roses and the greenhouses.’

  In the evening we returned to Paris. It was raining again.

  ‘I am afraid,’ I said, ‘you must have been very bored at Malmaison. But I wanted to introduce you to the most beautiful woman in France.’

  He answered politely: ‘The Empress Josephine must have been very beautiful – once.’

  ‘She lost her beauty in one night,’ I thought. ‘So shall I, with or without gold paint on my eyelids. But I hope I shall not lose it in one night. That, however, depends on Jean-Baptiste …’

  ‘The ladies at Malmaison are quite different from our ladies in Stockholm,’ said Count Rosen out of the blue. ‘They talk about their prayers and their affaires.’

  ‘One prays and loves in Stockholm just the same.’

  ‘Oh yes. But one does not talk about it.’

  Paris. December 19th, 1812

  Since my visit to Malmaison it has been raining without interruption. But the rain has not stopped people standing about in the streets talking about the fate of their dear ones in Russia, has not stopped them from going to the churches to attend the services of intercession.

  Last night I couldn’t sleep. I wandered about the lonely, big, cold house till in the end I put on Napoleon’s sable fur and sat down in the small drawing-room to write a letter to Oscar. Marie and Count Rosen kept me company, Marie knitting a grey scarf for Pierre, of whose fate we know nothing, and Count Rosen reading Danish papers, as Swedish papers cannot be bought any more. Madame La Flotte and the servants had gone to bed.

  I heard a carriage stop in front of my house, and the next moment loud knocks resounded on the door. Then voices came from the hall.

  ‘I am not at home to anybody,’ I said, ‘I have gone to bed.’ Count Rosen left the room and a moment later his harsh French could be heard outside.

  A door opened. He escorted someone into the big drawing-room adjoining the small one.

  ‘Is he out of his senses?’ I thought. ‘I told him I wouldn’t receive anybody.’ ‘Go in there at once, Marie, and tell him that I’ve gone to bed.’

  Marie immediately went into the other drawing-room. I heard her start a sentence and break off abruptly. Not a sound came from the next room. It was inconceivable to me whom they could possibly have allowed in at this time of night against my wishes. I heard the rustling of paper and the sound of logs being put in the fireplace. Quite obviously someone was making a fire. That was the only noise, otherwise there was complete silence out there.

  At last the door opened and Count Rosen came in. His movements were strangely stiff and formal.

  ‘His Majesty the Emperor!’

  I started. ‘Who?’ I thought I hadn’t understood him properly.

  ‘His Majesty has just arrived in the company of a gentleman, and wishes to speak to Your Royal Highness.’

  ‘But the Emperor is at the front,’ I said, confused.

  ‘His Majesty has just returned.’ The young Swede was pale with agitation.

  Meanwhile I had calmed down. ‘Nonsense,’ I thought, ‘he can’t intimidate me, I don’t want to be forced into this awful situation, I don’t want to see him again, at least not now, not alone.’ ‘Tell His Majesty that I’ve gone to bed.’

  ‘I have told His Majesty that already. His Majesty insists on speaking to Your Highness.’

  I didn’t stir. There was the Emperor, he’d lost his Army. And the first person he came to was me.

  I got up slowly and smoothed my hair away from my forehead. I realised that I was wearing my old velvet dressing-gown and my sable fur over it, and probably looked a ridiculous sight. Reluctantly I went towards the door. ‘I am frightened, Count Rosen,’ I confessed.

  The young Swede shook his head. ‘I don’t think Your Highness need be frightened.’

  The big drawing-room was brightly lit. Marie was just placing candles in the last of the big candelabra. In the fireplace the fire flickered merrily.

  On the sofa under the portrait of the First Consul sat Count Caulaincourt, the Emperor’s Grand Equerry. He wore a sheepskin coat and a woollen cap which he had pulled down over his ears. His eyes were shut and he seemed to be asleep.

  The Emperor was standing in front of the fire with his arms propped on the mantelpiece. His shoulders stooped. He seemed so tired that he had to prop himself up in order to be able to stand at all. A cap of grey Persian lamb sat aslant on his head. The man standing there looked a complete stranger to me.

  Neither of the two had heard me come. ‘Sire,’ I said, stepping to the side of the Emperor.

  Caulaincourt shot up, tore his cap off his head and stood to attention. The Emperor slowly raised his head.

  I forgot to bow. Completely put out, I looked at his face. For the first time in my life I saw an unshaven Napoleon. Reddish stubble spread over his face, the bloated cheeks were slack and grey. Under a thin mouth his chin, which had lost its flesh, jutted out like a promontory. All the life had gone out of the eyes which were now turned on me.

  ‘Count Rosen,’ I said sharply, ‘nobody has taken His Majesty’s cap and coat.’

  ‘I am
cold,’ Napoleon murmured, taking off his cap with a tired gesture.

  Count Rosen took Caulaincourt’s sheepskin out of the room. ‘Come back at once, Count,’ I told him. ‘Marie, cognac and glasses!’ I wanted Count Rosen to be present during the conversation.

  ‘Please sit down, Sire,’ I said, and took my seat on the sofa. The Emperor didn’t move, and Caulaincourt stood irresolute in the middle of the room.

  Count Rosen returned and Marie brought cognac and glasses. ‘A glass of cognac, Sire?’

  The Emperor didn’t hear.

  I looked questioningly at Caulaincourt.

  ‘We have been travelling for thirteen days and nights without a break,’ he said. ‘No one at the Tuileries knows that we are back. His Majesty wanted to talk to Your Highness first.’

  A fantastic situation! The Emperor had travelled thirteen days and nights to arrive at my house weary to death, and no one knew that he was in Paris! I filled a glass with cognac and went to him.

  ‘Sire, drink that. It’ll warm you,’ I said loudly.

  He raised his head and stared at me, at my old dressing-gown, the sable fur which he himself had given me, and poured down the drink at one gulp. ‘Does one always wear a fur coat over one’s dressing-gown in Sweden?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not. I am cold, that’s all. Did Count Rosen not tell you that I was in bed?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My adjutant, Count Rosen. Come here, Count, be presented to His Majesty.’

  Count Rosen clicked his heels. The Emperor held his glass out to him. ‘Give me another glass. And give Caulaincourt one too. We have made a long journey.’

  Again he poured down the cognac in one go. ‘You are surprised to see me here, Highness?’