Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  ‘Gladly. And the other way round, too.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the other way round”?’

  ‘That my house will always be open for Julie. That’s why I am staying here.’

  ‘So you are counting on my defeat, Eugenie?’ He came quite close to me. ‘The scent of your violets is intoxicating. I should really banish you from the country. You probably tell everybody that the Emperor is going to be beaten. Besides, I don’t like it that you go for drives with that tall Swede of yours.’

  ‘But he is my adjutant. I have to take him with me.’

  ‘All the same, your mama would not have liked it. And your very strict brother Etienne …’ He felt for my hand and laid it against his cheek.

  ‘At least you have shaved to-day, Sire,’ I said, and withdrew my hand.

  ‘A pity you are married to Bernadotte,’ he said.

  Quickly I felt my way back to the door.

  He called out ‘Eugenie!’

  But I had reached his brightly lit big study. The gentlemen were sitting round Napoleon’s desk drinking brandy. Talleyrand seemed to have made a joke, for Meneval, Caulaincourt and my Swede were holding their sides with laughter.

  ‘Let us share the joke, gentlemen,’ the Emperor demanded.

  ‘We were just saying that the Senate had passed the measure for the conscription of another 250,000 recruits for the Army,’ recounted Meneval, still laughing. Caulaincurt continued: ‘We found that this measure concerns youngsters far too young for the Army yet, children almost. It was then that the Prince of Benevento declared that there would have to be one day’s armistice at least next year so that Your Majesty’s new Army could go to church to be confirmed.’

  The Emperor laughed. But it didn’t sound quite genuine. The recruits, I gathered, were of Oscar’s age. ‘That is not funny,’ I said, ‘but sad.’

  Once more I bowed. This time the Emperor saw me to the door. We didn’t exchange another word.

  On the return journey I asked Rosen if it was true that the Tsar had offered Jean-Baptiste the French crown.

  ‘That is an open secret in Sweden. Does the Emperor know?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What else did he talk about?’ he asked rather timidly.

  I tried to think what else he had talked about. Suddenly I tore my bunch of violets from my décolletage and threw it out of the carriage window. ‘About violets, Count, about nothing but violets.’

  That same evening a little package came from the Tuileries for me. The servant who brought it said it was a present for the Crown Prince of Sweden. I undid it and found a chewed wooden block with five prongs. When I see Jean-Baptiste again I shall give it to him.

  Paris. In summer 1813

  Johansson the coachman had carried Pierre into the garden. I was sitting by the window watching Marie bringing her son a glass of lemonade. When he had emptied it Marie put it down on the lawn and sat down with him, supporting his back with her arm.

  His left leg had been amputated at the top of the thigh. But of the right leg a stump was left above the knee, and the doctor hoped that a wooden leg could be fastened on to it once the wound had healed. But so far the wound had refused to heal. Whenever Marie had to change the bandage Pierre screamed with pain like a child.

  I gave him Oscar’s room, and Marie had put her bed alongside his. ‘But,’ I thought, ‘I must find him a room on the ground floor, it is so difficult to have to carry him up and downstairs all the time.’

  Talleyrand came to visit me in the evening, supposedly to inquire whether I didn’t feel too lonely.

  ‘I should have been lonely this summer in any case,’ I told him. ‘I am used to having my husband away from me at the front.’

  He nodded agreement. ‘Yes, at the front. Which means that, in different circumstances, Your Highness would be alone but not – lonely!’

  I shrugged my shoulders. We sat in the garden, and Madame La Flotte poured out iced champagne. Talleyrand told me that Fouché had been given a post, that of Governor of Illyria. Illyria is an Italian state which the Emperor created for the sole purpose of sending Fouché there.

  ‘The Emperor cannot afford to have someone intriguing against him in Paris. And Fouché is sure to start a plot.’

  ‘And you,’ I said, ‘is the Emperor not afraid of you, Excellency?’

  ‘Fouché plots to gain power or keep it. I, however, my dear Highness, desire nothing but the well-being of France.’

  I gazed up at the sky where the first stars had appeared.

  ‘How quickly our allies left us!’ remarked Talleyrand between two sips. ‘First of all the Prussians, who are now under your husband’s supreme command. He has set up his headquarters in Stralsund.’

  I nodded. Count Rosen had told me all about it. ‘The Moniteur says the Emperor of Austria is trying to bring about an armistice between France and Russia,’ I said at last.

  Talleyrand passed his empty glass to Madame La Flotte. ‘He is doing that to gain time for Austria’s mobilisation.’

  ‘But the Austrian Emperor is the father of our Empress,’ Madame La Flotte said sharply.

  Talleyrand paid no attention to her but looked at his glass. ‘Once France is beaten all the members of the coalition will try to enrich themselves at our expense. Austria wants to stake its claim to a share and therefore will join the coalition.’

  ‘But,’ I objected – my mouth was so dry that I could hardly speak – ‘surely the Austrian Emperor cannot go to war against his own daughter and grandson?’

  ‘No? But he is doing it already.’ He smiled. ‘Only, you would not find it published in the Moniteur, Madame. The armies allied against us have 800,000 men under arms, the Emperor hardly half that number.’

  ‘But His Majesty is a genius,’ La Flotte said with trembling lips. It sounded like something learnt by heart.

  ‘Quite, Madame. His Majesty is a genius. By the way, the Emperor has forced the Danes to declare war on the Swedes. Now the Crown Prince of Sweden has the Danes threatening him from the rear.’

  ‘I suppose he can cope with the situation,’ I said impatiently, and thought, ‘I’ll have to find an occupation for Pierre, that is the most important thing, a regular job for Pierre.’ ‘Did you say anything, Excellency?’

  ‘Only that the day is not far off now when I shall put my request to you,’ said Talleyrand, and rose to his feet.

  ‘Give my love to my sister, when you see her, Excellency. King Joseph has forbidden her my house.’

  Talleyrand raised his narrow eyebrows. ‘And where, Highness, are your two faithful adjutants?’

  ‘Colonel Villatte joined the Army a long time ago. He went with the Army to Russia. And Count Rosen told me a few days ago that as a Swedish nobleman he felt obliged to fight by the side of his Crown Prince.’

  ‘Nonsense, he is only jealous of Count Brahe,’ put in Madame La Flotte.

  ‘No, he meant it. The Swedes are a very serious-minded people, Madame. “Ride, ride with God and come back safely!” I told him, exactly what I had told Villatte before. You are right, Excellency, I am lonely.’

  I stared after him as he limped away. He limps so gracefully, so elegantly. At the same time I decided to entrust the administration of my money and my household to Pierre. I thought that a good idea.

  Paris. November 1813

  Every time I fall asleep now I have the same dream. I dream I see Jean-Baptiste riding alone across a battlefield, a battlefield a fortnight after a battle, the kind of battlefield I saw once on the journey to Marienburg, full of small mounds of earth and dead horses with inflated bellies. Jean-Baptiste is on his white horse which I know from so many parades, leaning forward in the saddle. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s crying. The white horse stumbles over the mounds and Jean-Baptiste falls forward even more and doesn’t sit up again …

  For more than a week a rumour has been going round Paris about a decisive battle near Leipzig, but nobody knows anything for certain …

&n
bsp; I had been dreaming again of Jean-Baptiste on his white horse when I heard it whinny. It woke me up. It was the first time that I had heard it whinny in my dream.

  I opened my eyes. The night-light had burned down, the hand of the clock seemed to point to half-past four. Suddenly I heard the whinnying of a horse, outside the house. I sat up in bed and listened. Then a very gentle knock came at the door, so gentle that nobody else could have heard it.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I asked.

  ‘Villatte,’ one voice said, and another, ‘Rosen.’

  I pushed back the heavy bolt. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘where have you come from?’

  ‘From Leipzig,’ said Villatte.

  ‘With the kind regards of His Royal Highness,’ added Rosen.

  I went back into the hall and, feeling cold, pulled the dressing-gown tightly round my shoulders. Count Rosen lit one of the candelabra, whilst Villatte had disappeared, probably to put the horses into the stable. I noticed that Rosen wore the coat and bearskin cap of a French grenadier. ‘A strange uniform for a Swedish dragoon,’ I said.

  ‘Our troops are not on French soil yet. So His Highness sent me here in this ridiculous disguise, in order to avoid difficulties for me.’

  Villatte returned. ‘We rode night and day,’ he said. His face was emaciated and he looked exhausted. ‘By the way,’ he said quite inconsequentially, ‘we lost the decisive battle.’

  ‘We won it,’ exclaimed Rosen passionately, ‘and His Highness himself took Leipzig. The moment that he entered Leipzig at one end Napoleon fled from the other. His Highness was at the head of his troops from beginning to end.’

  ‘And why aren’t you with the French Army, Colonel Villatte?’

  ‘I am a prisoner of war, Your Highness.’

  ‘Rosen’s prisoner?’

  The ghost of a smile went over Villatte’s face. ‘Yes, so to speak. His Highness did not send me to a prisoner-of-war camp but sent me here to be at your side till—’

  ‘Till?’

  ‘Till the enemy troops enter Paris.’

  So that was it, that was why the lonely rider across the battlefield was crying in my dream. ‘Come, gentlemen, I will make some coffee.’

  Villatte and Rosen between them managed to make a fire and I put the kettle on. Then we sat round the kitchen table and waited. The boots, hands and faces of both men were caked with mud.

  ‘How is Jean-Baptiste? Have you seen him, Villatte? Is he well?’

  ‘Very well! I saw him myself, before the gates of Leipzig, in the midst of the hardest fighting, and he was very well indeed!’

  ‘Did you speak to him, Villatte?’

  ‘Yes, afterwards. After the defeat, Madame.’

  ‘Victory, Colonel Villatte, victory! I shall not tolerate—’ Count Rosen’s high-pitched voice piped.

  ‘What did he look like, Villatte, afterwards?’

  Villatte shrugged his shoulders and stared in front of him. The water boiled, I made the coffee and poured it into the inelegant cups of the servants.

  ‘Well, Villatte, what did he look like?’

  ‘He has gone grey, Madame.’

  The coffee tasted bitter, I had forgotten the sugar. I fetched it and put it on the table. It took me some time to find it, and I felt ashamed that I didn’t know where things were in my own house.

  ‘Your Highness makes wonderful coffee,’ said Rosen.

  ‘That’s what my husband says, too. Well now, Count, tell me all you know.’

  ‘If I only knew where to start! There is so much, so much!’

  Yes indeed, there was so much! Rosen began by describing how he arrived at Jean-Baptiste’s headquarters at Trachtenberg Castle, where Jean-Baptiste in the presence of the Tsar and the Emperor of Austria drafted the plans for the campaign and, incidentally, overawed Their Majesties by his phenomenal memory and precision, which neither they nor their Generals could match.

  ‘What,’ I wanted to know, ‘did His Highness say when you turned up out of the blue?’

  Rosen looked uncomfortable. ‘To be frank, he was furious and shouted at me that he could very well win the war without my help. And – yes, I ought to have stayed in Paris to be with Your Highness.’

  ‘Of course you ought to have stayed here,’ Villatte agreed.

  ‘And you? You went away too to be in it.’

  ‘No, no, not to be “in it” but to defend France. Besides, Her Royal Highness is your Crown Princess, not mine. But that is of no importance now, is it?’

  Count Rosen went on to describe Jean-Baptiste’s first big battle against the French at Grossbeeren, where he stood firm against the most vicious assaults. The French Army contained the Dupas Division, the regiments of which had served for many years under Bernadotte. ‘How could you bear it,’ I thought, ‘how could you bear it, Jean-Baptiste?’

  ‘In the evening,’ Rosen went on, ‘His Highness rode along from regiment to regiment to thank the men. Count Brahe and I accompanied him. Near the tent of the Prussian General Bălow we saw some French prisoners. When His Highness saw them he hesitated at first but then rode slowly towards them and along their line and looked closely at each man. Once he stopped and told the nearest man that he would see to it that they lacked nothing. But the man did not answer. So His Highness rode on and suddenly seemed dead tired and he leaned forward in the saddle. He only recovered when he saw the captured French flags. The Prussians had planted them in neat rows in front of their General’s tent – mind you, without having any permission to do so from His Highness, the Commander-in-Chief, and His Highness dismounted, went to the Eagle Standards, saluted them and stood to attention in front of them for a few minutes. Then he turned abruptly and went back to his headquarters. There he shut himself into his tent and gave orders that he would see nobody, not even Brahe, his Personal Adjutant. Only Fernand brought him some soup.’

  We were silent and I poured out some more coffee. After a little while Count Rosen continued. ‘At the Battle of Leipzig, on October 18th, His Highness attacked Schönefeld, just outside Leipzig. Schönefeld was defended by French and Saxon regiments under Ney.’

  At that I looked at Villatte, and Villatte, the tired Villatte, smiled and said: ‘As you see, Madame, Napoleon put his best troops against Bernadotte, the Saxons among them, of course. The Emperor had never forgotten that Bernadotte maintained the Saxons always stand like rocks. Count Rosen, how did the Saxons stand in the Battle of Leipzig?’

  ‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, Highness, I should never have believed it. It was fantastic! Before the battle began His Highness changed, for the first time during the campaign, from his field uniform into his gala uniform which everyone can see miles away, asked for his white horse, gave the order to attack and then rode straight towards the enemy lines where the Saxon regiments were drawn up. And the Saxon regiments—’

  ‘Stood like rocks!’ laughed Villatte. ‘Not a shot was fired!’

  ‘Exactly, not a shot was fired! Brahe and I rode after His Highness. He halted quite close to the Saxons and they – presented arms! “Vive Bernadotte!” shouted one of them, and the whole line took it up: “Vive Bernadotte!” His Highness raised his baton, turned his horse round and rode back; the Saxons followed in perfect order, the regimental music at their head, twelve thousand of them with forty guns. His Highness told them where to take up their positions in the firing-line. Then, during the battle, he sat on his horse for hours and hours, never moving, never having to refer to maps or to use field-glasses, yet always knowing exactly what was going on. At night, when the firing had died down, he quite unexpectedly demanded the dark-blue great-coat of his field uniform, a hat without any badges and a fresh horse, not a white one. He and Fernand rode away and only returned at dawn next morning. A sentry saw them ride past in the night and saw His Highness dismount and walk on while Fernand stayed behind to hold the horses. Another sentry saw him sit down by a fallen soldier and heard him talk. Perhaps His Highness had not realised that the man was dead
. It was a French soldier, by the way.’

  Another silence. ‘And then?’ I asked at last.

  ‘Then His Highness began the attack on Leipzig. He took it and entered it at the so-called Grimma Gate the moment that Napoleon fled through the West Gate at the other end of the town. His Highness rode to the Market Place of Leipzig and waited there for his allies, the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia. At Trachtenberg Castle he had told them he would meet them on Leipzig Market Place, and so he sat there and waited. As it so happened French prisoners were led past at that moment. His Highness had his eyes half closed; I thought he wasn’t looking at the prisoners at all. But all of a sudden he raised his baton and pointed to a colonel. “Villatte,” he said, “come here, Villatte!’”

  Here Villatte took up the story. ‘I stepped forward. “What are you doing here, Villatte?” he asked. “I am defending France,” I said. “Are you? Then I must tell you you are defending it very badly, Villatte. Besides, I expected you to stay with my wife in Paris.” “Your wife herself sent me to join the Army,” I said. He made no answer to that. I stood next to his horse and saw my captured comrades march past. In the end I thought he had forgotten I was there and wanted to go and join the other prisoners. But as soon as I stirred Bernadotte bent down from his horse and held me by the shoulder. “Colonel Villatte, you are a prisoner of war. I order you herewith to return immediately to Paris to my wife’s house. Give me your word of honour as a French officer that you will not leave her till I come myself.” Those were his words. I gave him my word of honour.’

  Villatte’s part of the story ended, Rosen took over again and reported the strange arrangement Jean-Baptiste made for them. Villatte was the prisoner, but on French soil, beyond the reach of the allied armies; he was to guarantee Rosen’s safety and to procure him the right of asylum in my house from the authorities in Paris. To get Rosen through the French lines Villatte got him a French bearskin cap and uniform. It sounded a complicated arrangement to me. I daresay they themselves didn’t know who was in charge of whom. In any case, the arrangement worked, they rode and rode day and night, and they had arrived here safely.