Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

  I gave in. ‘Let her come in, but only for a moment!’

  Hortense came in, pushing her sons before her. ‘Don’t refuse your protection to my children,’ she cried. ‘Take them in till everything is decided.’ Hortense has gone thin during the last year, her mourning dress makes her look very pale, and her hair is untidy and uncared for.

  ‘Your children are in no danger,’ I said.

  ‘But of course they are. The King may have them arrested at any moment as hostages against the Emperor. My children are the heirs to the throne, Madame!’

  ‘The heir to the throne is called Napoleon like his father, and lives in Vienna at the moment.’

  ‘And if anything happens to this child in his captivity in Vienna? What then, Madame?’ Her eyes rested lovingly on her two gangling boys. ‘Napoleon III,’ she murmured with a strangely aimless smile, and smoothed the hair of the younger one back from his forehead. ‘The King will not dare to pursue my children into the house of the Swedish Crown Princess. I implore you—’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘the children can stay here.’

  Later – I was just on the point of falling asleep – candlelight and rustling noises woke me. I sat up in bed and saw Julie rummaging in my chest. ‘Julie, what are you looking for?’

  ‘My crown, Désirée, the one I dropped on the floor in your boudoir the day the Tsar called.’

  ‘It’s in the bottom drawer. What do you want with it in the middle of the night, Julie?’

  ‘Just to try it on, and perhaps polish it up again.’

  Paris. March 20th, 1815

  Last night Louis XVIII crept out of the Tuileries by a back door and went into exile once more, this time only as far as Ghent. This morning the tricolour went up over the Tuileries, pamphlets containing a proclamation by Napoleon were distributed in the streets, and all the buttonholes and lapels, latent but gradually getting worn, showed the blue-white-red ribbon instead of the white rosette.

  In the Tuileries a great scrubbing and washing started, with Hortense in command; the new curtains disappeared and the dark green ones with the bee pattern came out of the obscurity of the storehouses. All Napoleon’s gilded eagles were fetched out of the vaults, dusted by Hortense herself and placed in their old positions.

  My house, too, had been turned upside down. A message from the Emperor to Julie announced that he would arrive at the Tuileries at nine o’clock in the evening, and Julie prepared herself, complete with purple and crown, to receive him. She was in a dreadful state of agitation. ‘Imagine Hortense and me having to receive him alone! I’m so afraid of him!’

  ‘Nonsense, Julie, it’s the same Buonaparte as in Marseilles! Your brother-in-law, Julie.’

  ‘Is he really the same man? After his triumphal march from Cannes via Grenoble to Paris, with everyone going over to him, including Marshal Ney?’

  Yes, it was quite true, the Army literally fell on its knees before him, including the brave Marshal Ney. ‘Julie,’ I said, ‘the Army may be shouting hurrah, but everyone else is silent!’

  She looked blank when I said that, then borrowed the earrings of the Swedish Dowager Queen and left. ‘I only hope,’ I thought, ‘that Joseph brings her jewellery back with him.’

  Meanwhile Marie and I bathed Hortense’s boys and, at Hortense’s special wish, curled their hair with a pair of curling tongs. They were to go to the Tuileries later with Julie. Louis Napoleon, whom his mother had called Napoleon III, wondered whether the little King of Rome was coming back too. But I didn’t answer him.

  AT NIGHT

  At eight o’clock in the evening a state equipage, still with the Bourbon lily on its doors, fetched Julie and the children. My house felt very quiet when they had gone.

  Count Rosen, leaning out of a window, said that he would have liked to see the Emperor’s arrival. I told him to change into civilian clothes and put on a tricoloured ribbon. I would come along with him, I said, and slipped into a plain coat and put on a hat.

  It was difficult to get to the Tuileries. We were caught up in an almost impenetrable crowd and slowly pushed along. I hung on to my young Count’s arm like grim death.

  The Tuileries were brilliantly illuminated as in the days of the great receptions. But I knew that upstairs in the ballroom there would be only a handful of people, Julie, Hortense, a few children, the Duke of Vicenza, Marshal Davout and perhaps a few more Generals.

  Soldiers on horseback cleared a lane, and from the distance we heard a noise, first like the soughing of wind, then growing to a gale, a typhoon, and then it was all over and around us, the one mighty roar, ‘Vive l’Empereur, Vive l’Empereur!’ A carriage came into view driving madly towards the Tuileries, with officers of all ranks and all regiments riding after it in a wild gallop.

  Servants holding torches appeared on the steps in front of the palace, the door of the carriage opened and the Emperor stepped out followed by Marshal Ney. The crowd broke through the line of soldiers, seized the Emperor and carried him shoulder-high into the Tuileries. I saw his face illuminated by the glare of torches. It smiled with eyes closed, the face of a man who had been dying of thirst and was now at last given a drink.

  Another carriage drove up. But it was only Fouché who emerged from it, wanting to welcome the Emperor and offer him his services.

  I had had enough. We managed to force our way through the dense crowd and wandered home through empty streets. But from every house the tricolour was flying.

  Paris. June 21st, 1815

  Marie was just bringing me my breakfast in bed when the guns began to fire and the church bells rang out.

  ‘Heavens!’ said Marie. ‘He’s won!’

  As she said it I realised that we hadn’t really expected that, neither we nor the others. But there were the guns and the bells! Now everything was all right again!

  Julie and Joseph returned to the Elysée Palace; Madame Letitia and all her sons came back. Only, in the Tuileries Hortense was mistress now in the absence of Marie-Louise, who still hung back, in spite of all Napoleon’s letters.

  As soon as he came back Napoleon ordered a general election, to prove to the world how unpopular the Bourbons were. This was the first free election since the days of the Republic, and old names reappeared in the new National Assembly, Carnot, for instance, and – Lafayette! Lafayette, who first proclaimed the Rights of Man, who had fought for the freedom of the United States, who had founded the National Guard to defend our young Republic – Lafayette, of whom Papa had spoken with such enthusiasm, was back again!

  But others were absent: Jean-Baptiste’s Ambassador, and the Ambassadors of all the powers, had been recalled; no country would enter into diplomatic relations with Napoleon, no Prince answered his letters. They sent not Ambassadors but armies! Inexorably 800,000 men moved towards France, without any declaration of war. And Napoleon had none to send against them but one hundred thousand men of his own. He could get no more: the young men went into hiding, the officers, including my nephew Marius, sent medical certificates instead of reporting for duty, and the Marshals, with the exception of Ney and Davout, retired to their country estates.

  Three days ago Napoleon crossed the frontier at the head of his army, to face the allies. His Order-of-the-Day ran: ‘For every brave Frenchman the time has come to win or die.’ When that was published all Paris was in the utmost gloom. And then, after all, the miracle happened: the church bells rang out for victory!

  I dressed and went into the garden. Then I was startled to find that the bells had stopped ringing.

  The deathly silence was so oppressive that I was glad to see a stranger coming into the garden. I went to meet him: it was Lucien Bonaparte! How strange that he should return at this of all moments, after his many years of exile in England!

  ‘You remember me, Désirée? I was present at the two betrothals, yours and Julie’s.’

  We sat down on a bench.

  ‘Why have you come back, Lucien?’

  ‘Yes, why?’ Lucien leane
d back and looked round the garden. ‘How lovely, and how peaceful!’

  ‘The victory bells have stopped ringing.’

  ‘Yes, Désirée, it was a mistake. Old Davout, whom Napoleon had left in Paris, had them rung prematurely. Napoleon had only won a little skirmish at Charleroi; the decisive battle was fought at Ligny and Waterloo, and Napoleon was beaten. Look at that beautiful blue butterfly!’

  ‘And the Emperor?’

  ‘He will arrive to-night, very quietly. He’ll stay with Joseph and Julie, not in the Tuileries. “For every brave Frenchman the time has come to win or die!” You read his fine phrase, didn’t you? No doubt he finds it embarrassing to have done neither.’

  ‘And the Army, Lucien?’

  ‘What army?’

  ‘His army, the French Army!’

  ‘There is no army left! Of his hundred thousand men, sixty thousand have died. But I haven’t come to tell you that. I only wanted to ask you to remember me to Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte when you write to him. I often think of him.’

  ‘Lucien, why have you chosen this moment to come back?’

  ‘To find somewhere to spend ten minutes in peace. The Government is fully informed, and the National Assembly is in permanent session as in the days of the Revolution.’ He got up. ‘I must go now. I am expecting further messages.’

  I went to the gate with Lucien, and he took my arm familiarly. ‘I have often regretted,’ he said, with his head bent, ‘that day in Brumaire when I spoke for him in the Council of the Five Hundred. But I still had faith in him then.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Désirée, shall we wager that he is going to send me once more to the Deputies? They are going to demand his abdication, and he will ask me to defend him. Do you know what I am going to do?’

  I smiled. ‘You are going to defend him. And that is why you came back, isn’t it?’

  After he had gone I thought for one moment that the whole thing wasn’t true, that Lucien had been mistaken, not Marshal Davout, about the bells. But then I heard a carriage draw up, and Hortense came in. She begged me, with tears in her eyes, to give shelter to her defenceless children.

  Paris. June 23rd, 1815

  I had just begun to read the Moniteur with Lafayette’s speech in that decisive session of the National Assembly – ‘If after all these years I raise my voice again’ – when the door of my boudoir was flung open, and Julie stumbled in and dropped in front of me, putting her head in my lap.

  ‘He has abdicated!’ she sobbed. ‘The Prussians will be here at any moment.’

  Bit by bit I gathered the story of last night’s events. Napoleon had come back at dead of night in an old stage coach. He had lost everything, even his personal baggage. He called all his brothers and his ministers to him immediately after his arrival, but the ministers only stayed for five minutes and then went back to the Assembly. The Emperor demanded another 100,000 men and then sent poor Lucien to face the Deputies on his behalf and reproach the nation for deserting him.

  ‘And did Lucien actually go?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he went – and was back in twenty minutes! He hardly managed to get a hearing, and when at last they did listen to him and he told them that the nation had deserted his brother, Lafayette jumped to his feet and shouted: “France has sacrificed three millions of her sons to your brother. Does he want yet more?” And Lucien left the Assembly without another word.’

  Fouché had told her that, said Julie; Lucien himself had told her nothing.

  Later Joseph and Lucien were closeted with the Emperor throughout the night. The Emperor shouted and banged the table, but his brothers could not persuade him to abdicate till Fouché brought the news of Lafayette’s motion in the National Assembly that the throne should be declared forfeited if General Bonaparte did not resign it voluntarily within the next hour. When the Emperor heard that, he signed at last, but he abdicated in favour of his son. Of course the Government would take no notice of that.

  ‘I’m not going back to the Elysée,’ said Julie, ‘I want to stay here with the children. They can’t arrest me here, can they?’

  ‘The allied troops aren’t even here yet,’ I said. ‘Perhaps they won’t come at all.’

  ‘The allied troops? No, no – our Government! They’ve sent a General Becker to Napoleon to keep an eye on him. The Directory—’

  ‘Directory?’

  ‘Yes, the new Government calls itself the Directory. They are in touch with the allies. Carnot and Fouché are two of them.’ She began sobbing again.

  Then Joseph arrived.

  ‘Julie, you must get ready at once,’ he said. ‘The Emperor wants to leave Paris and go to Malmaison. The whole family are going with him. Come along, Julie.’

  Julie clung to me more than ever.

  ‘The whole family are going to Malmaison, Julie,’ Joseph repeated. His face was grey. He could not have had any sleep for the last two nights.

  I took Julie’s in mine. ‘Julie, you must go with your husband.’

  But she shook her head. ‘The crowds are shouting, “Down with the Bonapartes.”’

  ‘That’s why you must go with your husband,’ I said, and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Désirée, may we go to Malmaison in your carriage?’ Joseph asked, without looking at me.

  ‘I was going to lend it to Madame Letitia,’ I said. ‘But perhaps you can all find room in it.’

  ‘You’ll help me, Désirée, you’ll help me, won’t you?’ cried Julie. Joseph gently led her to the door.

  It is now about a year since Josephine died, and when they reach Malmaison they’ll find the roses in bloom.

  Paris. The night of June 29th, 1815

  His sword lies on my bedside table, his fate is sealed, and I was the one to seal it! Everyone is talking of my great mission, but I am full of grief.

  Early this morning – it sounds crazy, but it’s true! – I learned that the nation wanted to speak to me.

  I had been lying awake for hours. The last guns we have were rolling past my home, to attempt the hopeless defence of Paris against the Austrians, Russians, Prussians, Saxons, and English. Suddenly Yvette came to say that Count Rosen wanted urgently to speak to me. The Count rushed in after her, and said that the representatives of the nation wanted to speak to me as soom as I could see them.

  ‘Which nation?’ I asked, as the Count buttoned up the jacket of his full-dress uniform.

  ‘The French nation,’ he said, finishing his buttons and standing to attention.

  ‘Yvette, some strong coffee, please. Until I’ve had some coffee, Count, you’ll have to speak slowly. The French nation, you say? What does it want of me?’

  ‘They are asking for an audience. It was of immense importance, their spokesman said. That is why I have put on my full-dress uniform.’

  Yvette brought some very hot coffee.

  ‘What shall I tell them?’ asked the Count.

  ‘I’ll see them in half an hour.’

  I found that the nation was represented by Messieurs Fouché and Talleyrand and by a third person whom I didn’t know. He was small and very thin, and was wearing an old-fashioned white wig and a faded foreign uniform. His face was wrinkled, but he was a very bright-eyed old man.

  ‘Your Highness, may we present to you General Lafayette?’ said Talleyrand.

  My heart stood still. The nation had indeed come to me! I curtsied like an awkward schoolgirl.

  Lafayette began to smile with such genuineness that I plucked up courage and said:

  ‘My father always treasured the first broadsheet of the Rights of Man. I never dreamed that one day I should have the honour of welcoming its author under my own roof.’

  ‘Your Highness,’ began Fouché, ‘in the name of the French Government, represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and myself, and in the name of the French nation, represented by Deputy General Lafayette, we turn to you in this grave hour.’

  I looked at them all. Fouché, one of the five Directors
now ruling France, and Talleyrand, who only returned a few days ago from the Congress of Vienna where he had represented the Bourbons, were both ex-ministers of Napoleon, both in gold-embroidered tail-coats, much bemedalled. Between them sat Lafayette in his faded uniform, without a single medal.

  ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’ I asked.

  ‘Your Highness, I anticipated a situation like this long ago,’ said Talleyrand, speaking very fast and in a low voice. ‘Perhaps Your Highness will remember that I indicated to you once that the day might come when the nation would turn to you with a very important request. Do you remember, Your Highness?’

  I nodded.

  ‘That situation has arisen now. The French nation is putting to the Crown Princess of Sweden its great petition.’

  ‘I should like to give Your Highness a picture of the situation,’ said Fouché. ‘Through the Prince of Benevento we have offered unconditional surrender to Wellington and Blücher, in order to prevent needless destruction and bloodshed.’

  ‘They have told us that they will enter into negotiations only on one condition,’ put in Talleyrand, ‘and that is—’

  ‘That General Bonaparte leaves France immediately!’ shouted Fouché.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ I thought, looking at Talleyrand. But it was Fouché who continued:

  ‘Although we communicated to Napoleon the wish of the French Government and nation that he should leave, he has not done so. On the contrary’ – Fouché’s voice trembled with rage – ‘on the contrary, he has approached us with a monstrous proposal. He sent his ADC, Count Flahault, with the suggestion of a defence of Paris by the remnants of the Army under his command. In other words, he wants a general massacre. This, of course, we rejected, and repeated our demand for his departure, whereupon he transmitted to us what one can only call another challenge. He demands – demands, Your Highness! – to be given the command of the last available regiments in order to defend Paris. He takes his success for granted and assumes that it will enable us to secure better terms of peace. Only then will General Bonaparte consent to go abroad.’