Desiree

by Annemarie Selinko

‘Monsieur Persson, I should like to see your silk cloths.’

  He stroked his head in confusion, and said in his miserable French:

  ‘You have really come to see me, Mademoiselle Clary!’

  It was too much for Oscar: the crowded shop, the intently listening ladies, and old Persson stammering in French. ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to take Her Majesty and me into your office and show us your goods there,’ he said.

  We went through a side door into a little office full of ledgers on a high desk, and hundreds of samples lying about just as they used to do in Papa’s sanctum, and I felt immediately at home. In a frame over the desk hung a yellowed pamphlet which I recognised as soon as I saw it.

  ‘Yes, here I am, Persson,’ I said, and sat down on the chair by the desk. ‘I should like to introduce my son to you. Oscar, this is Monsieur Persson, who was your grandfather’s apprentice in Marseilles.’

  ‘I am surprised,’ Oscar said, smiling, ‘that you have not been appointed Purveyor to the Court long ago.’

  ‘I have never asked for the honour,’ said Persson slowly. ‘In any case, since my return from France my reputation in certain circles has not been a good one. And that is the reason,’ he said, pointing to the framed broadsheet.

  ‘What is that?’ Oscar asked. Persson took it from the wall and handed it to him.

  ‘That, Oscar, was the first publication of the Rights of Man. Papa, your grandfather, brought it home, and Monsieur Persson and I learned it by heart. When Monsieur Persson went home he asked me for the broadsheet as a souvenir.’

  Oscar made no answer, but went to the window, wiped the dust off the glass with the sleeve of his Admiral’s uniform, and began to read.

  Persson and I looked at each other. ‘And the Mälar is really as green as you always told me it was,’ I said. ‘I never could visualise green water. And now the green water runs under my windows!’

  ‘How well you remember it all, Mademoi— Your Majesty!’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Of course I remember it. That’s why it has taken me such a long time to come to you. I was afraid you’d blame me for—’

  ‘Blame you? What could I ever blame you for?’

  ‘For being a Queen now. Because we both used to be Republicans.’

  Persson looked across at Oscar in alarm. But Oscar was too immersed in the Rights of Man to hear. That restored Persson’s self-confidence and he whispered to me: ‘That was in France, Mademoiselle Clary. But here in Sweden we are both – monarchists!’ Then, with another glance at Oscar, he added: ‘Provided that – you understand, don’t you?’

  I nodded. We were silent and thought of our villa and the shop in Marseilles. Then Persson broke the silence.

  ‘The sword of the General Buonaparte hung in the hall every evening during the last weeks of my stay in your house. How I hated it!’ Blood mounted to his grey cheeks as he spoke.

  ‘Persson, you were not jealous, were you?’

  He turned his eyes away. ‘If I had imagined at that time that a daughter of François Clary might take to life in Stockholm, I should—’

  He left the sentence unfinished.

  I was dumb with surprise. So he would have offered me a home and a shop here, within a stone’s throw of the castle!

  ‘I need a new dress, Persson,’ I said gently.

  He turned his eyes back to me, and was his old self once more, grey and dignified …

  ‘What kind of dress?’

  ‘For my coronation. You may have read that it is going to be on the 21st of August. Have you any silk suitable for a coronation robe?’

  ‘I have, indeed. The white brocade, you remember?’

  He opened the door and called his son: ‘François!’ He explained to me that he had called his son after my father, and then told the young man to bring the white brocade from Marseilles. ‘You know which one I mean.’

  The brocade came, heavy silk with threads of real gold. I took it on my knees, and Oscar, putting down the broadsheet, came over to look at it.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he said, ‘just the stuff you want, Mama! Is it not too heavy?’

  ‘It is very heavy, Oscar. I know because I carried it to the coach for Monsieur Persson when he left.’

  ‘Your Majesty’s father declared that this silk could only be used for the State robe of a Queen,’ added Persson.

  ‘Why have you never offered it at court,’ I wondered. ‘It would have pleased the late Queen immensely.’

  ‘I kept it in memory of your papa and the firm of Clary. Moreover, the brocade is not for sale.’

  ‘Not even now?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘Not even now, Your Royal Highness.’ Then he called for his son again: ‘François, pack this brocade.’ And then bowed to me.

  ‘Your Majesty, may I ask your gracious permission to offer you this brocade as a present?’

  I felt a lump rising in my throat, and couldn’t speak.

  ‘I shall send it to the castle at once, Your Majesty.’

  I looked at the space on the wall where the framed broadsheet hung, and I looked at Persson.

  ‘If Your Majesty could wait another moment,’ he said. He took the frame and wrapped it in an old piece of newspaper. ‘Please, Your Majesty, will you accept this too? Many years ago I promised to honour it always. And I have kept my promise.’

  An ironic smile appeared on his face. ‘I have wrapped it up so that Your Majesty can safely go through the streets with it. I myself have had trouble several times in the past.’

  Arm-in-arm like lovers, Oscar and I made our way back to the castle. We had nearly reached it and still I hadn’t managed to say what I wanted to. I searched desperately for the right words.

  ‘Oscar, perhaps you feel we have wasted an afternoon,’ I began, but stopped because we had come within hearing of the sentries. ‘Let’s go on, Oscar, I have something to say to you.’ And in spite of his obvious impatience I made him go as far as the Mälar bridge.

  The waters roared under the bridge. ‘At this time,’ I thought, ‘the lights of Paris begin to dance on the waters of the Seine.’

  ‘Listen, Oscar. I have always hoped that Persson would let me have Papa’s broadsheet, and that’s why I asked you to come with me.’

  ‘Are you going to lecture me on the Rights of Man?’

  ‘Yes, Oscar.’

  But Oscar was growing more and more irritated.

  ‘Mama, the Rights of Man are no longer a revelation for me. Here they are familiar to every educated person.’

  ‘Then it’s about time the less educated ones learned them by heart. But I want to tell you that—’

  ‘That I am to fight for them, isn’t that it?’

  ‘Fight for them? No, defend them!’

  I looked at the turbulent water under the bridge. A memory from my childhood rose in my mind: a severed head rolling into blood-bespattered sawdust.

  ‘Oscar, much blood was shed for their sake before and after their proclamation, and Napoleon so profaned them as to quote them even in his battle orders. And many others continue to abuse and dishonour them. I want my son to stand up for them and bring up his children to do the same.’

  Oscar remained silent for some time. Then he took off the old newspaper in which the Rights of Man were wrapped, and let it flutter into the Mälar.

  When we had reached our gate he suddenly broke into laughter. ‘Mama, that amorous chirping of your old adorer was magnificent. If Papa knew of that!’

  On my Coronation Day. (21st of August 1829)

  ‘Désirée, I implore you, don’t be late for your own coronation!’

  I shall never forget this sentence as long as I live, because Jean-Baptiste kept shouting it out to me without interruption as Marie, Marceline, Yvette and I kept searching feverishly through my wardrobe. In between rummaging I admired Jean-Baptiste’s marvellous coronation robe, his gold chains, his strange boots with the ermine trimming.

  ‘Désirée, are you not ready yet?’

  ‘I c
an’t find them, Jean-Baptiste.’

  ‘What can’t you find?’

  ‘My sins, Jean-Baptiste. I put them all down on paper, and I’ve mislaid the sheet.’

  ‘Good gracious, can’t you remember them?’

  ‘No, there are too many – all little ones of course. That’s why I wrote them down. Yvette, have another look.’

  I needed my sins because I had to go to confession before the coronation ceremonies began, and Josefina was to come with me. She and I were the only Roman Catholic members of the Protestant House of Bernadotte in Lutheran Sweden. The confession was to take place in the little chapel which Oscar had installed for Josefina on the top floor of the castle, and only after the absolution would I put on my coronation robe of white and gold brocade, which Papa had once held in his hands, and drive in solemn state to the Storkyrka, the Cathedral.

  Josefina came in. ‘Mama, it is high time.’ But I still couldn’t find my sins. I had to call off the search for them, and we went across the drawing-room, where Oscar was waiting for me in gala uniform.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Jean-Baptiste to Oscar, ‘that your mama’s coronation would be hailed with such enthusiasm. Look at the crowds down there.’

  They kept behind the curtains and peered through them.

  ‘I am not surprised,’ answered Oscar. ‘Mama is enormously popular, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Jean-Baptiste smiled at me, and then his irritation returned and he said:

  ‘Désirée, are you ready or not? Have you found your sins?’

  No, I hadn’t, and the family wasn’t co-operating at all and no one wanted to lend me some of their own. But Oscar had a bright idea.

  ‘You have been living in sin with a man for years. There is a really big sin for you to confess.’

  ‘What sin do you mean?’

  ‘Did you marry Papa in church or in a registry office?’

  ‘Only in a registry office.’

  ‘There you are! The Roman Catholic Church does not recognise marriages not solemnised in church. Now, hurry up.’

  We arrived at the chapel just in time, and returned in fearful haste and out of breath. I ran past innumerable curtseying ladies to my boudoir, where Marie, my old Marie, now bent with age, and Yvette set to work on me at once.

  ‘Auntie, the Archbishop is waiting already outside the church,’ said Marceline before she let us begin.

  If you study your face every day in the mirror you don’t get a fright by discovering that you are old. You see it coming and get used to it. I am now forty-nine years old, and have laughed and cried so much that many little wrinkles have formed round my eyes. And there are two lines from the nose down to the corners of my mouth. They established themselves when Jean-Baptiste fought at Leipzig.

  I put cream, powder and rouge on my face as la grande Josephine had taught me, and thought of the way the Swedes were reacting to my coronation – as if they had been waiting for just that and nothing else for years! Jean-Baptiste didn’t know what to make of their enthusiasm. Did he really think it would be enough to be married to him in order to be the Queen? Doesn’t he realise that only with this coronation have I said Yes to him, finally and for ever? Jean-Baptiste, this coronation is the promise of a bride, this time given in church and at the altar, to love and obey.

  Most women when they reached my age are allowed to stop being young. Their children have grown up and their husbands have reached their goal. They may be their own mistresses. Only I may not. I am only beginning. But then, it isn’t my fault that I have founded a dynasty. I am the Queen now, and for once, just for to-day, I want to look like a Queen!

  ‘How young you are, Désirée, not a single grey hair!’

  Jean-Baptiste was standing behind me, kissing my hair. I laughed.

  ‘Many grey hairs, Jean-Baptiste, but they’ve been dyed for the first time. Do you like it?’

  There was no answer. I turned round and saw not my Jean-Baptiste but a man in a heavy ermine coat, with the circlet of the crown of the Kings of Sweden round his forehead, a great and strange King. King Charles John XIV of Sweden.

  He was staring at the yellowed broadsheet on the wall. It was new to him. It is so long since he was last in my boudoir.

  ‘What is that, my girl?’ he asked.

  ‘An old broadsheet, Jean-Baptiste. The very first publication of the Rights of Man.’

  He frowned.

  ‘My father bought it many years ago when the printer’s ink on it was still wet. And now this yellow bit of paper gives me strength, I wasn’t born to be a Queen.’

  I felt tears coming, and had to powder my face over again.

  ‘May I stay here?’ Jean-Baptiste asked. He sat down by my dressing-table and pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket while Yvette came along with the curling tongs.

  ‘Is that your list of sins?’ I asked him. ‘A long list?’

  ‘No, this sheet only contains notes about the coronation ceremony. Shall I read them to you?’

  I nodded, and he read the thousand and one details about heralds, pages, costumes, the order of the procession and so on. When he mentioned the deputation from Norway he said that the enthusiasm of Sweden had suggested to him the idea of a separate coronation in Norway.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no, not in Norway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because here in Sweden I may now be Desideria, the wanted one, but not in Norway. Don’t forget that you forced Norway into this union, which may last your time and Oscar’s but certainly not much longer.’

  ‘The union was necessary. Do you know that you are talking high treason ten minutes before your coronation?’

  ‘In a hundred years’ time we shall both sit comfortably on a little cloud and watch the Norwegians declare their independence, and choose a Danish Prince for their King simply to annoy the Swedes, and both you and I will get a good deal of amusement out of it up there on our cloud.’

  Marceline and Marie rushed in now with my coronation robe. The gold threads in the white brocade had acquired a silvery sheen in the course of the years, I noticed. I put it on and looked at myself and realised that it was the most beautiful dress that I had ever seen.

  Meanwhile Jean-Baptiste went on with the explanation of the coronation procession. I heard that my two Counts, Brahe and Rosen, were to bear the insignia of State, and I was glad because I had insisted that they should have this distinction, which ought to have gone to the highest-ranking ministers. Hadn’t they thrown the weight of their ancient names into the scales at the time when the Swedes had had to get used to the silk merchant’s daughter on their throne?

  And who was going to follow the two Counts, bearing the crown on a red cushion? Miss Mariana Koskull. That, too, had been my choice. ‘You are not dissatisfied with my choice, are you?’ I said. ‘It does not say anywhere that the crown must be carried by a virgin, as it does in that ancient French stipulation which Napoleon had such difficulties in fulfilling; you remember he had to find ten virgins? All that is required is a woman of the high aristocracy. That’s why I suggested Mariana Koskull.’ I winked at Jean-Baptiste. ‘And for her services to the Vasa and Bernadotte dynasties!’

  At that Jean-Baptiste showed sudden interest in my jewels and bent down to inspect them.

  At last I was ready. Marie came to put the purple cloak round my shoulders, but Jean-Baptiste took it out of her hand and did it himself, very tenderly. Then we stood side by side in front of the big mirror.

  ‘It is like a fairy tale,’ I said softly, ‘once upon a time there lived a great king and a little queen …’

  I turned away quickly. ‘Jean-Baptiste, the broadsheet!’

  He took the frame from the wall and handed it to me. I bent down and kissed the glass over the faded text of the Rights of Man. Jean-Baptiste’s face went white with excitement.

  The folding doors to the salon opened. Josefina was there with the children. The three-year-old Charles made a dash towards me and then stopped dead. ‘T
hat isn’t Grandmama, that is a Queen,’ he said and stroked the purple cloak, his face full of awe. Josefina handed me Oscar, the baby. I took him in my arms. He had beautiful blue eyes, and hardly any hair as yet. ‘It’s for you as well,’ I thought, ‘for you, the second Oscar, that I’m going to be crowned.’

  The dull roar I heard coming from outside reminded me of the night when the torches lit up the Rue d’Anjou. I heard Jean-Baptiste say: ‘Why are the windows closed?’ and ‘What are they shouting down there in the street?’

  But I knew already, it was French. My Swedes wanted me to understand them, and they remembered what they had read about that night of the many torches. They were shouting: ‘Notre-Dame de la Paix!’, ‘Our Lady of Peace!’ I handed the baby back to Josefina quickly because I had begun to tremble uncontrollably.

  The rest happened as if in a dream. I went down the marble steps, I saw Brahe and Rosen carrying the insignia, and nodded to Rosen in memory of our drive to Malmaison and of Villatte. I saw Koskull in a blue dress carrying the crown on the velvet cushion and smiling happily. I saw Oscar and Josefina enter their open carriage, and then Jean-Baptiste and I entered ours, the last of all the carriages.

  ‘I am arriving last in church, like a bride,’ I said, and then the jubilant acclamations of the crowd along both sides of the streets roared into my ears.

  Jean-Baptiste smiled and waved, and I wanted to smile and wave too, but I couldn’t. For I heard them call for me, and for me alone. ‘Länge leve Drottningen – Drottningen!’ ‘Long live the Queen!’ I heard it and I felt that I should not be able to help crying.

  In front of the Cathedral Jean-Baptiste himself arranged the folds of my purple cloak and led me to the porch. There the Archbishop and all the bishops of Sweden were waiting for me.

  ‘Blessed be she who cometh in the name of the Lord!’ the Archbishop said. The organ music rose like a great wave, and I could only think again when the Archbishop put the crown on my head. ‘How heavy it is,’ I thought.

  It is late at night, and everybody thinks I have gone to bed to prepare myself for the festivities taking place to-morrow and the day after in my honour. But I wanted to write once more in my diary. How strange that I should have arrived at the last page today!