‘You are irrepressible!’ He shook his head in mock exasperation. ‘I had best organise another expedition to the South Seas if we are to feed your hunger for novelty. I hear there are strange and wondrous species to be found on the continent of New Holland.’
Josephine felt her eyes grow wide. ‘Could you?’ she breathed. A journey to the furthest corner of the earth. She felt like a child again when her father promised to bring his daughter back her first set of ribbons.
‘The Ministry of Marine have petitioned me for funds. Nicolas Baudin is eager to prove himself. I am inclined to grant the wish. Two ships, twenty-two savants, the largest scientific expedition ever undertaken—will that be enough to appease your desires?’
‘Truly? Seeds for my garden?’ She thought of the Jardin des Plantes and the naturalist who had turned his back on her. ‘Those savants will share them with me?’
‘Certainly. They would not dare to do otherwise. Now come to bed.’ He thumped the counterpane.
She launched herself onto her husband, smothering him with kisses. ‘You are the best husband a wife could ever hope to find.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Spring 1800
‘Why did you bring me along?’ Labillardière hissed to Thouin.
Labillardière’s long strides were clipped as he was forced to stroll behind the First Consul and his wife, who was chatting inconsequential nonsense to the two naval captains at her side. The woman was pointing out her weeping willows, inordinately proud of their aspect beside her lake. Already on this tour of the garden they had been shown her flashy rhododendrons, sent to her by some English captain by way of Sumatra but with no idea of their proper provenance and no appreciation of their true habitat. She had arranged them according to the colour of their blooms, to be pleasing to the eye. Labillardière had snorted in disgust. These bushes could reveal so much to a learned mind about the progression of change from lowland jungles to the highest Himalayan mountains, but the knowledge was lost here in this garden. She was creating a whimsy, an English-style garden, with sweeping lawns and muddled plants. There was no order to her method. He despised the trend and he had told her so.
‘I am wondering that now myself,’ muttered Thouin.
Ahead of them, the naval officers strutted in their shining boots and flashing buttons. Captain Baudin walked with his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent towards the consul’s wife, hanging on her every word.
The First Consul now had Baudin’s attention, drawing a picture in the air of the intended hothouses. Explaining about the seeds from Martinique, his wife’s home in the colonies. She wanted to grow jasmine, apparently, for she missed the scent. Labillardière scowled. The waste of it. Who was paying for her extravagance?
‘These resources should be directed to the Jardin des Plantes, not her personal pet projects.’
‘Shh,’ said Thouin, squeezing his eyes closed.
‘This is an abominable waste.’
‘That may be so, but we must be diplomatic.’
‘You have brought me here to be diplomatic?’
Thouin sighed. ‘Just talk about botany. Talk about your travels. Let Baudin know what he can expect. All you must do is convince the First Consul we deserve his patronage. These new specimens must return to us.’
‘All of France should have access to these treasures, not just the elite of Paris!’ Labillardière had already glimpsed some of the ancient sculptures taken from Italy on show in the house’s vestibule. Those antiquities had been promised to the Louvre for the benefit of the people, yet here they sat. And now the woman wanted to do the same with the Jardin des Plantes collection of seeds, to keep them for her frivolous garden.
Thouin didn’t reply, only moved ahead quickly, catching up to Baudin and the First Consul and his wife. Labillardière lagged behind, still fuming about this new expedition. He hated the thought of another expedition setting sail to New Holland before he’d had a chance to write up all his findings from the first. It had taken so long for the specimens to be released to him that he was set back by years and he still had so much more to do. In part, he wished he had been asked to join the voyage—it rankled to be overlooked again—although privately he doubted if he had the fortitude to endure it. The hardships, the food (salted pork and vinegared wine; his chest burned at the thought). And the dysentery in Java had nearly killed him. He feared at his age such a journey was beyond him. Now he would have to contend with another botanist seeking to claim the honour of being first to describe these plants.
He didn’t want to admit that his memory was not as good as it once was. He had expected to remember details about the habitat and growth form of his specimens when he saw them, but when he had finally opened his herbaria and faced the dry and desiccated remains of leaves and stems, some with flowers, some not, he was afraid—afraid that his descriptions might not be as complete as they should be. He blamed that madman d’Auribeau for ordering his herbaria be stored out on the deck in the rain. The ink on the sheets had run. The names and places were smudged in ink and also in his memory. His journal, the one in which he had kept all his notes of habitat and form, had been hidden with the animal specimens that never returned to France. It pained him that now the only way to check his observations, the only way to confirm his memory, was to be given access to the specimens that Baudin would send back to France.
Baudin turned back to him and smiled. The captain was an odd-looking fellow with a rather unfortunate wart on the end of his long nose. It was impossible to remove one’s eyes from it. But Labillardière approved of his interest in natural history. Perhaps he could have accomplished more if Baudin had been the leader of his expedition rather than d’Entrecasteaux, who never understood the needs of the naturalists.
‘Do you have any advice for us, M. Labillardière?’ Baudin was asking.
‘Take paper, as much as you can carry. Give the naturalists boats and men for their researches. And don’t leave anyone behind.’
Baudin laughed.
Labillardière looked at him blankly. Why would he laugh? He wondered now if the man was an idiot.
The consul’s wife left Thouin in discussion with her husband and linked her arm through Baudin’s. ‘I believe you are a collector also, Captain Baudin? What are you most looking forward to on this journey?’
‘I have a passion for molluscs. Seashells. You see, I am still a small boy playing in rock pools.’
The woman laughed. ‘I hope you will devote some of your energies to the collection of seeds as well as shells. I have recently discovered the glorious magnolias of St Lucia. Do you know of them?’
Labillardière fumed. She had not discovered them. She had not endured the hardships of collecting in a foreign clime.
‘Botany is so important for the future prosperity of France,’ interrupted Labillardière. ‘I once discovered a most advantageous species in Van Diemen’s Land. Eucalyptus globulus, the blue gum. Tall straight trunks perfect for masts.’
‘I will take specific care to look out for it.’ The captain nodded to him and smiled at the consul’s wife. She inclined her head in thanks, and Labillardière saw the tacit agreement that those seeds would be passed to her.
Enraged, Labillardière spoke up. ‘The commercial benefits of the species should belong to all of France.’
‘You mistake me, Monsieur,’ the woman replied. ‘I have an eye for beauty and harmony, not commerce.’
The horrid woman wanted to create a cabinet of curiosities to impress her visitors; she had no mind for understanding the complexity of nature. She would take other men’s discoveries and claim the glory for herself. An image returned to him then of the female apes he had encountered on the African continent: a lower-ranked female hiding the nuts she had gathered under her lips rather than relinquish them to the higher-ranking female. He remembered the obstinate look, the pursed lips of the besieged ape as the dominant female pushed her fingers into her mouth and prised out the foraged nuts for herself.
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‘Imagine what worlds my garden might open up for those of us who would never see such wonders! We are not so fortunate as you men of exploration. Most ordinary men and women will never see beyond their gates. This garden will be a portal to the wider world, a place to step into and feel ourselves transported.’ Her arms were wide. She beamed her enthusiasm like a lighthouse. Labillardière immediately thought it a sign of warning. But Captain Baudin looked smitten with her. The fool. An ugly man in the thrall of a beautiful woman. He was so puffed with pride that when he held his arm out to her it was as though he offered an iron handrail.
‘We are opening our eyes to the world, Monsieur.’ She turned her head and gave Labillardière a patronising smile over her shoulder. ‘What more exciting time than this to live on the cusp of new discoveries. Don’t you agree?’
She had tricked him; of course he had to concur, even though his nod was stiff and reluctantly given.
‘M. Labillardière, you suspect me of ulterior motives,’ growled the First Consul, who had broken free of Thouin’s conversation. ‘You suspect me of bringing back species to create plantations for my own personal gain.’
Just as Labillardière opened his mouth to agree, Thouin appeared at his side, pressing his elbow firmly into his ribs.
‘My friend would never suggest such a thing. He is passionate about the benefits of botany, that is all.’
‘Have a care, Monsieur. We have invited you here to our home to advise the captain on his travels, not to insult us. I remember our last meeting in Milan and I did not care for your attitude then; I like it less now.’
Labillardière frowned as Thouin dragged him away. He did not trust these self-styled monarchs. The stink of dictatorship clung to them. The Directoire, in spite of its faults, was at least an elected government for the people. Now the people had happily let it be overthrown. He bemoaned the weakness of his species. How easily the mob returned to hierarchy, mistaking it for security. Knowing who to cringe from and who to kick seemed the only social structure they could envision.
‘Accusing the First Consul of private gain is not conducive to having him send Baudin’s specimens to the Jardin des Plantes!’ Thouin hissed once they were out of earshot.
‘If they wish to prove they have no intention to steal from the pockets of the people they should show it. Demand they send you the specimens! Have you no backbone? Haven’t you asked me here to say what you cannot?’
‘No, no!’ Thouin dragged his friend closer to the lake. ‘These are powerful people. We have to tread carefully.’
At that moment a gander shot out from the reeds and bore down on the two men. Thouin cried out and slipped on the fresh dung lining the banks of the lake. The bird attacked, launching at the fallen botanist’s exposed flank with its beak. Thouin howled as Labillardière dragged him up, his white hose stained green. Labillardière flapped his arms wide and let his jacket flare, honking in retort at the bird. Startled, the bird strutted back, plumage ruffled. Labillardière recognised the brooding look, the intensity of the beady eye. He lifted his chin and turned back to the path where the First Consul was watching them with the very same combative glare.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Spring 1800
Anne felt sweat slip between her breasts and drip from her forehead. She flicked her brow then took up her spade again. It was good to dig. Her arms ached from the work and it was a reminder she should be doing more. Arms are not meant to be idle, her mother would tell the children, loading them with baskets of leeks or cabbages to carry into the house. Arms are made for working.
After weeks of pulling weeds and turning sods, her garden beds were almost complete. Anne straightened her back and stretched. The kitchen garden had four neat corners of turned and manured soil with paths between and a central circular well for drawing water. Her mother would be proud.
It had been a wonder to discover the former potager du roi at the back of their house struggling to reseed itself to life after the hard winter. Overrun by rampant blackberry and raspberry vines, Anne had not paid much attention to it, but as the snows melted and green shoots returned, she recognised herbs from her mother’s garden: tarragon, tansy and calamint. As she hacked at the vines she found that perennial chamomile, lady’s mantle and pockets of chives. She had tugged a straggling coltsfoot from the dry soil.
She wondered at the gardener who had once planted these herbs. Was it Marie-Antoinette herself who chose the plants? Anne saw elecampane with its sunflower heads and bitter roots; her mother would boil it into syrup to treat those with a consumptive cough. She found alexanders growing against a wall of the house; her mother would give this to the local midwife, who would make infusions of the leaves for labouring women to drink and help release the afterbirth. There was wormwood for gout and vervain for women’s pains. The more she explored, the more certain she became that whoever had planted this garden had the knowledge.
The garden would need to be dug and fed, the box hedging clipped and the beds re-sown. In the corners of the square plot, bay trees grew ragged and free of their cone-shaped forms. This garden had lain untended for a decade, but Anne was excited to find traces of its former use. Here was her purpose, she decided: she could devote herself to growing herbs and vegetables for her family. Hands on her hips, Anne surveyed the neatly turned beds that she had worked so hard this spring to prepare. They were ready to be sown. Up in the house she saw a curtain twitch. The servants were watching her, no doubt waiting for her garden to fail. Nothing she did would be right in their eyes. If she helped them with chores she was always under their feet and chided to sit, but if she sat they would whisper about her idleness. No doubt they gossiped about the time she wasted on this plot of earth, but Anne would not spend another day cooped up inside with them, feeling like a pecked hen.
It was eerie to be in such an echoing house with hard floors and too many levels. She missed her brothers and sisters, she longed for the squeeze of all their bodies piled close to one another like pilchards in a net. She missed the squabbles and the dramas, the jealousies and the laughter. She grew up in a house filled with hands to hold.
The memories flooded her with sudden sadness. Never again would she be among all her family. Her dear father, who said little and sat each night in front of the fire with his pipe, patting the head of any child or pup that came to his side. Her mother, always moving, flapping and folding clothes and pressing them against her soft belly. The girls lined up to plait one another’s hair. Anne smiled to picture it, but the tears slipped out. She’d had no word of any of them since her move to Versailles. Her mother and father could not read or write, and the last post she had from her mother simply contained a pressed blue flower of the woodland forget-me-nots.
For as long as she could remember the family had collected flowers and pressed them in waxed cloth underneath the mattress that she shared with four of her sisters. The pressing of beautiful flowers and gluing of them to walls and furniture was their mother’s only fanciful decorative touch. From tiny boxes to the drawers of bureaus, Anne’s mother had lacquered flowers in beautiful arrangements. Whenever Anne smelled varnish she thought of her mother’s delicate artworks. At Easter they would all sit around the table and blow goose eggs ready to decorate. Anne remembered the excitement of the first year she was old enough to take part. She had gathered pansies, clover and violets and carefully pasted them to the white shells using a hog’s-hair brush and gum glue. It was always a competition between the siblings. The finished eggs were displayed for Papa to choose his favourite, and even though he was banned from seeing them created, each time he chose their mother’s without fail.
In their house they had no lace curtains, no porcelain plates resting on doilies, no embroidered napkins. Her mother stitched, but only to mend. Give Anne a needle and she knew how to backstitch seams or whipstitch unravelling cloth edges, but the many embroidery stitches were a mystery to her. Unlike other girls she had not cross-stitched even the most basic sampler,
but her mother had dyed the embroidery yarn for others using plants from the garden. She grew up with hanks of yarn coiled and drying from the rafters or spooled around the backs of chairs.
Anne remembered huge, boiling pots of marigold petals or sage leaves and the hideous stench of fermented woad for making blue thread. The woollen yarns were boiled with alum in the coppers of their washhouse and Anne always found an excuse to run far away on dyeing days. It was hot and hard work and she left her older brothers and sisters to the job. She far preferred to collect the petals, to run along the tall rows of yarrow with her littlest brother and make crowns of white, pink and golden wildflowers for them both to wear. Once she cut her bare foot and little Luke surprised her by snapping a stem of the yarrow and wrapping it around the wound. He had been so tender with her foot in his lap and she had squealed at the throbbing sting. Miraculously, the sap stopped the flow of blood. She had never asked him how he knew to do that with the yarrow.
These memories came to her in pieces, remembrances of her family, now spread like windblown seed. When the pressed forget-me-nots came from her mother, Anne had eased her heart by sending back sprigs of rosemary, her mother’s favourite herb, and tracing around the hands of her children to show how much they had grown. One day she would visit her family again. Or maybe bring her mother to visit her grandchildren, she thought, brightening at the idea. Bring her mother to Versailles! What would she think?
Anne shook herself from her memories and back to the bare earth of her plots. These vegetables would not plant themselves. She should not be sad when she was far more fortunate than most to be here in Versailles, with food on her table, a loving husband and two fine boys. She was a mother now. One day she would have her own large and boisterous family, she would mend torn toys, settle arguments and marshal her own squad of troops to harvest the bounty of her garden.
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