Inside La Rotonde the air stank of sulphurous excrement. Marthe stood listening for her husband’s footsteps with her parasol in hand like a weapon. All she heard was her own breathing. She edged forward along a corridor towards a central arena that was lit by high windows. Marthe’s throat was dry, her eyes darted around the shadows, searching for the woman, or man, who might be waiting for her husband. She crept between stone archways until she reached the centre. Dens with barred windows faced this central space, but there was no sign of her husband. Jacques must have entered one of the cages.
She edged around the covered walkway. Most of the cages were empty, but in some she saw sad and frightened faces backed into the darkness. She did not know what these creatures were called. No plaques announced their names or told of the places they had been taken from. Some hissed and howled at her. Furred faces, bared teeth. One creature leaped at the bars and clung there, its striped tail curling around the iron. She fell back in fright.
Marthe heard her husband’s voice, murmuring, soothing. She crept closer; she had come so far. She squeezed her eyes closed and listened.
There was a shuffling of straw.
‘I wish we did not have to meet this way.’ Jacques’s voice was tender.
Marthe held her breath. It was worse than she thought. Her husband held affection for this whore. Or this boy, she thought with growing certainty. Why else would he go to such lengths to keep his affair a secret? Why meet in this bestial place?
‘You deserve better than this,’ Jacques said, the disgust plain in his voice. ‘It is intolerable that you should endure this squalor simply because our society cannot accept difference.’
There was a sigh and sucking sounds. A splash of water spilled.
‘Here, I have brought you something.’
Marthe’s curiosity could not be contained any longer. She stepped silently out from the shadow of the arch. She clapped her hand across her mouth. Her husband kneeled inside the cage. An ape wearing a dirty dress sat on a lone chair, her shaggy arm outstretched to receive a posy of flowers. Marthe choked the urge to squeal. The ape’s hair was golden chestnut and her hands and face were hairless. Sensing Marthe was watching, the ape raised her close-set, wet eyes. It was a gaze of despair. The creature made no sound.
Marthe turned and ran back the way she had come with evil thoughts running alongside her. What sickness was this? Her husband showed more love and affection to a beast than he did to his wife! Her tears blurred the path. Could he hear her echoing footsteps? Had he seen her? Marthe realised she no longer cared. She pushed past the barrier and back into the light. Weaving through the crowd, she made for the exit. In the Jardin des Plantes, she found the exotic gardens, those precious foreign flowers that her husband adored, and tore the plants out. The roots came up with surprising ease, as though they had only half committed to making a home in this soil. She flung the young plants, bare roots exposed, onto the grass. She screamed, raw and careless. Somewhere she heard a whistle blowing, but she didn’t care. She wanted them to catch her. It was time she told someone, anyone, what her husband was doing to her. How was she supposed to live with this humiliation? She ran towards the Seine.
Marthe burst onto the street. Somewhere she had lost her parasol and hat. People were staring. She knew her face would be blotched and streaked with tears, her hair loose and wild. She tried to calm herself, but she didn’t know which way to turn. A carriage waited at the kerb. A roan horse dozed with its back leg bent, resting on the tip of its hoof, rump slumped. The driver was nowhere to be seen.
Marthe gulped air. Was she being followed? She turned to check for attendants, gardeners, expecting to hear raised and irate voices. She stumbled forward, catching herself on the flank of the horse. It flicked its stump of a tail and stood up straight. She collapsed against the horse’s warm shoulder, letting it hold her weight. If the horse was startled by her strange behaviour it made no sign. It did not flinch away as she crumpled; instead it pushed back against her, holding her upright.
For a time she rested there, her fingers stroking the thick neck. She let her hot tears roll down her cheeks. She breathed deeply, taking in the toasted barley scent of the horse, the oiled leather of its harness. Marthe removed her glove. She felt the coarse mane and the hard muscle of its neck beneath. She moved to the horse’s head, seeing its ear flicker towards her. Its eyes were blinkered from her, so she closed her own eyes. Stroking along its jaw she found the velvet-soft place beneath its chin. Cupping her hand, she let the horse snuffle her palm with its firm lips, long whiskers tickling her skin.
The coachman jumped up into the carriage and slapped the reins on the horse’s rump. Its head reared up and Marthe clutched for its mane, catching a few chestnut hairs in her wedding ring as she stepped back. She could only watch as the roan horse was taken from her.
When Jacques Labillardière returned to his attic office after his visit to the menagerie, the air was stifling hot. He opened windows on either side of the room, hoping for the cross breeze. His shirt was sticking to his back after the climb. A rap on the door followed his entry. He turned to see Thouin standing at his doorway.
‘Good, I was hoping to speak with you,’ Labillardière said, gesturing to a chair.
Thouin raised his eyebrows. ‘And I you.’ He threw his bag on the chair, loosening his cravat.
‘This menagerie, it is a disgrace. An amusement for the populace. It does not belong in a place of learning.’
Thouin shrugged. ‘The consul insists.’
Labillardière snorted. Mention of the upstart general always irritated him. The only thing of value the man had done was talk of introducing a civil code that would rein in the excessive freedoms women now took after the Revolution. But to be made First Consul for Life? Had the Revolution meant nothing to his idiot countrymen? They had effectively made him king.
‘The orangutan,’ Labillardière continued, ‘have you seen her?’
Thouin shook his head.
‘L’Héritier was our friend. We owe the ape better, not least for his sake. She grew up in a household, she was part of his family, he doted on her more than his children! And now, because he is dead, she is to be kept in a cell of bare stone for the rest of her days?’
Thouin held up his hands placatingly. ‘I agree. But what solution do you propose? Would you take her?’
He had a vision, then, of Marthe and her monstrous table. Of the three of them sitting down together to eat. A ménage à trois. She would never stand for it.
‘I thought not.’
‘What did you wish to speak to me about?’ Labillardière said curtly, drawing out his own chair, eager to get back to his work.
‘Two matters,’ said Thouin, casting a glance at his bag and coat. He drew out a letter. ‘The first, concerning the consul’s wife.’
Labillardière clenched his jaw.
‘She wants Baudin’s animals.’ Thouin handed him the letter. ‘And she demands an equal share of the seeds from the voyage to New Holland. She wants to begin a nursery at her Malmaison estate.’
‘I knew it! Well she cannot expect to furnish her garden with our scientific specimens. The audacity of the woman. They belong to the state.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ agreed Thouin. ‘But how to respond when the consul himself supports her?’
Labillardière was incensed. ‘Must we cower beneath the will of these self-styled monarchs?’
Thouin hushed him. He closed the door, checking the stairwell. Immediately the small office felt more like an oven.
‘It is unsafe to speak one’s mind.’
‘Is it true what they say? He means to go further, to make himself emperor?’
Thouin shrugged. ‘How should I know? But the consul and his wife need to be treated with delicacy.’
‘Let her have the animals, but we keep the seeds,’ Labillardière said decisively.
‘A repository of plant matter held in private hands may not be a bad idea, in case of sabotage
.’
Labillardière did not understand Thouin’s ominous tone. ‘Nonsense. Send the duplicates to Lahaie at Versailles, not the consul’s wife. What is the other matter?’
Thouin’s jowls flushed red. The glisten of sweat did not improve his pallor.
‘There was an incident earlier this afternoon that put our work here at risk.’
‘What incident?’
‘Vandalism. Plants torn out of their beds.’ Thouin swallowed. ‘The culprit was seen.’ He reached down into his bag and drew out a parasol, placing it on Labillardière’s desk.
Labillardière stared at his wife’s parasol.
‘She must not be allowed to return here,’ Thouin warned.
‘Her madness, it grows stronger,’ Labillardière admitted. Every day, he had observed her waiting for him in the gardens beneath that parasol. He knew the exact shape and colour of it, as prominent as a flower blooming in the wrong season.
Thouin clapped a hand to Labillardière’s shoulder. ‘You must speak with her.’
He had tried. The first time she had followed him to the Institut meetings he had been mortified by her behaviour. ‘Is that your wife?’ one of his rivals had said, scornful, pointing down to the street. He recognised the linear shadow. She stood watching the house beneath a lamplight, in full view, not caring how it might make him look. A wife was supposed to make a man respectable, not a laughingstock. But when he went to censure her, the words had come out wrong. He had meant to instruct her on what he expected in his wife. But she had screamed at him, hysterical. A shocking thing: ‘I did not marry you to become a wife! I married you to become a mother!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Summer 1803
Josephine sat beside the window in her music salon with her needlework on her lap. A harpist played in the corner of the room on a golden harp that she had commissioned especially for Hortense. The woman’s hands floated over the strings, quick and light like hummingbirds. The harp music was meant to be gentle and soothing, but all it did was make her think of Hortense.
For months Hortense had avoided seeing her and refused to answer her letters. How could she try to make amends if Hortense would not speak with her? Josephine longed to bring her to Malmaison, to keep her as far from Louis Bonaparte as she could. She regretted her foolish words, her wilful blindness. Now Hortense was punishing her by keeping her grandson well away.
Any day now a shipment should be arriving from the Baudin expedition. She had written to Hortense, hoping that the excitement would bring her to visit. Her grandson would be nine months old by now, Josephine had counted each passing month. She had never been separated from Hortense as long as this, not even in prison, not even when she lived in the convent. At least then she had still been able to visit her daughter. This silence was torture.
Bonaparte rarely came to Malmaison now. In the winter he had moved them to the Palace of Saint-Cloud, a residence he thought more fitting for a king. It was better than the Tuileries but she begged to be allowed to return to Malmaison. He refused, commanding her to hold court, employing Claire de Rémusat as a lady-in-waiting. Everyone was laughing at her with this forced pretence of being a queen, but Bonaparte could not see it. All through spring he capered about the opera houses and theatres of Paris with dancers and actresses. Josephine was well informed of the rumours. She had caught Mademoiselle Georges, the fifteen-year-old diva, fleeing his bedroom half dressed. All of Paris knew of her humiliation. With her daughter keeping her distance and her husband delighting in his new-found power to seduce, she had never felt so alone.
The British press still wrote wicked things about them and soon the Peace of Amiens fell. Bonaparte was back to doing what he loved best, planning war. She pleaded with him to let her leave Saint-Cloud and go to Malmaison for the summer and at long last he relented. He promised he would follow, he promised he would be there when Baudin’s creatures arrived.
A knock at the door startled her. Not Bonaparte, surely, he would not knock.
Her footman was at the door. ‘Visitors, Madame.’
Josephine thought of Hortense. Had she come?
‘Who is it?’
‘Bonaparte’s three sisters have come to call, Madame.’
Josephine dropped her embroidery hoop and it rolled away from her with a clatter. ‘The best china,’ she called, rising to her feet.
‘We hear you have beasts arriving from the furthest corners of the globe,’ Caroline announced, sweeping into the salon. ‘We could not miss the spectacle.’ Caroline rubbed the tiny mound of her stomach in petite circles as she spoke.
‘I am overjoyed for you, Caroline,’ Josephine said, her eyes falling on the real reason for their visit. To gloat. ‘Congratulations.’
Josephine invited the women to sit with her in the music room, while the servants hurried to bring refreshments. She gathered her embroidery circle and returned to her seat by the window. The three sisters chose the stiff-backed red chairs opposite her, lined up in a row, evenly spaced, like the front line of one of Bonaparte’s regiments. They seemed content to sit in silence and watch.
She cleared her throat. ‘I love harp music, don’t you?’
The three sisters pivoted their eyeballs towards the musician at the instrument, but did not turn their necks. It was a relief to have their eyes averted from her. Pauline’s languid pools of Italian coffee, Elisa’s bulging orbs—the Bonaparte family curse—and Caroline’s bead buttons made smaller and meaner by the breadth of her cheekbones. The eyes swung back in unison, facing her down.
Unnerved, Josephine gestured to the paintings on her walls. ‘The Académie des Beaux-Artes wishes to have some of our collection to display at the Salon in Paris,’ she said proudly. The walls of her music room were painted royal blue and lined with many gilt-framed artworks by artists she admired. Flowers tumbled from vases painted by the Dutch masters alongside dramatic Italian landscapes by Grimaldi and sketches of the Madonna by Titian. She supported many young French artists and adored the new works by Fleury-Richard. It was vain of her, she knew that, but Josephine enjoyed her moment of pride. An elite artistic society thought highly of her taste in commissions. It seems she has an eye for identifying artistic talent. Who would have thought?
Caroline spoke low and fast, like the prick of a thorn. ‘By that time you will be a divorcée and not even permitted to visit the exhibition.’
All three women opened their mouths and laughed.
Josephine picked up her needle and continued to sew. She would ignore them. She had to concentrate on each stitch or she would lose the pattern and the figure would lose its form. Often she grew bored of a piece before it was complete or her eyes grew too sore to continue, but today she was determined to finish. Slowly, a golden figure was emerging out of her embroidery, long muscular legs, an elbow drawn back, a chin raised.
A platter of mignardises were served, giving Josephine a reprieve from conversation. Outside the window her peacocks started a raucous squabble, drowning out the soothing melody of the harp.
‘Remind me, how many children do you have now, Caroline?’ Elisa asked her younger sister.
Caroline placed a hand on her stomach. ‘This will be my third. And already two sons. Joachim is overjoyed, of course. Men do love to have sons.’
Caroline took a pastry from the plate. The gem-like glazed strawberry, Josephine’s favourite.
‘Joachim says he only has to look at me and I fall pregnant.’ Crumbs from the buttery pastry dropped onto her breasts.
‘And you are still so young, you could have more,’ said Pauline.
‘Yes. Have you thought of that, Josephine? Perhaps you are too old.’ Caroline’s teeth were red from the strawberry.
Josephine tried to imagine herself in her garden, as far away from Bonaparte’s sisters as possible. She wished for her children to be with her, but Eugene was a captain in the Consular Guard and she rarely saw him now. And Hortense, poor Hortense. Her daughter might never speak to her again.
Josephine took up another needle and, with hands shaking, threaded it with a new colour.
‘Has taking too many lovers made you barren?’ Pauline asked sweetly.
‘They say the douches used to scour out a man’s seed can be destructive to fertility,’ said Caroline.
‘We know about Barras and his orgies,’ said Pauline.
‘Did you invest in douche suppliers?’ Caroline’s laughter.
Josephine felt their bullets tear into her. She took each one without flinching. Do not give them the satisfaction. She sewed each stitch carefully. Besides, she felt deserving of the pain. For Hortense. She had done a terrible thing to marry Hortense to Louis and tie her to this family.
‘Mother says you bewitched him. Our brother would never have married a whore willingly.’ Elisa joined the attack.
‘The dark arts,’ Caroline agreed. ‘Did you learn that in Martinique?’
‘From a witch doctor?’
‘I bet they teach all manner of seduction secrets to their children, filthy white creoles.’
Josephine snapped her thread and plucked the stitches out. It was all wrong. It was a mistake. She had chosen a colour that didn’t fit at all.
‘We have heard rumours that Bonaparte prefers his mistresses much younger than you.’ Caroline continued to sharpen her bayonet. ‘Perhaps you do not fall pregnant because he can no longer stomach visiting your chamber?’
The harpist dropped a note in her scales. Josephine smiled at her encouragingly, despite the quiver in her cheek. So they knew that Bonaparte was taking lovers. Who didn’t?
Josephine knotted the last stitch. She ran her fingers over her work. Some of her stitching was uneven, but that couldn’t be helped. She flipped over her hoop to study the figure that she had conjured on her cloth. The goddess Diana drew back the arrow in her bow. On her head she wore a circlet of metal with no gems, her tunic was short but flowing, and at her feet a sleek, grey hound gazed up at her. Yes, Josephine thought, she needed Diana, the huntress, to come to her aid.
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