“Joseph, come with me outside. Ladies?” Napoleon then directed Julie and me to take Josephine out to the back garden to avoid the sight of his departing coach. Fortuné accompanied us, his short, squat legs scrabbling to keep apace.
Within several minutes, we heard the wheels of the departing cavalcade. Josephine walked between Julie and me, her plump dog panting behind us. She appeared to regain her composure just a few moments after his departure, as her tears dried and her posture straightened.
“Your dog shall be happy to have your full attention once more,” Julie said, in an effort to make some conversation.
“Indeed.” Josephine nodded. “And Bonaparte tells me he is jealous that another shall be sharing my bed each night—even if it is only a dog.”
Julie and I laughed, only because we felt that it was the polite thing to do. We weren’t exactly certain how or when we had become Josephine’s closest confidantes.
“You know,” Josephine said, “the first time Bonaparte spent the night in my bed, just a few days after we met”—and thus while he had still been my fiancé, I noted with a stab of silent discomfort—“Fortuné bit him. Bonaparte was furious! Threatened to shoot the poor creature. But I told him that if he wished to join me in bed, he would have to make peace with my dog, for Fortuné has been my faithful companion far longer than anyone else. And I value loyalty above all else.”
“It seems that they are learning to live peaceably together, ever so slowly,” Julie said. I was grateful that she was making an effort, as I did not feel up for this conversation.
“Bonaparte agrees with me. On loyalty.” Josephine hit the final word with added weight in her voice. Neither Julie nor I said anything. She continued after a moment: “That is why he is taking it so hard, the betrayal of Mamma and his sisters.”
“They will come around,” Julie answered. “Joseph said it is simply a matter of their running out of money, and then they shall—”
“He worries about me,” Josephine said, cutting her off. “He worries what his absence will mean for me. How I shall hold up without his mother and his sisters here to support and sustain me.” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “But I told him: ‘After everything I’ve been through, you think I need the support of a few jealous women?’ ”
Gone were the tears of a few moments ago. Gone was the weepy, clingy coquette who feared losing her soldier. There was a steely resolve undergirding Josephine’s words now. She wasn’t only speaking of Letizia and the sisters; she was warning Julie and me as well. These words were for anyone who would seek to threaten her place in Napoleon’s esteem. As her husband was marching off at the head of the army, prepared for battle, poised to seize ever greater glory and wealth, Josephine, too, was prepared to fight her own wars.
Chapter 12
Rome
Winter 1797
“THERE ARE THIRTY THOUSAND STREETWALKERS in Paris.” Mamma Letizia glowered, her Corsican accent thick with scorn. “He can take lovers, fine, but why did he have to marry one?”
Her three daughters laughed at this statement—bold, unhindered laughter, an indulgence in their shared revulsion at their newest family member. For, as much as the four Bonaparte women bickered and quarreled among themselves, there was nothing that united them like their mutual loathing of Napoleon’s bride.
I threw a sideways glance toward Julie, whose focus was tilted down, seemingly preoccupied with the embroidery in her lap. It was hard for me to reconcile these criticisms of Josephine with the elegant waif of a woman I had met in Paris the previous winter. She’d been scantily clad, yes—inappropriately so, given the frigid weather—and yet she’d carried herself with a certain elegance. Even a level of dignity. Certainly in a manner different from the brazen and brash style of these Bonaparte women.
“A streetwalker would have been a better choice—at least a streetwalker would probably have been younger.” Pauline Bonaparte snorted at her own quip. “Josephine is nothing but an old, used-up horizontale.”
None of the three sisters made any attempt at the embroidery in their laps as we sat in the large, airy salon of the embassy. Gossip was all the diversion they needed.
We were in Rome, where Joseph had recently been appointed France’s ambassador to the Vatican. Maman, Nicolas, Julie, and I had joined him, as had his three sisters and his mother. I had been excited for our Roman adventure, eager to see the ancient capital along with my sister, to explore this eternal city of narrow meandering streets, art-filled palazzi, and festive outdoor cafés.
Josephine, on the other hand, had very conspicuously declined to join the family on the trip, even though Napoleon was still fighting in Italy and this would have put her much nearer to her husband. So far, in their months of marriage, they had spent only a handful of nights in each other’s company—only those nights immediately following their wedding ceremony. Her husband had been away since that time, amassing an impressive series of victories that had won him even more fame and acclaim back in Paris. He had taken his armies across Italy and near to the Austrian stronghold of the medieval city of Mantua, and now Napoleon was poised to defeat the Habsburgs in a campaign that might finally push them back across the borders into their own empire.
“You know as well as I do why Josephine is not here,” Caroline Bonaparte said now. It was the afternoon, and a soft, gray rain tapped the tall windows that lined the wall of the salon. “She’s already taken a lover. It’s common knowledge in Paris. Some dandy by the name of Hippolyte Charles.”
Mamma Letizia threw her hands up in disgust, though I was certain that nothing her daughters could tell her would come as new gossip—the woman seemed to have more spies than even her son the general. “And this is the woman my son chose to marry? When he could have had any woman in France. He could have had her!” Letizia gestured her weathered hands in my direction. All three sisters nodded, mumbling their regrets as I kept my own focus on the nearby vase I was attempting to sketch.
It had become a common course of conversation, this deriding of Josephine; as much as Mamma Letizia and the Bonaparte sisters despised her, they seemed to approve of me in equal measure. Most likely, I reasoned, that was simply because I was not Josephine. I suspected they might have had a very different attitude toward me had I in fact become Madame Napoleon Bonaparte. And yet, since I had not, they filled their days with these frequent lamentations that their Napoleon had chosen Josephine instead of me.
“You’d probably be pregnant by now,” Caroline said, delicacy not one of the stronger Bonaparte family traits. I often marveled to Julie that her husband was a diplomat—it was the last job I would have imagined for any of his siblings, or his mother.
“I cannot understand what he was thinking,” Pauline continued. “She claims she cannot come to Italy in case she might be pregnant—that the trip would be too difficult. She thinks that fools us? If she were pregnant, she would know by now! She’s not pregnant. She’s too old. She’s only thirteen years younger than you, Mamma!”
Mamma shook her head with fresh anguish. “Meanwhile, my poor son. All alone. A wife who refuses to visit. You would have visited, wouldn’t you, Desiree? Of course you would. You’re here.”
I shifted in my seat, looking up from my sketch to glance at Mamma Letizia and then Julie. “It seems that Nicolas and Maman are having a nice time out on their tour. I suppose I’m a bit regretful that I did not join them.” My mother and brother had gone to the Villa Borghese gardens, but Julie and I, not eager to walk in the rain, had declined to join them. Sitting here with the Bonaparte women, however, I was lamenting that decision.
“Gardens. Who needs to see another garden?” Letizia shrugged.
“You know what I heard?” Elisa returned to the topic of her sister-in-law. “Once, at a dinner party—this was before Napoleon, when she was still Barras’s whore—she took off her dress on a bet. She stood there, naked as the da
y she was born, and weighed her dress to prove it did not weigh more than two coins!”
“All this talk of how the Revolution gave rise to the sans-culottes. I regret the day that it created the sans-chemises!” With that, Mamma Letizia coughed a wad of brown saliva into her nearby spittoon.
“I just hate to think of her back in Paris now. You know that with each victory Napoleon sends back to the Directory, they only exalt her more highly,” said Pauline.
“Oh, I know it. It disgusts me. They call her Notre Dame des Victoires. Our Lady of Victories. Meanwhile, she does nothing to support her husband.” Letizia scowled.
“And what of her poor children?” Elisa interjected. “The son and daughter from the first marriage—Eugene and Hortense, I believe they are called. It’s not as if la horizontale remains in Paris to be mother to them. Everyone knows she has the son at a military academy and the daughter at a convent. Imagine, leaving nuns to raise your daughter!”
I looked up from my drawing to exchange a look with Julie; we had been raised and educated, in our girlhoods, largely by nuns at a convent. But we said nothing of that now.
“And you know that our brother pays for both of the children at their schools. As if they were his responsibility. Meanwhile, she’s feasting in Paris with her lover, laughing at Napoleon from afar,” Caroline added, leaning forward. “Spending his money. She’s renovating the house, you know?”
“I heard. Any time my poor son makes a little money, she spends it.”
How much of this revulsion came simply from the fact that Josephine now received Napoleon’s attention, his love, and his wealth, thus cutting into their own shares? I wondered.
“You know that she is redoing their mansion, and so far on the dining room alone, she has spent thousands. And her bedroom! Hear this! She’s hired an artist to paint murals of swans and pink roses, and I heard that the cost has already exceeded—” Pauline stopped short when Joseph entered the room. He’d grown weary of their tirades, telling them, for Napoleon’s sake, that they had better make peace with their in-law. That was the outlook that Julie was espousing, and therefore the one I was as well, but the sisters only seemed to do so when Joseph was present.
“Good evening, ladies.” Joseph strode into the room. He kissed Julie, then his mother. Next he turned his attention on me: “Desiree, hello. Is your mother here?”
“No,” I answered. “She’s gone out with Nicolas.”
He nodded. “Well, can I have a word with you?” He glanced toward his sisters and his mother, all of whom were, of course, paying attention to the exchange. “Perhaps somewhere private. Join me in my study?”
“Of course.” I put down my sketching, glancing to Julie, whose expression told me she had no more idea than I did as to what this was about.
I followed Joseph down the long passage and into his dark-paneled study. “Will you please sit?” He gestured toward a heavy chair across from his own at the oaken desk and dismissed his attendant. I lowered myself into the seat.
“I’ve received word from my brother.” Joseph carried himself with a new self-importance, I noticed, as if his brother’s growing glory had spread to him as well. He was still affable enough, but he now had a habit of speaking with his chest puffed out, his chin jutting forward.
“Oh?” I had no idea what this could possibly have to do with me.
“As you know, he has been fighting like a fiend all across Italy.”
I nodded. I read the papers. I saw how they were filled with articles extolling Napoleon’s military genius and the many victories he strung one after the other. Bonaparte flies like lightning, striking the enemies of France like a thunderbolt. I suspected that Napoleon provided much of the language himself.
“He’s finally decided that even he is entitled to a bit of a respite,” Joseph said. “He will take some rest in Milan, and we shall go up to join him.”
I still had no idea how this concerned me.
“While we are there, we shall meet the new French military commander of Rome, a man by the name of Duphot. General Leonard Duphot.”
A small knot of unrest began to coil in my stomach as I waited for my brother-in-law to continue. “I’ll let Napoleon tell it,” Joseph said, lifting the paper before him, the letter from his brother. I saw Napoleon’s familiar handwriting:
Duphot has spoken to me of his desire to become engaged to your sister-in-law. I think it would be an advantageous alliance for her.
I read the words, then I read them a second time, certain that my shock was apparent on my face as I lowered the letter and stared at Joseph.
“Now, don’t look so stunned, my dear girl. He only wants what’s best for you.” I did not reply. My hands, I noted, were smeared with gray from my sketching. I rubbed my palm, saying nothing to Joseph.
“You are fortunate,” Joseph said, his tone appeasing. “Your sister’s marriage to me has connected you to the most powerful, beloved man in France. You would be a fool not to use our Bonaparte connections to make a good marriage. Duphot has wealth and power. He would be a good match.”
I offered only a sharp exhale, a short sputter of incredulous laughter. Joseph went on: “And besides, Duphot already has a son, so you would not have much pressure. If you gave him one son of your own, he would likely free you from all wifely responsibilities. You could continue to live your life as you pleased.”
My thoughts swirled, but I offered no response.
“What…what do you say?” Joseph asked, fiddling with the papers on his desk.
I took a moment before wondering aloud: “Won’t I at least be allowed to meet him first?”
“Certainly!” Joseph rapped the table with his knuckles. “What do you take us for? You think we’d marry you off without allowing you to meet the bridegroom? Of course we wish for you to meet Duphot.”
I suspected that Joseph expected some sort of appreciation at this, some thanks, but I was in no mood to offer any.
“Duphot shall join us in Milan as soon as he can take leave from his military duties. And he won’t be the only one. Josephine has finally deigned to honor us with her presence.” I surmised from his wry tone that Joseph felt the same dislike for his brother’s wife that the rest of his family did. After all, as the keeper of family finances, he knew about the expensive swan paintings, the new marble tables, the rumors of her lovers and debauched parties. But he was the diplomat. He would never reveal his hand or risk alienating his brother. Perhaps that made him even more dangerous to Josephine.
“So, it is settled. We shall all be together in Milan, and you shall meet this new suitor,” Joseph said. “Won’t that be nice?”
* * *
The Serbelloni palace, where we arrived for our stay in Milan, was a staggering structure, grand enough to house an entire city. We arrived in the morning, mouths agape as our carriage pulled us through the tall iron gates into an enclosed courtyard. The palazzo’s ground floor boasted a grand hall filled with marble columns and gold trim, crystal chandeliers, and a soaring domed ceiling, its dimensions and appearance worthy of an ancient temple rather than one family’s residence.
But the most breathtaking aspect of this palace, the place Napoleon had handpicked out of all of Italy for his reunion with Josephine, was the flowers. Never one to overlook a single detail, Napoleon had ordered fresh-picked floral arrangements to cover every surface of the massive rooms. High doors opened out to terraces that led to the palazzo’s vast, verdant gardens, where the flora had been planted and pruned with expert care. The air surrounding the palazzo hung heavy with the rich fragrance of thousands of lush petals.
Equally impressive was the way the palazzo was filled with art—rich oil paintings of the Madonna, scenes from the New and Old Testaments, references to the great scenes of ancient Greece and Rome. The rooms, large as they were, were stuffed with statues and busts, with scrolls and age
d leather books. It was luxury, opulence the likes of which I had never witnessed, and I ambled slowly through one grand hall after another, absorbing each colorful scene with fresh wonder.
* * *
—
We arrived after Napoleon but before Josephine, and I noticed as soon as he greeted us that our host was irritated. I saw the tight set of his jaw, the quick manner in which he kissed his mamma before whisking Joseph off to a private conversation—and I guessed that he was not happy with Josephine’s absence.
I settled into my suite, a small dressing room and a spacious bedchamber with paneled walls and tall mirrors, a large canopied bed, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the palazzo’s forecourt. There, more carts continued to roll in, their wagons loaded with ever more paintings and statues. From where was all of this treasure coming? I wondered. And where did Napoleon intend to put it? As a small battalion of servants set out to arrange my wardrobe and personal items, I decided to go back downstairs to explore more.
On the ground floor, I entered a double salon, the high-ceilinged space vast and quiet, with only the sound of my shoes clipping on the marble floor. I noticed more objets d’art stashed haphazardly throughout the room—a harp, three bronze busts, several terra-cotta vases. I paused before a marble statue of a man, his head covered in a mop of thick curls, his muscular left arm raised triumphantly, a cape draped over his shoulders. What struck me most about this statue was that the man stood entirely nude, a thicket of hair swirling around his exposed manhood. I couldn’t resist; I leaned forward for a closer look.
“Is he that impressive?” Napoleon’s voice caught me entirely unaware, causing me to flinch as I looked up. He had entered at the other end of the large salon, and he walked toward me now. I felt my cheeks burn with a deep heat. “I was just…wondering. About all the art.”
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