The Queen's Fortune

by Allison Pataki

  “Do you know that they hatched a plan to fake her pregnancy?” My sister sat beside me in our coach on an afternoon in late summer. Her husband was on a diplomatic mission to the south, but Julie and I had been invited out to Malmaison, Josephine’s beloved estate on the Seine to the west of the capital. My sister, my husband, and I were to spend the weekend with the Bonapartes.

  “Who staged this?” my husband asked, interest piqued as we rattled west along the river. “This alleged plot to fake a pregnancy?”

  “Napoleon and Josephine,” Julie answered. “Apparently, it was his idea. He wanted her to pretend she was pregnant. He would arrange for one of his bastards by one of his dozen mistresses to be brought into the palace, a boy, and they would pass him off as Josephine’s.”

  I looked away, glancing out the window as I heard this. I pitied her, truly. The indignity she must have felt—she’d been barren for the entirety of their marriage, and now here he was asking her to agree to such a lie, to claim another woman’s child as her own or risk losing her husband. “How dreadful,” I said.

  “She was willing,” Julie said. “Only, the imperial priest and doctor refused. They told the Emperor that they could not be complicit in such a plot. He was furious. At them. At her. It seems that it was his last desperate idea. She’s too old now. Mid-forties? Trying for a decade? If it didn’t happen years ago, it won’t happen now.”

  I knew it wouldn’t happen for her. What was worse, all sorts of rumors swirled—not just at court but publicly, in the papers and in the café gossip. Tales that she had been sterilized in the prison during the Terror or that all of her homemade efforts to ward off pregnancy during her years of bedding the French officer corps had led to a permanent infertility. Even worse, that her first husband, the sadistic and cruel Vicomte de Beauharnais, had maimed her after accusing her of infidelity. Who knew what was true? I certainly hoped that none of it was. All we knew was that Napoleon had married her with the assumption that she would give him sons, and even though she had not, he was perfectly capable of producing sons with other women, and his patience had all but expired.

  “Ah, we are here,” Bernadotte said, disrupting my troubled daydreaming. We pulled through the gates of Malmaison, and the coach made its way up a long, tree-lined boulevard. At the top of the lane was a lovely, sprawling château, with a central court and entrance flanked by two towers and long pavilion wings.

  We’d heard so many tales of Malmaison, from Josephine and Napoleon and others. Tales that she dressed her orangutans in white gowns to dine with her at the banquet table; that she and Napoleon swam naked with their guests in the fountains and pools, alongside Josephine’s black and white swans. But the house itself did not disappoint. Malmaison sat on three hundred lush acres, a riverside estate of vineyards, an aviary, hothouses, a menagerie of animals from all over the world, flower gardens, statue gardens, and acres of woodland parks for hunting, riding, and strolling. In addition to the château, I’d heard there was also a summer pavilion, several cottages, a grotto, and a Love Temple—whatever that may be.

  “Look,” Julie said, pointing toward a row of pools and fountains lining the castle’s gracious façade.

  “Is that…?” I paused, staring.

  “Yes, I believe it is. It’s him,” Bernadotte answered. From one of these man-made lakes, amid Josephine’s black and white swans, emerged a giant stone statue of Napoleon at its center. “A bit taller than the real thing, but just as hard in the head,” Bernadotte said, and my sister and I laughed.

  Our hostess emerged from the wide front doorway as our carriage rolled to a halt. “You made it! Oh, I’m so delighted.” The day was a pleasantly mild one, and Josephine looked casual in a simple dress of white lace, with purple ribbons woven through her hair. She appeared happy, at peace; whatever the state of relations with her husband these days, we would soon find out—of that I had little doubt. But her color was good and her mood seemed bright as Josephine leaned forward and kissed my cheek, then my sister’s. “Napoleon arrives from Paris this afternoon; he’ll be here shortly. What do you think of Malmaison?”

  “It is lovely,” I answered. From this close, I could see just how massive and labyrinthine the sprawling château was.

  “The house is something,” Josephine said. “I have over five hundred paintings and works of art that Napoleon seized—collected—during his foreign campaigns. We have art from every Italian master, every Russian Tsar, every Persian warlord. Everything but English art…Napoleon won’t abide that. But my true pleasure is my garden! Come, you must see my hothouse.”

  She took off with a skip, and Julie and I followed as Bernadotte stayed back to oversee the unloading of our trunks. We accompanied her into a tall glass building with an elaborate iron frame. Inside, the air hung thick and loamy, dense with the exhales of the thousands of tropical plants that warmed beneath the sun-drenched glass. “We have all manner of plants that my Napoleon brought me from all across the globe: dahlias, roses, hibiscus, jasmine, amaryllis. Sometimes I close my eyes and I feel the moist air on my skin, I smell the plants, and I can imagine that I am back in the Caribbean.”

  We meandered down the plant-strewn paths, past trees laden with ripe oranges, vines bursting with bougainvillea. Josephine paused at the end of one row. “Ah! You know what they call this sharp one? Mother-in-Law’s Tongue. Rightfully so.” Next we followed her past a cluster of ferns and toward a small fountain, where a massive bust looked on. “And here is our philosopher, Rousseau. I’ve read all of his words at my husband’s urging. ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Are you familiar with Rousseau?”

  “Only a little,” I said, shaking my head. I remembered back to the earliest days of my own ill-fated courtship, and Napoleon’s fruitless insistence that I read his philosophers. He had done the same, apparently, with Josephine. But she had obeyed.

  We exited the greenhouse back into the warm afternoon. Josephine inhaled, spreading her arms wide as she turned her face up toward the sun. “You know, we widened the lake so our view would be grander. Just like Louis XIV did at Versailles. Isn’t it lovely?”

  We strolled on, glancing back in the direction of the château. “Only here can I get Napoleon to forget about work, to forget about war, even just for a moment. I’ve designed every inch of the house, every blade of grass, so as to bring him ease and pleasure.”

  We walked along beside her. I had no idea what to say, other than to compliment the sprawling grounds, the peaceful fountains, the lovely castle. But Josephine frowned for a moment, saying to no one in particular: “At least, here, we can have some peace. What a horrible thing a crown is.”

  Just then I heard the sound of carriages on the far side of the house, a dog barking. And then a louder noise, a guttural grunting, pulled my attention toward a series of outbuildings farther down the river. “What on earth?” Julie asked, hearing the noise as well.

  “My apes,” Josephine explained, giggling as she pointed toward a massive cluster of nearby buildings. “Over there is my zoo. All of my little dears. Hardly a ship comes into a French port from a foreign voyage without bringing me some new creature. Napoleon and I love to give them all names. But he’s such a naughty zookeeper, my husband. The last time we were here, he was giving my gazelles and kangaroos fistfuls from his snuffbox; he almost started a stampede.”

  Just then another noise tore across the languid afternoon: a loud crack, an explosion. “Mon Dieu,” Josephine exclaimed, grabbing my hand.

  Julie took my other hand. “It sounded like a gun!”

  Could it be? Had the war come to the west of Paris? My heart lurched into my throat.

  “Not to worry,” Josephine said, glancing toward the house. “Napoleon is here,” she explained, blinking rapidly, the soft ease with which she’d carried herself just moments earlier suddenly replaced by a taut uprightness.

  “But it did s
ound like gunfire,” I said, still confused.

  “I’m sure it was,” Josephine sighed. “He always takes target practice on my poor swans.”

  * * *

  We sat down to dinner, my sister and I beside each other and across from my husband, while the Bonapartes sat at opposite heads of the low table. “Tonight we honor my husband’s victories across North Africa,” Josephine announced. We were dining out of doors, under a canvas tent on their sprawling lawn. Elaborately woven carpets covered the ground on which we sat, the table before us laden with platters and tagines of lamb and rice and hummus. The servants were dressed like Bedouin herders, and small flames flickered over jeweled candelabras. The setting may have been designed to conjure the desert, but Josephine was the figure of antiquity in a flowing gown of white, a tiara tucked into her dark, loose hair. Massive sapphires dripped from her ears and throat.

  But in spite of the pleasant weather, the lovely, candlelit ambiance, the beauty of his wife, Napoleon appeared to be in a foul mood. “Your swans were pissing on my statue again today,” he said to Josephine as he accepted a large serving of lamb. “I saw it when I arrived.”

  Josephine unfurled her white napkin, laying it across her lap with a subdued smile. “They are wild, my darling. The poor creatures don’t know any better.”

  “Swans are hardly poor creatures,” Napoleon answered, his jaw set in a tight line.

  She ignored the comment, looking to my sister. “Do you know that the butter and the meat on this table come from our own grounds? And tomorrow, our eggs and bread and fruit shall all be from the estate as well. It is like we are real farmers out here! Oh, but breakfast is such an informal affair. Don’t rise until you’ve slept to your heart’s desire. We never serve breakfast before eleven, at the earliest. Our mornings out here are for—”

  Napoleon interrupted her, asking: “Do you know what they do to their predators?”

  Josephine looked to her husband, arching a thin eyebrow. “My dear?”

  “Swans,” he said, his tone brittle. “Do you know what they do when they are being hunted?”

  Josephine shook her head. I could see, from the rise of her chest, that she took in a steady, calming inhale.

  Napoleon’s focus was fixed on her as he said, “They swim in circles until they exhaust their enemy, and then they approach, and—” He slammed the table with a balled fist, causing us all to jump. Wine sloshed out of my cup, spilling onto my plate, staining my lamb a dark red.

  Now Napoleon lifted his hands, his fingers pointing toward his own face. “They peck their eyes out. And thus, the enemy drowns, a blinded fool.”

  Josephine’s cheeks went pale as she looked down at her lap. Only the sapphires on her ears sparkled—all else of her appearance appeared diminished in the candlelight.

  “And that’s your beloved swan for you, Empress,” Napoleon said, flattening his palm on the table before him. “I wonder, did you know that, when you made the swan your insignia? The cruel, cunning calculation of which the beast was capable?” She didn’t answer, and he pushed back from the table. “I’m finished.”

  Josephine lowered her fork, looking to him. “Did the lamb not please you?”

  I could only imagine the fortitude it required for her to turn her gaze on him with such a soft expression, the gentle tone in her voice as she posed the question.

  He didn’t answer but instead said: “A game!”

  We looked toward him, confused. Napoleon clapped his hands and repeated himself: “We shall have a game!”

  “Very well,” Josephine said, smiling obligingly, nodding to the servants to clear the barely touched feast. She really looked terribly thin. “What game should we play, mon cher?”

  “Prisoner’s base,” Napoleon said.

  “I don’t know that one,” Bernadotte said, rising from the table.

  “Ah! And you, Desiree?” Napoleon looked in my direction.

  I shook my head. “I am not familiar with it, either.”

  Now he smiled—a strange, fiendish expression devoid of genuine cheer. “Ah, my darling, then we have the uninitiated in our midst!”

  * * *

  —

  We gathered in the music salon, the heavy drapes drawn so that the room was plunged into total darkness. Napoleon alone held a candle, and his green eyes glowed with feverish intensity as he explained the rules to us. “Now, when I blow out this final candle, we shall be in complete blackness. My desk here”—he tapped the heavy oak behemoth—“is one safe base. And this sofa”—he crossed the room and kicked the upholstered sofa with his boot—“is the other.” We nodded our understanding and he went on: “I shall be the first guard. You are to run back and forth from base to base. I shall have to catch you. Last person to escape my grasp wins.”

  “And what is the prize?” Josephine asked, her voice merry once more.

  “How about the winner gets to keep his or her clothes on, while all the rest of us will be forced to strip naked?” Napoleon proposed.

  “In that case, I volunteer to lose!” Josephine said, and Napoleon laughed.

  “I’ll keep my clothes on, thank you,” my husband said.

  “Of course you will, Sergeant Belle-Jambe. You’re never one to obey my orders or follow my commands.”

  It was said with a smile, but the tone was biting. “Let’s begin,” Julie said.

  Napoleon blew out the candle, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the total darkness. I stuck my hands forward and found the desk. I could hear Josephine’s giggles, but I could see nothing but vague moving outlines. Josephine squealed. “I got you!” Napoleon shouted. “Who is this? Ah, this is Josephine. I know this arm.”

  “You’re like a homing pigeon, my darling; you can always find my body, even in the dark.”

  “You’re out,” Napoleon said. “The rest of you, keep running.”

  I kept my arms before me as I plodded across the dark room, moving slowly to avoid bumping into furniture.

  “Ah!” My husband’s voice sounded next.

  “Bernadotte, you bungler! You’re out. Another commanding performance on your part.”

  I kept moving. My breath was growing uneven. I wanted this game to be over. “Ah!” I heard the familiar voice and knew that Julie had been caught.

  “So now just my old friend Desiree remains,” Napoleon said in the dark. “I should have known you’d be the best at this.”

  I kept moving. After a moment, I felt arms pushing me, but they weren’t Napoleon’s. They were thin. Josephine’s. “What?” I squirmed. I could smell her wine-soaked breath, her syrupy perfume, as she giggled quietly beside me. But why was she grasping for me in the dark? And then, before I could make sense of anything, she nearly pushed me into another pair of arms. A man’s hold, but not my husband’s, that much I knew. Napoleon held me. I cried out, ready for him to announce that he’d found me, but the pressure with which he leaned into me caused me to lose my balance and fall backward. The couch broke my fall, thankfully, but Napoleon was on top of me now. I felt the press of his form as he held me pinned down. I could smell his breath. “Who do I have here?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

  “It’s me!” I cried out, trying to wiggle free even as he held me flat beneath his entire weight. “It’s Desiree!” I declared, squirming, but his hands were roving all over me. It was so dark. I felt him cup my breasts, and I called out again: “You found me! It’s over! The game is over.”

  But there was something warm and moist on my neck—his lips? At that, I went silent, so stunning was this sudden and unexpected development. A jab at my midsection, and I felt desire harden his lower body.

  And then, a light—my Bernadotte had lit a candle. I blinked, my eyes careening for his face in the sudden glow. My gaze fell on him. Pure rage smoldered in his eyes when he beheld me, prone on the couch, the bodice of my gown askew, Na
poleon on top of me. Josephine looked on as well, an odd, emotionless smile on her lips. She did not wince, did not react at all when she viewed the same scene, but only said: “Bravo, my darling, you’ve found us all! Desiree is the winner, it seems.”

  Napoleon cleared his throat and forced a laugh, pushing himself off of me and the couch. “I couldn’t see a damned thing!” He laughed, shifting his weight as he adjusted his tight-fitting trousers. “You knocked me right over, Desiree!”

  I blinked, my eyes moistening as they adapted to the sudden light. Or perhaps the tears were caused by something else. I met my husband’s gaze again, and then I couldn’t help but look away, my mind awhirl. Had I truly knocked Napoleon over, as he now claimed with such stout conviction? Was that all it had been—an innocent stumble in the dark? But surely I hadn’t imagined it all, feeling as I did how his wife had pushed me into his outstretched and waiting arms?

  Chapter 32

  Vienna, Austria

  Late summer 1809

  “NOW THAT HE’S AS RICH as he is, he thinks even the Habsburg palaces are dull in comparison,” Bernadotte told me. We stood a safe distance from the palace, where no one might hear us. “But look out over that view. There is nothing dull about these grounds,” my husband added, his voice with a pensive, even melancholy aspect to it.

  We were atop a hill on the vast grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, the summer estate that Napoleon was currently using as his headquarters, having displaced the Habsburgs from their capital. There, at Schönbrunn, I had been reunited with my husband after the most recent campaign across Central Europe. Napoleon had won yet another decisive victory for the French at Wagram, defeating the coalition forces of the enemy so badly that the allies had feuded among themselves, breaking their own treaties to separately surrender to the French.