The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  “If it makes you feel any better”—Father handed me a cap of whisky from the flask he carried—“I believe I am to blame.”

  I sat down on the footstool. The liquor burned going down. “What do you mean?” I handed him back the cap.

  “Laure’s family, as you know, has long hated ours—resented the favours the Marquis bestowed on me, such as they were, all because I was Désirée’s brother. I think it is no accident that Laure has meddled in your marriage. That family has spite in their blood. She is a cat, playing a mouse.”

  “Playing, Father? This game will be the death of me!”

  At five Monsieur de Beauharnais arrived home. I heard his voice in the entryway, heard Father’s low warning tones, hushed whispers.

  After a short time Monsieur de Beauharnais appeared at the door. “Aren’t you coming down for supper?”

  I refused to answer.

  “Désirée tells me you talked to her about Laure.” He came into the room.

  Laure. Not Laure Longpré. Not Madame Longpré. But Laure. I pressed my hand to my lips to check the feelings that were rising in me.

  “Oh, Rose, please!” Monsieur de Beauharnais had that same impatient tone: provincial. It was provincial of me to be upset about such a thing.

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Alexandre.” There were wet spots on my dress, splotches from my tears.

  Monsieur de Beauharnais walked to the window. “It’s stuffy in here.” He opened the window with some effort, for it tended to stick.

  “How can you be so nonchalant!”

  “You’ll wake the baby,” he warned.

  “You, who know so much about babies.” I turned away. “When shall we tell Eugène that he is not your firstborn—on his fifth birthday? Or perhaps we should tell him sooner, on his third—”

  “For God’s sake, Eugène is my only legal son.”

  “And Madame Longpré?” I could not stop myself. “Who is she?”

  “Do you want me to be honest?”

  “I’ve had enough of deceit.”

  “You are my wife.” He pulled aside a drape and looked out onto the street.

  “And…?”

  “And Laure is the woman I love.”

  “Get out!”

  “You wanted the truth!”

  I flung a pillow, and another. I was trembling as I reached for a vase.

  In which I come to the end of my endurance

  December 13, 1781.

  “My daughter wears a long face,” Father said as I brought him his evening glass of claret. Ever since Monsieur de Beauharnais left for Italy six weeks ago, Father has been kindly.

  “Do I?” I knew it to be true. It was the day of my marriage to Monsieur de Beauharnais, two years before. Our anniversary.

  Father grabbed my hand. “Come back with me, Rose.”

  “To Martinico?” Father’s health had improved and he’d succeeded in getting a small increase in his pension. Soon he would be returning home.

  “Your husband does not honour you sufficiently.”

  I was surprised by his words. Had he “honoured” my mother sufficiently?

  “I couldn’t,” I said. Eugène was too young—the journey could kill him.

  “Leave your baby with a wet-nurse. You may send for him in time, when he is old enough to travel.”

  Leave Eugène? It was the common practice, I knew. Yet I could not bear the thought. “Forgive me, Father, but I could not.” My baby was my only joy.

  Father looked at me for a long moment. “You créole mothers,” he sighed.

  January 19, 1782.

  Father left this morning. He didn’t look back as the carriage pulled away.

  I’m on my own now. I feel a lifetime older.

  [Undated]

  A feeling of loneliness continues to haunt me. This Easter week I have been examining my conscience. Monsieur de Beauharnais and I were united by God. Is it my right to question this union? I have vowed to the Virgin that I would write to my husband, and in my pitiful prose, which he so detests, I will offer him my heart.

  July 25—Noisy-le-Grand.

  A courier came this morning with a message: Monsieur de Beauharnais was in Paris. Immediately I called for a carriage. I asked Mimi to prepare the baby. She dressed Eugène in his sailor suit—an ensemble intended for a child one year older. I kissed his fat little nose. He rewarded me with a smile, his feet kicking. I tried to nurse before I dressed, but I was too anxious. Eugène fretted and began to cry. “I will try again on the way,” I told Mimi, handing Eugène back to her. Nervously I prepared my own toilette, choosing a cream silk visiting suit and a big straw hat with wide cream ribbons that tied under my chin. The jacket was a little tight for me.

  All the way in I thought of what I was going to say. At the edge of a woods I instructed the driver to pull into a shady glen. This time Eugène was hungry enough that he nursed no matter my emotional state. I held a handkerchief to my other nipple to keep from staining my jacket. “I’m nervous,” I told Mimi.

  At the Hôtel de la Rochefoucauld I presented my card. Mimi stood behind me with Eugène, humming to him. I adjusted his funny little sailor hat, which had fallen down over his eyes.

  “Rose.”

  I turned. It was Monsieur de Beauharnais, standing in the open doorway. He looked stylish in a double-breasted waistcoat embroidered in gold. I offered my hand. “It’s good to see you, Alexandre.” The baby let out a squeal. Mimi lifted him into his father’s arms. For a moment I feared Eugène might take fright in the arms of this stranger, but he didn’t. He stared at the gold buttons on his father’s waistcoat, reached out to touch one.

  “Is it all right to hold him this way?” Monsieur de Beauharnais asked nervously.

  “He’s a strong, healthy boy, you will not hurt him,” I said, following him into the parlour.

  Monsieur de Beauharnais touched the baby’s chin with his finger. Eugène rewarded him with a grin. “He smiled at me! Do you think he knows who I am?” Eugène began to fuss. “I must have done something wrong.” Monsieur de Beauharnais handed his son to Mimi. Eugène began to howl.

  “Is there somewhere I could walk with him?” Mimi asked.

  “The garden is through those doors,” he said.

  I removed my hat, touched my hair. Monsieur de Beauharnais filled a pipe with tobacco. I sat down, for my knees felt insecure. “How was Italy?” I asked.

  “Rainy.” He paused. “Lonely.”

  In spite of my prayers, I could feel anger rising within me. I willed such feelings away. They were the work of the Devil, not of God. For within me, too, was the longing that had become so much a part of me. For the sake of my son, for my own sake, I wanted my husband with me. For this, I was willing to forget, to give my heart anew.

  Monsieur de Beauharnais lit his pipe, sucking in air through the stem. “I received your letter,” he said, exhaling smoke.

  There was a moment of silence. I heard my baby shriek from outside. Eugène, happy again.

  “It was the reason for my return.” He examined his fingertips.

  I stood, went to the window, looked out. I feared I might say the wrong thing.

  Monsieur de Beauharnais put his pipe down on the fireplace mantle. “I…I know it has not been easy for you, Rose, but on my travels I’ve had time to reflect, to examine the past…and to consider the future.” He cleared his throat. “I have decided…that is, I have made the decision, to forsake a certain woman.”

  A certain woman. I turned to him. “Will that be difficult, Alexandre?”

  He came to me and kissed me, lightly at first. “No,” he said. I put my hand on the back of his neck. He embraced me with feeling. My heart weakened.

  I heard my baby crying. I pulled away. Mimi was at the door, holding a crying Eugène in her arms. “I could come back later,” she said, grinning.

  Monsieur de Beauharnais ran his fingers over his hair. “No, come in…” He kissed my hand.

  We have returned to the countr
y, Monsieur de Beauharnais and I, Mimi and our son. Now and again a voice of warning sounds in me; I do not pay it heed. I am intent on putting loneliness behind me.

  September 1.

  I woke with the most delicious feeling of warmth, curled next to my husband, a sense of peace filling me. I am with child again…

  September 3, evening.

  Eugène’s first birthday. I’ve had the most shattering news. Monsieur de Beauharnais has applied for the position of aide-de-camp to the governor of Martinico.

  “But Alexandre, our son is too young. I couldn’t leave him behind. And if I’m—”

  “I don’t think it would be safe for either of you.”

  “You would leave us?”

  “I have much to gain in taking this opportunity—”

  “And everything to lose,” I cried, which set the baby howling.

  September 7.

  This morning I woke and Monsieur de Beauharnais was gone. He had left in the night.

  December 10.

  I’ve learned that Laure Longpré, now a widow, is on the same boat as Monsieur de Beauharnais, also headed for Martinico.

  A feeling of bitterness overwhelms me. I’ve been betrayed.

  I pray for strength. I must endure—for my boy’s sake, for the sake of the child within me.

  April 10, 1783.

  In the morning I gave birth, earlier than expected. She is red, frail—she sleeps the sleep of the dead.

  After the cord was cut, after the accoucher had bathed her in red wine and wrapped her in cotton wool, Mimi bathed me with a fragrant tea. I began to say something but she silenced me. A woman who has just given birth should never speak. “Else a wind come inside you,” she said.

  I closed my eyes, my lips. I closed my heart. A wind has already come inside me, a storm carrying tears.

  April 11.

  My baby was baptized this afternoon. Fanny, as godmother, has suggested the name Hortense. It is not a name I care for. I am too weary to object. I had to sell a medallion in order to pay the priest.

  I don’t remember feeling this way after Eugène was born…so sad, so sad.

  April 22—Noisy-le-Grand.

  Hortense is not growing. The doctor insists I put her in the care of a wet-nurse. He has recommended Madame Rousseau in the village here.

  “A wet-nurse in Noisy-le-Grand would be better than one in Paris,” Aunt Désirée said, in answer to my concerns. “In Paris the wet-nurses starve their charges. They take in laundry and overexert themselves, which spoils their milk.”

  I regarded the screaming baby in my arms. She’d sucked for hours and, even so, writhed with discontent. Was my own milk spoiled? Could grief spoil a mother’s milk?

  So today Aunt Désirée and I went to interview Madame Rousseau. Her abode is humble but clean. No animals are kept inside. She has a one-year-old boy (healthy, I noted), still nursing but ready to wean, she assured us. Her bosom seemed ample—she displayed it for inspection.

  “I can come for your baby this evening,” she said.

  So soon? “I was thinking tomorrow,” I said.

  “This evening would be better,” Aunt Désirée said. My baby’s crying distressed the Marquis, I knew.

  Hortense was wailing when we returned. Mimi was pacing the floor with her. I took my miserable baby from her, put her to suck, but in a short time she was screaming once again. I walked her in the garden for over an hour, until mercifully she fell into an exhausted sleep. If Madame Rousseau’s milk will ease my baby’s cries, I will rest content.

  April 24.

  I am ill, in terrible pain still, I have not slept. After my baby was taken from me Mimi bound my breasts, but even so, one became inflamed, my milk blocked. The doctor has been coming each morning to bleed me. After, I am able to sleep, but wake weeping.

  Eugène brings me leaves torn from the lilac bush in the garden. His sweet kisses are my only consolation. That and the news that my baby has stopped crying. I have been advised not to visit her until my milk dries.

  Who would have thought this would have been such a heart-wrenching process? I keep one of my baby’s night-shirts under my pillow at night, press it to my lips as I sleep, inhale her sweet scent. My longing to hold her is so strong it makes me ill. I mourn for mothers everywhere.

  June 30.

  The Marquis has received several letters regarding Alexandre’s dissolute behaviour in Martinico, where, he has learned, his son drinks, gambles and consorts publicly with a number of women (not only Laure), oblivious to the disgrace to his family name. Dangerously enraged, the Marquis composed a letter to the King demanding that his son be arrested under a lettre de cachet. With some effort Aunt Désirée apprehended it before it was sent.

  September 2.

  I was finishing the embroidery on a vest for Eugène when Mimi brought me an envelope. “It’s from your husband,” she said.

  “A courier brought it?” It was unusual for a courier to come so early.

  “A woman.” Mimi stared at the floor. “Madame Longpré.”

  “Madame Laure Longpré?” Was she not in Martinico? “She came here?” I regarded the envelope in my hand. It smelled of iris powder. I broke the seal and slipped out the paper.

  It was a letter—a letter from Monsieur de Beauharnais.

  “What is it?” Mimi asked, perceiving my distress.

  “Monsieur de Beauharnais has ordered me out of the house…into a convent. He claims—” I stopped. I could not say it. Alexandre claimed that Hortense was not his child.

  “Allow me to fetch Madame!”

  I did not protest. I felt myself weakening. Aunt Désirée came rushing into the room. She took the letter from me.

  In it Monsieur de Beauharnais called me a vile creature. He accused me of having had numerous affairs as a girl. He claimed I’d lain with a man the night before I left to be betrothed to him, and with another in Saint-Pierre on the voyage to France. He claimed to have proof.

  Aunt Désirée sank into the chair beside me. “Mon Dieu,” I heard her whisper.

  I felt the world become heavy around me.

  III

  Madame

  In which I am banished to a convent

  October 29, 1783.

  “The fee is six hundred livres a year for a room, eight hundred livres for board,” the Abbesse of the abbey de Penthémont informed us. She is a small woman of middle age, pretty in spite of a pocked face. She speaks with that particular cadence that identifies a member of the highest level of the noble class.

  I nodded. I had expected it to be more. The convent of Penthémont was an elegant establishment for aristocratic ladies in distress. The Princess of Condé had been a boarder there.

  The apartment that is available is parlour number three, on the second floor, overlooking a stone courtyard. The rooms, four in number, are not large, but sunny and simply furnished. Through two huge oak trees I could see the glittering dome of the Invalides.

  Aunt Renaudin felt along the windowsill for dust.

  “Satisfied, Madame?” the Abbesse inquired with a forgiving smile.

  I move in at the end of November.

  November 1.

  “Why should you move out!” the Marquis stormed. He can’t even look at me without sputtering. His son has disappointed him in the most grievous way. Since returning to Paris, Alexandre has refused to even speak to his family. As a result, the Marquis’s gout has flared.

  I am touched by his loyalty, yet what can I do? By law I must do as Alexandre commands, in spite of the fact that he hasn’t contributed an écu toward my support since he abandoned me over a year ago, in spite of his dissolute behaviour, his attack on my honour.

  Eugène burst into tears when I told him. He wants to stay with “Papa,” he wept, his beloved Marquis. How can I explain?

  November 27.

  We’ve moved, Mimi, Eugène and I. “I want to go home!” Eugene cried when I showed him his new bed.

  December 1.

  Yesterda
y morning I received an elegantly scribed invitation to dine with the Abbesse.

  Her rooms are on the ground floor, directly below my own. We were joined by three other boarders—Vicomtesse de Douai (tall, elegant), Duchesse de Monge (witty, plump) and Madame de Crény (tiny, sweet). We enjoyed an elegant meal of fresh oysters, brochette de rognons, foie gras aux truffles and, last, a fondue, which was put on the table in a casserole with a chafing-dish and a spirit lamp. After we sat by the fire drinking les régals à gloire—a hot coffee and cognac drink that is popular now.

  That evening there was a gathering in the apartment of Vicomtesse de Sotin. Monsieur Beaumarchais, the playwright, attended. After readings and song there were the usual discussions concerning the weather, theatre and politics. Then we got on to the more relaxing pursuits—gossip and games. (The Abbesse is unbeatable at trictrac, I discovered.) I feared the sound of our laughter would disturb our neighbours, but the Abbesse said I need not be concerned—that over the years they have had to become accustomed to it.

  Life here is not at all what I expected.

  Tuesday, December 2, 11:00 P.M.

  This afternoon, taking in yet another one of my dresses (I’ve become thin), I informed Aunt Désirée that I intended to seek a legal separation.

  Aunt Désirée looked concerned. “A separation, Rose? Have you any idea what that would entail—the social stigma that would attach to you and your children?”