The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  Overall, a success. Deputy Barras seemed pleased. “We will leave pretension to the nouveau riche.”

  It is late now, time to sleep—ideas swirl: I am filled with fantasies of theatricals, concerts, balls, of elegant meals until dawn. Entertaining on an unlimited budget—this is a task I enjoy.

  Saturday, March 28, 3:00 A.M.

  It’s late. I’m still at Barras’s in Chaillot. The roads are too muddy to risk the return into Paris. Deputy Barras just came in to say goodnight. He was wearing the high-crowned beaver felt hat he reserves for serious gambling. Tonight he’d adorned it with pink and lavender ribbons.

  “Your confessions?” he asked, noting my journal. “Put in something scandalous about me. For posterity.”

  “I’ve put in what an angel of virtue you are.” He smelled of spirit of ambergris, a scent he favours.

  “Ah—that v word,” he groaned, sinking into one of the plush velvet chairs and tossing his hat onto the floor. “Let’s not be on about virtue again. We had quite enough of that from our dear Robespierre, don’t you think?” He took a long sip of whatever it was in the glass in his hand. Spirits likely.

  “What did you make of Deputy Valen’s comment tonight?” I asked.

  “About the Boy?” He bent down to pet Toto, his minature greyhound.

  I nodded. At supper, an elegant affair for twelve, Deputy Valen had expressed the view that it would not take much to install the Boy as King back on the throne of France—a shocking statement, under the circumstances.

  Deputy Barras dangled the silk tassel of his robe in front of Toto’s nose, to tease him. “I think we’ve had quite enough of kings,” he said, smiling at Toto’s antics.

  “It is rumoured you favour a return of the monarchy,” I persisted, my heart pounding.

  “Only a fool would admit it.” He looked over at me. “Even to a friend.” His big eyes were impossible to interpret. “In any case,” he yawned, “I prefer to talk of men, not kings.” Toto jumped up on his lap.

  “Did Citoyen Lumière not stay?”

  Deputy Barras sighed, scratching Toto behind the ears. “Alas, no—his wife was expecting him. His wife!”

  “And now you only have me.”

  “And lectures on virtue…” He made a comical face.

  “How tiresome,” I laughed.

  April 1.

  Agathe returned from the market in tears. Riots in the marketplace—she’d seen a child trampled. Then, as I was preparing to leave to go out to La Chaumière, I thought I heard musket shots. Nevertheless, I sent Gontier for a hackney coach. The driver, dressed in mismatched livery, insisted on a fee three times the normal rate, and that in coin.

  “Only fools are out tonight,” he said when I objected to the fare.

  “What has happened?”

  “The Assembly has been attacked.” He was a young man, but with no teeth.

  The Assembly!

  At the end of Pont-Royal there were a number of National Guardsmen on horseback. The coachman cracked his whip; our horses galloped down the quay.

  At La Chaumière, coaches and horses filled the courtyard. I saw Tallien, still in his deputy robes. “You’re safe!” I embraced him.

  He told me what had happened: a mob had invaded the Assembly, demanding food. The Gilded Youths were summoned, who proved cowardly (for all their talk). Then the National Guard had been mobilized. Finally, the instigators had been arrested and peace restored.

  “Who was behind it?” I asked.

  “Four men.” Tallien puffed on his pipe. “‘The Four’ they are called now—the alumni of the Terror.” He listed off the names: Billaud-Varenne, Collot d’Herbois, Barère, Vadier.

  “Deputy Barère? Your old friend?” Barère and Tallien used to come to our gatherings on Rue Saint-Dominique. I remembered Deputy Barère’s support of Alexandre in the Assembly, his fear of helping me when Marie had been arrested. And Vadier, certainly…Deputy Vadier had signed my arrest warrant. And yet, years back, they’d all been colleagues of Alexandre’s, idealists working together for a better world. Now Alexandre was dead and they were on their way to prison…or worse, Guiana.

  “Yes,” Tallien said with a satisfied air. “Strange—is it not—how history turns?”

  April 2.

  This morning Agathe came to me in an agitated state. “There’s a curious man at the door. He insists on speaking with you.”

  “Curious—in what way?” I asked. There had been sounds of violence, shots fired. I felt uneasy. Today was the day The Four were to be deported to Guiana, expelled from the city on carts. Half of Paris wanted them guillotined, the other half wanted them set free.

  “He smells, and he’s kind of nervous,” Agathe said.

  I went to the door. I could hardly see the man’s eyes for the scarves he had wrapped about his face.

  “Citoyenne Beauharnais—it’s me.” He put down his fur muff and unwound one of the scarves.

  “Citoyen Fouché?”

  Agathe hovered nearby. “You may go,” I told her.

  “I have come to bid farewell,” he hissed, after Agathe had withdrawn.

  “I don’t understand.” I took his arm, urged him in.

  “The Four have been arrested, deported. As you know. What you might not know is that were it not for Deputy Barras, it would have been ‘The Five.’ I’ve been spared, but on condition. I’m to disappear, as it were.”

  “Disappear? You?” I invited him to take a seat beside me on a little bench by the door. “But why?”

  “Too much snooping around, I guess.” He shrugged. “I’m going to be a pig farmer now.”

  I smiled. It was difficult to imagine him thus. “I like pigs,” I said.

  “I forget that you’re a farmgirl.”

  “But where will you be? You and your pigs.”

  “Not far.” He handed me a piece of paper. An address was written on it, in a neat hand. He stood to go. “You are aware, no doubt, of the incident at the hospital, at the Hôtel Dieu?”

  “The miracle, you mean?” A dying child had been cured overnight. Hortense had been telling me all about it.

  “There are no miracles any more, Citoyenne. You know that.”

  “You sound sad.”

  “It’s a hoax—with children for pawns! The sick child was moved from the hospital to the Temple, to pose as the Boy.”

  “But where is the Boy?” King…

  “That’s what I want to know. Your friend, Lazare—”

  “General Hoche?”

  “General Hoche stands to be hurt by this. The peace treaty he negotiated with the rebels—I understand that part of the agreement was that the Boy would be restored to the throne.”

  “General Lazare Hoche would never agree to such a thing!”

  Citoyen Fouché nodded. “But Director Barras might,” he said. “Promise, and then not deliver.”

  I felt a strange tingling feeling coming over me. I could close my eyes to any number of things, but could I close my eyes to this? I only wanted peace.

  “How convenient,” Citoyen Fouché went on, “if the Boy—or rather, the child everyone thinks is the Boy—how very convenient if he were to die.…” Citoyen Fouché bowed and left, wrapping his face in scarves.

  In which a child is born & a child dies

  May 17, 1795.

  I was awoken this morning by Fortuné growling.

  “Citoyenne Tallien’s footman is at the door,” Agathe informed me.

  “Thérèse! Is it—” I stumbled into my clothes, threw on a wig, a cloak.

  The horses were snorting and pawing at the stones. Thérèse’s footman helped me into the new barouche. Immediately the horses pulled forward. They were a fast team. I closed my eyes and held on.

  When we arrived at La Chaumière the accoucher was already there. I went to Thérèse’s bedside, touched her hand. Thérèse squeezed it hard. Already her night-clothes were soaked.

  “Where’s Tallien?” I asked.

  “He went out la
st night. With Barras.”

  I did not ask the obvious. Deputies Tallien and Barras shared a weakness for “the gaming tables of liberty,” as they put it. “Well—you’ll have a nice surprise for him when he returns,” I said.

  I fetched cloths and a bowl of water. For hours I stroked her brow, caressed her, spoke words of calm. Shortly before noon the baby came. “I saw her in a dream,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. “Rouge me?” she asked.

  “You look beautiful as you are.” I coloured her cheeks as she requested.

  After, she fell into an exhausted sleep. I took the baby—Thermidor-Rose she has been named—and held her in my arms. My goddaughter. She cried for only a moment, a little animal squawk, and then quieted. My breasts responded with a familiar tingling sensation. I sat thus in the rocking chair by the window for some time, looking into the face of this precious little soul, so pure and so new.

  If I ever remarry, would I have another? Could I?

  June 3.

  Dr. Desault, doctor to the Boy, died suddenly three days ago, of brain fever—or so it was reported. The streets have been buzzing with rumours. For once both Agathe and Lannoy agree: the doctor was poisoned.

  I tell them such stories are entirely without grounds, but now the doctor’s nephew has spoken, claiming that his uncle the doctor had been poisoned, and all because he’d discovered that this child was a fraud, not the Dauphin at all.

  “There—you see!” Lannoy and Agathe said in unison.

  June 8.

  At La Chaumière I was met by Tallien. He pulled me into the study. “The Committee of General Security has gone to an emergency meeting. The Dauphin died,” he whispered.

  “The Boy?” I sat down. It was only a week ago that the Boy’s doctor had died…and now the Boy himself? He was only ten years old.

  I recalled Citoyen Fouché’s words: How convenient if the Boy were to die. I felt a sickening sense of helplessness. “When?” I asked.

  “At three this afternoon.” It was six now. “You’re not to tell anyone.” He looked around uneasily. “Especially Tallita.”

  June 9.

  This afternoon there was an enormous reception planned: an orchestra, a seven-course meal for three hundred (every dignitary in Paris invited), a ball after—all to celebrate the passage of a law allowing restitution to victims of the Terror. It was a significant achievement, deserving of festivity. The new law would begin to heal the wounds of the past. Now Alexandre might be declared unjustly accused, unjustly condemned, his possessions and property returned to his family.

  But even so I did not want to go; I could not shake the gloom I felt. However, I had promised; so at midday I set out.

  I was greeted by Minerva, her cream-puff cheeks pink with excitement. “Isn’t it wonderful!” Her gauzy skirt billowed up around her. “We’ll be wealthy again.”

  She was stopped by the lack of gaiety in my expression. “What’s the matter, Rose? After all the work you and Thérèse did to get this law passed, I should think you would happier than anyone.”

  It was true. Thérèse and I had worked hard. “There has been a disturbing development,” I told her. News of the Boy’s death was to be announced in the Assembly that morning, I knew. Soon everyone would know. “The Boy died yesterday.”

  “You mean the King’s son?” Minerva sat down on one of the lawn chairs, fanning herself furiously. “Oh, dear.”

  I saw Thérèse approaching, Tallien holding her arm. They were followed by a swarm of men and women, like courtiers to a king and queen. Thérèse was weak still, moving very slowly.

  “You should be in childbed.” Minerva took her other arm.

  “I refuse.” Thérèse smiled weakly.

  A gentleman rushed to get her a chair. Another held a pastel blue sun umbrella over her.

  I glanced at Tallien. “How did they take the news?” I asked.

  “The deputies? They were quiet.” Tallien looked out over the festive grounds. The manicured gardens opened onto a small lake, where colourful boats floated lazily. A string orchestra was being set up on a floating platform.

  “Likely it’s the shock of it,” I said.

  “I’m not sure.” He brushed a mosquito off his cheek.

  “What else could it be?”

  “Suspicion.”

  June 11.

  Late at night, last night, a child was buried—quietly, quickly.

  “What do you think it means?” Thérèse demanded, her baby in her arms. We were walking in her garden. The flowers were blooming, it was a glorious afternoon. “Now everyone’s saying that the child that died wasn’t really the Boy. Yet it would have been so easy to prove. Why didn’t they ask Madame Royale? If anyone would be able to give a positive identification of the Boy’s body, one would think it would be his sister.”

  “Perhaps they didn’t want to upset her.” I never told Thérèse about my conversations with Citoyen Fouché, my growing uneasiness…my suspicions.

  “Because they’re so tenderhearted? Because they care so much about the royal family?” Thérèse gave me a scornful look. “Rose—that makes no sense. Even Barras is being evasive. Why do they have to be so secretive? I don’t like it.”

  I put my arm around her. “Tallita, you shouldn’t be thinking such distressing thoughts. You should be resting.” I led her back toward the house.

  June 13.

  I’ve been at Deputy Barras’s all afternoon, preparing another reception. “Are you evading me?” he asked, finally. I was in the study writing out the invitations.

  I put down the quill. How could I respond? It was true—I had been evading him. Ever since the death of the Boy I have had a feeling of disquiet.

  Deputy Barras put his hand to his forehead in a theatrical pose. “And even to this, this little query, she remains silent. One hates to contemplate the magnitude of her despair.”

  “This is not a matter for comedy,” I said.

  He placed a chair beside me and sat down. “Tragedy?”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “It’s all these nasty rumours. Isn’t it.”

  “There are always nasty rumours.”

  “But these you believe?”

  I looked away. I would have given anything not to be in this position, talking to Deputy Barras now, but I had begun and there was nothing to do but continue. “It is said you have consorted with the enemy—with the English.”

  Deputy Barras looked at me with an amused expression. “Les Goddams?”

  “Is it true?”

  He smirked. “I dare say the espionage force of an entire nation couldn’t have gleaned as much.”

  “How can you joke?” I cautioned myself to be calm. “Do you think this is a game?”

  “This is a game, Rose—a complex game. Do not presume to understand.” He was angry now.

  “You admit it?” I sat back, suddenly short of breath.

  “The facts are correct, but the intention mistaken. How better to know the enemy than to be in their league? Or, at the least, to have them think you are in their league. A dangerous pastime, true, for one risks condemnation from all sides, but risk has long been my friend, and what risk is too great for the good of the Republic?”

  “Did you murder the Boy? Did you poison the King’s son?”

  Deputy Barras made a sigh. “There are things you would prefer not to know,” he said.

  I felt short of breath. “You—”

  He put up his hand. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Then?” My mouth was dry.

  “The unpleasant truth is that that child’s dear uncle, the Comte d’Artois, paid a considerable sum to see that this was done. He rather fancied the throne for himself, should the opportunity present itself.”

  I was silent a moment. “The Comte d’Artois?”

  Deputy Barras nodded.

  “Offered to pay?” For his own nephew’s death…

  “Paid.”

  “Paid you?”

 
Deputy Barras nodded again, slowly.

  “You did then,” I said, coldly, starting to rise. “You—”

  “Stay,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “I did not. The child—a good lad, you might like to know, a boy I came to be fond of, in my fashion—died naturally of a fever some time ago. On that count I am innocent.”

  “Why not make it known? Why all this secrecy?”

  “Spain would never have signed!” He threw up his hands.

  “The peace treaty, you mean.”

  He nodded wearily.

  “So the child who just died was not the Boy?”

  “That child was sickly, deaf and dumb, the son of a nail-maker—a decoy you might say, kept alive for the purpose of forging a peace with Spain. He was destined to die in any case. Nature did our work.”

  There was a moment of silence. Still, I would not look at him.

  “Rose, look at me,” he said.

  I turned to face him. He did not look like a devil. He looked like an aging, ordinary man.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said, his eyes sorrowful.

  “I do believe you,” I said. But there was reserve in my heart.

  “The question is not, did I do it?” He stood abruptly, walked to the window. “The question is—” He pulled the drapes shut. “The question is,would I have done it?” He stood for a long moment, his back turned to me. “And the truth is…yes,” I heard him say.

  I waited for him to move, say something. “Paul?”

  He turned to me, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.