The Josephine B. Trilogy

by Sandra Gulland

  A half-hour later—if that!

  Bonaparte burst into the upstairs drawing room and took a seat. I knew what his little smile meant. I told my scullery maid, “Agathe, perhaps I could have a word with my husband—alone.”

  Bonaparte’s rumpled linen shirt was off even before we got to my bedchamber. “Junot and Murat will be here in fifteen minutes.”

  “That doesn’t give much time.”

  “I can be quick,” he said, as if this were an accomplishment.

  I turned my back to him so that he could unfasten the buttons on my gown. He ran his cold hands over my breasts, pressed against me. I turned to him and kissed him. He is a small man, but vigorous. And quick, as he said.

  “I’d like you to wash,” he said, disentangling his pantaloons.

  “I was going to.” I was taken aback by his soldier bluntness.

  Naked (small body, big head), he climbed into the bed and pulled the bed sheet up over him, looking at me expectantly. I went into my dressing room and re-emerged in a gauze nightgown trimmed with violet ribbons. “Take it off,” he told me.

  I did so reluctantly (Bonaparte is six years my junior) and lay down beside him. “Position ten?” I asked, teasing.

  “Twenty-three.” He ran his hand over my breast, my belly. “I’ve jumped ahead.”

  I smiled. Was he joking? (It is so hard to know with him.)

  Then he sat up, said, “Close your eyes. You just lie there.” I did as instructed. I felt him crawl down to the end of the bed, felt his hands part my legs, felt the warmth of his breath, his…

  Mon Dieu. I swallowed, took a sharp breath.

  Bonaparte was curiously unrushed. A voluptuous warmth came over me. I curled my fingers through his hair as waves of pleasure rose in my blood.

  After, I lay for a moment, catching my breath, drying my cheeks on the covering sheet. Bonaparte was sitting on his haunches, regarding me with an awed expression. Then he grinned. “Well, that’s the best one so far,” he said, swinging his feet onto the floor.

  “Come back here,” I said, grabbing his hand.

  9:00 P.M.

  A kiss and he is gone.

  I hear the crackling of the fire, my scullery maid singing tunelessly in the bath chamber, the heavy tread of my old manservant’s wooden shoes on the narrow stairs, carrying up buckets of hot water for my bath. My pug dog Fortuné sniffs in all the corners, looking for “the intruder.” I listen to the busy clicking of his little nails on the parquet floor.

  The sounds of normal life, I realize. But for the battered tin snuffbox forgotten on the window ledge, the dog-eared volume of Ossian’s Carthon on the mantel, one would not know that Bonaparte had ever been here. This man, who has come into my life like a whirlwind, has just as suddenly gone, leaving me breathless, dazed…and confused, I confess.

  In which I break the news to my family & friends

  March 17, 1796—Paris. A bright spring day.

  I’ve a new maid. She curtsied at the door, lifting the hem of her linen shift. Her long chestnut locks were pulled into a tight braid that hung down her back. She is young, not yet of an age to pin up her hair. “Louise Compoint, Madame,” she said, taking in the furnishings. “But I am called Lisette.”

  I slipped a finger through Fortuné’s collar and asked her to come forward. Her mother had been a maid-of-the-wardrobe, she informed me, her father unknown. She’d been “adopted” by the aristocratic family her mother worked for and educated in a convent. Now her mother was dead and the aristocrats had fled during the Revolution. “I can wick lanterns, Madame, as well as dress hair. I understand clear starch and my needlework is good. My mother taught me well.”

  “This is a small household,” I told her. “My lady’s maid must serve also as a parlour maid and even as a kitchen maid, should the need arise.”

  “Yes, Madame. I’ve churned butter and blackleaded grates. I can also let blood. My mistress was often ailing,” she explained, in answer to my startled look.

  She is only seventeen, but I liked her forthright spirit. She had a natural grace. “We are a Republican family, Lisette. I will treat you with respect; I expect the same in kind. I permit no followers, and if any man makes advances, I expect you to inform me. You are allowed a half-day off a week to do as you please. Your room is in the basement. It is small, but it has a window and it will be your own.”

  “Yes, Madame!” Her teeth are excellent.

  March 20, just past noon—still in Paris.

  It was early, not yet ten in the morning, when I heard the children in the foyer. I stood and prepared to face them, clasping my hands to hide my betrothal ring. Nothing has changed, I was going to tell them; marrying Bonaparte did not mean I loved them less.

  “…and then my horse jumped the cart.” Eugène lumbered into the drawing room with the grace of a heifer. Hortense followed, frowning, pulling at her hat strings.

  My daughter greeted me with reserve, stiffening as I embraced her. “My hat, Maman,” she said, pulling off her crêpe bonnet, leaving on the white lace cap underneath. I knew by her manner, her averted eyes, that she was angry with me.

  “I jumped the grey mare.” Eugène smelled of soap and perspiration. I pushed a curl out of his eyes. At fourteen, he would soon disdain his mother’s touch, I knew.

  “But what’s this about jumping carts?” I reproached him.

  My new maid came to the door. She looked comely in my cast-off gown of peach chintz. “You rang, Madame Bonaparte?”

  Bonaparte. Hortense and Eugène exchanged glances. I motioned to Lisette to come forward in order to introduce her. She curtsied to them both. A flush coloured my son’s cheeks. Hortense dipped her head, but it was clear her thoughts were elsewhere, her eyes darting about the room—looking for evidence, I realized, of Bonaparte.

  “Thank you, Lisette. If you could bring us some hot chocolate? And the comfits.” Hortense has a weakness for sweets.

  “Maman, it was safe. The mare can jump five feet easily,” Eugène said, falling into the down armchair, his legs sprawling.

  Hortense lowered herself onto the chair with the horsehair seat, her shoulders back, her posture faultless (for once). I took a seat by the harp. “I understand that Madame Campan has talked to you both about my marriage to General Bonaparte,” I said—too bluntly, I thought. Not the way I’d rehearsed this speech in my mind!

  “Four days ago,” Hortense answered, enunciating precisely.

  “Yes, she told us. We know all about it,” Eugène said, squirming.

  “I want you to know that General Bonaparte cares deeply about both of you.” I felt I’d handled things poorly, that I’d let them down. I wanted to reassure them.

  “Maman?”

  I sat forward eagerly. “Yes, Eugène?”

  “Can I go to the Luxembourg Palace this morning, before we leave for Fontainebleau? Director Barras told me I could ride his horses any time I wanted.”

  I sat back, stupefied. Horses? Was that all my son could think of? How confusing this situation was! “No, Eugène,” I said, making an effort to sound calm. “I have another plan. Today is Palm Sunday. I was thinking we would go to mass together.”

  Hortense looked surprised. (And pleased, I observed with relief.)

  “Church?” Eugène groaned, sliding down into the depths of his chair.

  “We’ll walk,” I insisted, standing.

  I was surprised by the number of people standing in front of Église Saint-Pierre, enjoying the spring sun before going inside. Not only was it a Décadi* and a Sunday (a rare concurrence), but Palm Sunday as well. For once everyone could enjoy a feast-day together—Catholics and Atheists, Royalists and Republicans alike. I put my arms around my children as we climbed the steps. If there could be peace in the nation, then surely there could be peace in my little family.

  Fontainebleau.

  We weren’t able to leave for Fontainebleau until shortly after two, so it was quite late by the time we pulled into the courtyard of the Beauhar
nais home in Fontainebleau. “I expected you earlier, Rose,” Aunt Désirée said, patting at her powdered hair, which was dressed in fat sausage rolls. Her immaculate house smelled of beeswax and turpentine.

  “We got off to a late start,” I explained, keeping an eye on the children to make sure they took off their muddy boots before walking on the carpet. “We went to church.” I knew that this explanation would please.

  “Is Grandpapa awake?” Hortense asked.

  “Go! Go, my pets! He’s been waiting for you both.” The children raced up the stairs, pushing and pulling at each other. I did not attempt to quiet them; I was relieved to hear them laughing.

  “I’ve been most anxious for your arrival, Rose,” my aunt said, gesturing to me to take a seat. “I have excellent news.” She perched on the edge of the green brocade sofa, nervously jiggling an enormous ring of iron keys.

  “Oh?” A sick feeling passed through me. I’d come with news myself, and I feared my aunt would not consider it in the least bit excellent.

  “My husband died!” she said, crossing herself.

  “Monsieur Renaudin?” I had no reason to regret the man’s passing. He and my aunt had separated before I’d even been born. Stories of the evil Monsieur Renaudin had excited my imagination as a child—stories of the man who had tried to poison my aunt, and who had (it was later discovered) been imprisoned for trying to poison his own father.

  “And so the Marquis has asked for my hand in marriage.” Aunt Désirée made this announcement with a girlish flutter of her eyelids.

  “That’s wonderful!” I said, repressing a smile. The Marquis was over eighty years old—my aunt, a quarter century younger—and I doubted that marriage was much on his mind. “And I take it you’ve consented?” My religious, proper and socially sensitive aunt had suffered, I knew, from living with the Marquis all these years without the Church’s blessing.

  “But Father Renard insists we wait a year—out of respect. I’m terrified the Marquis will die before he makes an honest woman of me,” she said, picking up the loose sofa pillows one by one, as if looking for something. She found a coin under one of the pillows and, frowning, put it back. (A test of her servants, I realized.) “So I told Father Renard I’d donate a new candelabra to the church and he finally agreed to six months. I know where I can get a used one for a fraction of what I’d pay in Paris. A good washing down with vinegar will make it like new.” The cushions back in place, she pulled a tangle of crumpled handkerchiefs from the depths of her bosom and set to work smoothing them out one at a time on her lap. “And so, Rose, tell me: how are you?”

  “Fine! I have news as well.” The words came out louder than I’d intended, and far bolder than I felt.

  “Has your cow calved, dear?” She put a pastel green handkerchief aside and stuffed the remaining ones back into the crevice of her ample bosom.

  “No,” I said, taken aback. “At least, not yet. No, I’ve…” My heart was pounding against my ribs! “I’ve married, Aunt Désirée,” I said finally.

  Aunt Désirée was holding the green handkerchief to the light, examining it for stains. “Did you say married, Rose?” she asked, turning toward me.

  I nodded, disquieted by her calm manner.

  “Why…that’s wonderful,” she said, crossing herself, “but to whom?”

  “To a military man by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. He’s—”

  “What type of name is that?” my aunt demanded, frowning suspiciously.

  “It’s a Corsican name, Aunt Désirée, and—”

  “You married a Corsican?” She reached for a brass bell and rang it vigorously. “But Rose, Corsicans are…they’re barbarians, they live like Gypsies. They steal, murder, lie—they have no morals whatsoever! And they don’t speak a proper language, you can’t understand a thing they say.”

  Fortunately, a parlour maid in a frilled cap appeared just then at the door. “Salts!” my aunt commanded.

  “We’re out of salts, Madame,” the maid stuttered, wiping her palms on her white bibbed apron. “But we do have hysteric water, Madame.”* Aunt Désirée snorted with impatience.

  “Aunt Désirée, he’s not like that at all,” I said, as soon as the maid disappeared. “His family is old nobility, and he was educated at the best military schools in France. He’s very fond of me, and especially fond of the children,” I added with feeling.

  “Monied nobility, Rose?” With a squinty-eyed look.

  “He has a good position as a commanding general,” I said, avoiding her question. Not only did Bonaparte have no money, but our marriage contract stipulated that we contribute equally to all our household expenses. “He will be able to help Eugène in his military career.” This was my trump card. I was depending on it.

  “They made a Corsican a general?” Aunt Désirée demanded, attempting to fan herself with the limp green handkerchief. “A general of what?”

  “Monsieur Bonaparte is General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy,” I said, using “monsieur” in a shameless attempt to appease.

  “I’ve never heard of an Army of Italy. Is it French even?”

  “Yes, of course!” I exclaimed—although everything I’d learned about the Army of Italy had led me to believe that it could hardly be called an army at all, more a ragtag collection of drifters and petty criminals, hungry and without uniforms, much less muskets. “He left to take command two days after the ceremony.” The wedding seemed like a dream to me now, like something that might not have happened.

  “A church ceremony, Rose?” she asked, pulling and twisting the green handkerchief, worrying it.

  “No,” I admitted. Bonaparte was anti-Church, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  I heard a sniff. Oh dear! Was she weeping? Dismayed, I reached out to comfort her, but she turned on me like a hawk. “Rose, how could you?” she wept, dabbing her cheeks. “How could you have married a man with such a horrible name!”

  I’m writing this now in Aunt Désirée’s guest room in Fontainebleau. I talked to her at length, trying to calm her. I finally persuaded her to take a glass of hysteric water and lie down. (I had a glass as well.) I regret the way I’ve handled things, but at the same time, in coming to Bonaparte’s defence, in trying to persuade my aunt of the wisdom of what I’ve done, I began to convince myself. Bonaparte had the words “To Destiny” engraved on the inside of my betrothal ring, for he believes in fate, believes that we are fated. Are we? I wonder. I can only hope that somehow, someday, fate will prove that I have done the right thing. For my family’s sake, I dearly hope so.

  March 21—Paris. Almost noon.

  I received my first letter from Bonaparte this morning. So soon! It took me a long time to make out the words, and there are still parts I can’t read. Bonaparte’s handwriting is as impassioned as his words, which are ardent and tender.

  The letter was addressed to Citoyenne Bonaparte in care of Citoyenne Beauharnais, as if Citoyenne Bonaparte were a guest in my house, someone separate from me—which is how I feel yet.

  March 25, sunny, a beautiful day.

  A good (and productive) visit with Thérèse, followed by an amusing few hours with my delightfully eccentric friends.

  Thérèse arrived early in her elegant little barouche which she drove herself (practising, she explained, to enter the races that would be starting up again in the Bois de Boulogne). “And so how is Madame Bonaparte this fine afternoon?” was the first thing she said. The exotic scent of neroli oil filled my antechamber. She bent her knees to make it easier for Lisette to take her fur-lined cape.

  “You’re wearing a wig?” I asked, regarding my friend with astonishment. Under a jaunty hat adorned with a heron feather was a mass of blonde ringlets.

  “Only twenty francs.” She turned her head from side to side to make the curls bounce. “So I bought twenty-seven—and all of them blonde.” She pulled both her hat and her wig off, and dug her nails into her scalp. Her own black hair was tightly braided and coiled. “You haven’t an
swered my question,” she said, holding up a finger.

  “Madame Bonaparte is just fine, thank you. I already got a letter from my husband, in fact,” I told her. “But there are parts I can’t make out.” I pulled the letter out of a desk cubby and showed it to her, pointing out the indecipherable passage.

  “Mon Dieu, I see what you mean. What a mess,” she said, squinting. “I think it’s ‘perpetual.’ ‘You are the perpetual object of my thoughts.’ He signs himself B.P.?”

  “For Buona Parte…I think.”

  “Oh la la,” she said, reading on. “He’s madly in love with you.”

  “That’s just the way Corsicans are,” I said (flushing), taking the letter back.

  “No doubt,” Thérèse said with a teasing look. “And your children?” she asked, helping herself to an aniseed-zested licorice comfit. “What do they think of their new papa?”

  I made a face. “Hortense burst into tears.”

  “Because you married?”

  “Just because she saw me with Bonaparte!”

  “If you like, I could have a word with your daughter.”

  “Madame Campan already did,” I quickly assured her. My oh-so-proper daughter disapproved of my friend Thérèse, separated from her husband. And Barras. And any number of others, for that matter, including her own godmother!*

  “Speaking of your daughter, I had a brilliant idea. What about Director Reubell’s eldest son?”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “As a husband—for Hortense.”

  “But she’s not yet even thirteen, Thérèse. And since when have you become a matchmaker?”

  “Since I suggested you to the Corsican. Seriously,” she said, “the Reubells may be a merchant family, but they’re wealthy. And, of course, Reubell being a Director…that counts for something, I suppose? They’d likely be willing. Hortense has a noble bloodline, after all.”