by Jo Graham
The carriage stopped in front of a grand entrance, clearly one of the great houses of Milan. A bewigged footman dressed as though it were still 1780 came forward to open the door and help me out. I stepped down and under the portico as the first drops of rain splashed on the street. The thunder curled high above. It was ten o’clock and not yet full dark.
An officer in dress uniform hurried forward. “Madame St. Elme, I am General Duroc. I am the First Consul’s personal assistant.”
I held my hand for him and he bent over it correctly.
“If you will come this way, I shall inform you of what is expected.”
I raised an eyebrow. Moreau had not kept this state. Barras hadn’t either. “You are the First Gentleman of the Palace? Or perhaps the Groom of the Bedchamber?”
He turned and looked at me solemnly. “I would not be rebellious if I were you. Simply be agreeable and charming, as I’m sure you are capable of. And do not fear if he asks you about Moreau.”
So that was known. Well, how not?
“If he says anything against Moreau, I am leaving,” I said. “And so much for the First Consul.”
Duroc’s expression did not change. “There is no need for all that. Some spirit is good, but too much is unattractive. I only tell you that you need not worry that he will hold some grudge against you because of Moreau.” He opened the door and led me inside. “The First Consul is properly addressed as sir at all times, not Your Excellency.”
“How very Republican,” I said dryly. The halls were carpeted deeply, a few candles illuminating alcoves, gilt mirrors reflecting back their light.
He led me into a study or library. It was dimly lit by candelabra on the desk, and the shelves of books stretched up to the ceiling except where there were windows high up. The curtains were open and the windows as well, and the smell of rain blew in, causing the flames to gutter.
“Sir, here is Madame St. Elme as you requested,” Duroc said. He stepped back and closed the door behind me.
Bonaparte stood up from behind the desk. He was a slender young man, perhaps thirty years old, with dark brown hair that fell across his brow, too long for a fashionable new haircut and too short for a queue. It brushed his collar, which was dark blue and crusted with gold acanthus leaves. Beneath it he wore a white shirt and waistcoat, the plain white trousers of the dress uniform he had worn to the performance earlier.
He walked around the desk and stood before me, a somewhat quizzical expression on his face. “Do you know that you look several years younger here than on the stage?”
“I am happy to hear it,” I said evenly.
“You used to be intimate with Moreau,” he said. His eyes were very dark and betrayed nothing.
“Very intimate,” I said.
“He did some foolish things for your sake.” He clasped his hands behind his back, and I thought for a moment that he would cross behind me while I stood still, the oldest trick in the book for establishing dominance. Instead, he walked over to the desk and leaned on the edge of it.
“I suppose he did,” I said.
“And yet you are here,” he said. “Why?”
“Passions change,” I said, and was surprised at the bitterness I heard in my voice. “And we women are pawns on your chessboard. I have no choice.”
Bonaparte did not look away from me. It was my eyes that avoided his. “Do you want to leave?” he asked. “If you do, I will call Duroc and have him return you to your lodgings. If your heart is given to Moreau, I will not try your loyalty.”
I looked at him suddenly.
He shrugged. “I don’t need to best him that way.” Bonaparte smiled, and the smile was like sunshine, like an invitation to a wonderful conspiracy, a joke only the two of us shared.
“I can see that you don’t, sir,” I said.
“Share my supper,” he said. “What is half an hour of your life? And perhaps I can convince you I am not the ogre that Moreau believes me to be.”
I stepped forward. There was a cold supper laid on a little table between the library shelves, a chicken and a salad, some cold potatoes dressed with mayonnaise. A bottle of wine stood sweating in the warmth of the room.
“I do not believe you an ogre,” I said. “But why should you care what I think? I am no one of importance.”
He held one of the chairs out for me. Standing beside me, we were the same height. Not a tall man, but he did not need tricks to impose. “How should I know who is important?” He seemed genuinely surprised by my question. “No one who is of any rank now was important ten years ago, saving Talleyrand perhaps. None of my generals, none of my companions, were born to it. Who’s to say what you’ll become?” Bonaparte sat down opposite me and began to help himself to the chicken, using his fingers to separate the wing and leg.
“I do not think I am likely to become a general, sir,” I said. “You know what I am. An actress.”
“Yes, the troupe,” he said. He gestured for me to help myself, and I tentatively did so. “I understand you’re following Lannes’s corps. Then where do you plan to go?”
“Perhaps the Tyrol,” I said, thinking of Isabella’s vague plans. “Or possibly to Munich.”
“Are you German then?” he asked, taking a quick gulp of wine and refilling his glass.
“I was born in Italy, but my heart is French,” I said. He did not pour for me, so I waited until he put the bottle down and helped myself. He ate at a furious pace, like a schoolboy who is afraid that the plates will be taken away.
“Do you like acting?”
“I’m not very good,” I said. “But I like it. I like the freedom. And I like the road.” I took another sip of wine. “I don’t like belonging to someone.”
“That’s what my wife said about you,” Bonaparte said, putting the chicken bones by. “She said you were to be trusted.”
I nearly choked on my wine. Of course he knew who I was. He was Joséphine’s husband. Or rather, she belonged to him as well as to Barras. And given her bargain with Barras, why should not this young general command her loyalty instead? Now Bonaparte eclipsed even Barras.
“It is kind of your wife to recall me,” I said.
“She said Moreau cast you aside senselessly, with no eye to your use.”
I met his eyes across the table. “It is true that Moreau acted with little regard for my use,” I said. “My affections may be for sale, but my loyalty is not.”
Bonaparte smiled as though I had passed some hidden test. “I would not put a price on your loyalty, Madame. Or your affections.” He shrugged. “And aren’t our bodies all for sale? Whether we sell them for sex or for cannon fodder? A recruit is less expensive than a prostitute.”
“How much is a general?” I asked.
He lifted his glass to me, still smiling. “About the same as a companion. They used to be the same word, you know. Hetairos. Hetaira.”
“I know,” I said. I remembered René Gantheaume suddenly. “I knew a naval officer who said your staff were all in love with you.”
To my surprise, he laughed. “I hope so,” he said. “It’s better to govern men by love than by chains.”
“Love itself can be a chain,” I replied.
“The strongest chain there is,” he said. “We will all do anything for love.”
“Even you?” Someone else would have meant it as coquetry, and I wondered if he would take it that way.
Bonaparte put his glass down. “Can you counterfeit desire, Madame, to the point where your patrons are none the wiser?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Not if they care to know. Most men don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter to them if desire is mutual or not. But if they do care, I can’t deceive them. I’m not that good.”
“Neither am I.” He stood up, draping his napkin over the chair arm. “Good night, then.”
I was startled, and it took me a moment to rise. “Good night?”
“Good night,” he said, and bent over my hand, his lips just brushing my fingers
, smiling so that I would know he wasn’t angry. “Duroc will get the carriage to take you home. Perhaps I will see you again.”
“I hope so,” I said, and was surprised to find that I meant it.
I reached our lodgings long before Isabella, who had gone to dinner with the company. I was curled in a chair before the fire in the room I shared with her, listening to the rain against the glass, when she returned.
“Ida? What in the world are you doing home so early? I thought . . .”
“He didn’t want to make love to me,” I said. “We ate dinner and he asked me questions about Moreau, and that was that.”
Isabella spread her soaking shawl to dry. “So it was politics, then.” She came and sat by the fire to get warm. “You must be relieved.”
I said nothing.
“Aren’t you?” She looked up at my face.
“I suppose,” I said. “I should be, shouldn’t I?”
Isabella spread her hands. “You didn’t want to. He didn’t want to. End of story. So what’s the matter?”
“I liked him,” I said.
Isabella carefully removed one of her slippers and threw it at me. I ducked. “What in the world!” she said. “You didn’t want to sleep with him, and you didn’t have to. Now what? You wish you had?”
“Almost,” I said. “Isabella, I liked him. It was so strange.”
“Not an uncouth social climber?”
I shrugged. “Well, his table manners were a little rough. But he was a perfect gentleman. No foul language, no crude demands. None of the little things that one does to establish dominance or to intimidate.”
“Maybe that’s not what he likes,” Isabella said. “Maybe it was all about politics.”
“Don’t I look good enough? I mean, I didn’t have time to dress very much, but—”
Isabella threw the other slipper at me. “You’re utterly impossible! You want to attract him but say no?”
“I don’t know what I want,” I said, catching the slipper before it hit me. “It’s mildly humiliating to have liked him. And at the same time—”
“At the same time,” Isabella said, “he’s a handsome young general who is suddenly incredibly wealthy and happens to be the head of state. I can’t imagine why a woman would want to catch his eye.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Go to bed, Ida. You are so perverse sometimes.”
I heard the door close softly behind her.
The shadows shifted on the walls with the shifting flames.
“Like touching fire,” I said.
The next morning we were awakened by a lackey at the front door. The second man answered, and brought me up a package. I opened it sitting up in bed next to Isabella, who looked as though she were only half awake.
There was a purse with fifty gold livres in it, and a letter sealed with cream-colored wax.
“Oh, my God,” Isabella said. She didn’t seem to care that the second man was seeing her in her chemise. I was sleeping in one of Charles’s big shirts, and was as covered as anyone could be. “Did he send that?” The gold spilled out and over the sheets.
“I don’t know who else could have,” I said, lifting the letter.
“Open it!” she said.
I broke the seal and read it. It was short enough.
My dear Madame St. Elme,
This is by way of thanks for our pleasant conversation. I hope
that you will join me again tonight.
Bonaparte
The second man drew in a breath, then let out a whoop. “We’re rich! We’re all going to be rich! Madame, you will save us all if you can get the Consul by the balls!”
“Shut up!” said Isabella.
I read the letter again. “Fifty livres? For talking?”
The second man plunged forward and kissed my brow. “The kind of talking Madame can do! Oh, those sweet lips!”
Isabella cuffed him lightly. “Behave. Let’s all keep our priorities straight.”
I tested a coin with my teeth. “And that is?”
“You need a dress,” she said.
I took some of the money and went in search of a dressmaker who could put something together for that same night. Thankfully, the classical styles in vogue were not nearly as ornate as the styles of my youth, and could be cut and stitched in a day if the need were great enough. And if the customer was willing to pay. The dress was azure blue silk, necessarily simple in style, caught beneath the breasts with a rope of false pearls. The seamstress swore it would be ready by six o’clock.
I was wishing it were possible to get shoes made in a day, when I heard a shout behind me. “Madame Ringeling!” I turned as if I had been shot at.
Colonel Meynier was jogging across the street, dodging under the heads of a matched pair of bays pulling a green phaeton, his hat under his arm.
I stopped and waited for him. “Colonel Meynier!” I said. “This is an unexpected pleasure! How did you know me?”
He bent over my hand and kissed it. “Madame Ringeling, you are unforgettable!”
“Please,” I said, “not that name here. I have left it behind me for reasons you can guess all too well. I am Madame St. Elme now.”
He straightened up. “Of course,” he said. “I did not mean to be indiscreet.” I noticed that his moustache had been joined by a pair of hussar braids dangling on either side of his face. The ends were neatly weighted with little gold beads.
“You look well,” I said. “Are you assigned to General Lannes’s corps?”
“Bonaparte’s,” he said. “I’m sure my friend Ney misses me on the Rhine. He told me that he met you in Paris. You made quite an impression.”
I found myself blushing. “I’m sure I did,” I said. “I babbled like an infant about fish. I can’t imagine his impression can have been a positive one.”
“Maybe he likes women who talk about fish,” Meynier said. “Some do.”
I laughed. “I hope so. I . . .” I ran out of what to say.
Meynier looked at me keenly. “Don’t tell me you were as taken with him as he was with you!”
“He wasn’t,” I said. “He couldn’t have been.”
“He’s talked and talked about you. And sent you flowers at the theater, he said.”
“What? When?” And then I remembered the white roses. “The roses,” I said slowly. “The ones with no card.”
“Have dinner with me tonight,” Meynier said. “I’ll tell you all about my friend Ney.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have other plans. Another night?”
“Of course,” Meynier said. “I am entirely at your disposal. You can find me at the Hotel Battachio.”
“I will,” I promised, and bade him good-bye. I had the First Consul to think of.
Fire from Heaven
The First Consul sent the carriage for me at nine. Isabella had done my hair in ringlets pinned on top of my head and cascading down in artful disarray. My blue dress was ready. It was beautiful, except where the neckline didn’t quite fit in the back and it pouched out a little.
“He’s not going to be looking at your back,” Isabella said. “Don’t worry so much.”
I gave her a quick hug, carefully, so as not to crush my dress.
“Go!” she said, and handed me up into the carriage.
This time I wasn’t led to the library. Duroc came down to greet me and led me this way and that through the house, up a marble staircase to the second floor and down a long corridor decorated with Flemish tapestries of flowers.
“Madame St. Elme, sir,” he said, opening a door.
It was a very small study with a single window covered in green velvet drapes. A compact desk took up most of the floor space, laden with maps and papers. There was one armchair, and a fine globe stood at a tilt, its feet half on and half off a pile of papers that seemed to have slid over.
Bonaparte sat in a straight chair behind the desk, a quill in his hand. He looked up and nodded.
Duroc withdrew.
Bonaparte bent
his head to his papers again, dipping the quill and writing very quickly on the sheet before him.
I stood.
He laid the sheet aside and picked up another, beginning again. Somewhere, on the mantelpiece, a clock was ticking. It was a fine German clock, all gilded shepherdesses. Beside it lay a piece of blotting paper, a lead musket ball, and a small pile of books. I walked over, casting a glance behind me.
He did not look up.
Volume four of Gibbon, looking as though coffee had been spilled upon it. A translation of Schiller’s Wallenstein. A travel book on India.
After a moment I sat down in the armchair beside the fire. I cast glances at him, trying not to watch him openly, but he seemed entirely oblivious to my presence.
He was, I thought, handsome in his way. It was not so much his features as the motion to them, the changes of expression in response to words only on paper, words I could not see, mobile and warm, then grave and still by turns. And it was his hands, long and white as a girl’s, and as graceful. It was hard to imagine them handling shells and wadding, but he had begun as an artilleryman. No movement was extraneous. And yet it was beautiful to watch him sand the dispatch he had finished, to blow the sand off, and lay it aside. The light touched one side of his face only, rendering it like a cameo against the dark.
He looked up. “Are you tired of waiting?” he asked, glancing at the clock. Fully fifteen minutes had passed.
“That would be impossible,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m witnessing the work of a great man,” I said. “How could that be boring? Surely there are many who would find this of great interest.” I stood up.
Bonaparte put his head to the side for a moment, almost quizzically. He walked around the desk toward me. “Is that flattery?”
“No,” I said. I did not look away. His dark eyes were exactly on a level with my own. “I imagine you are used to flattery.”