The Second Empress

by Michelle Moran

  He is so beautiful, so calm, that it’s impossible to believe he’s a doctor. He should have been born a courtier. There’s no telling to what heights he might have risen then, since beauty is as useful as money at court. “And is there anything else?” I ask.

  “Yes. And this may be the most difficult of all.”

  I hold my breath.

  “It is likely you are infected with chaude-pisse.”

  The clap.

  “Dr. Peyre tells me you have been applying leeches to your groin to ease the pain. I recommend stopping this. Instead, I would avoid any unnecessary stimulation.”

  “What about my baths?” I ask him.

  “Warm.”

  “Even when I bathe in milk?”

  He looks at me curiously, and I explain.

  “I need it for my skin.”

  “If Your Highness feels that this is a necessity, then yes, even warm milk.”

  I silently review everything Dr. Espiaud has said. There doesn’t seem to be any great urgency in his voice. In fact, if I look at him carefully, he doesn’t seem terribly worried at all. Certainly I’m in pain. But perhaps he’s right. If I am careful and limit myself to one lover, it might go away.

  “Does Your Highness understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes. I shall have to be more prudent,” I tell him.

  “Even in Nice.”

  Colonel Augustin Duchand will be there. I will restrict myself to his attentions alone. “But what happens if I become sick?” I ask.

  “You will need to find a physician.”

  “But Dr. Peyre will no longer be serving me.” I turn my head to the side. “Would you like to travel with my suite?”

  He hesitates. “I have obligations here, Your Highness. I am paid—”

  “Whatever the empress is paying, I will double it.”

  He blinks. “That is generous …”

  “Triple.” His blue eyes widen, and I smile. “We leave in seven days.”

  WHEN MY BROTHER hears of my new doctor, he bursts into my chamber. “Where are you going?” He looks around the room. Everything has been packed. Even the heavy rugs, which I can’t expect to use in Nice, are gone. I look into his eyes, and I know he is thinking of Corsica. Twenty years ago we fled our home with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Now the Bonapartes are fleeing again, only this time we’ll be wearing silks and fur. He stands before my new jewelry box and reaches out to touch the mother-of-pearl. “This is new.”

  “I had it commissioned from Michelot last month.”

  “Fifteen thousand francs at least.”

  He has a merchant’s eye for prices. “Fourteen. Everything is in there,” I tell him. “The emerald parure, the Haitian pearls. Every state bond you gave me has been turned into jewels.”

  He looks away. “That it should come to this …”

  “We are Bonapartes,” I say. “What are a few diamonds if they can buy you an army?”

  “I heard you sold your properties as well. Three hundred thousand francs. That’s everything, everything, Pauline. What do you have left?”

  “My titles. I will always be the Princess Borghese. I will never be homeless as long as there’s Camillo.”

  He takes my hand, and I know he has never touched Marie-Louise this way, with such tenderness and affection. “I will miss you.”

  “You will defeat them,” I say.

  “Of course. But it will be long and bloody.”

  I put my arms around his neck and lay my cheek on his shoulder. He smells like fire. “Why did you make her regent? Her father is a traitor. She could give away Paris.”

  “The thought wouldn’t even enter her mind.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she does what she’s told, even if it means visiting her son’s nursery only once in the evenings. She’ll be loyal to me.”

  “And what about Nice?”

  “I’ll visit as soon as circumstances allow.”

  “By March?” I ask. “Even sooner.”

  BUT FATE IS a wild horse that has slipped her reins and cannot be commanded by the Bonapartes anymore. While I wait for Napoleon on the warm beaches of Nice, Paul brings me chilling news from Paris. Holland has fallen to the nations allied against us. Then Switzerland follows, and then Spain. With every trip Paul takes, I become more tired and ill. By the end of October, it is not necessary to go to Paris anymore. The entire world has heard what has happened at Leipzig. My brother lost Germany, and there is no more empire.

  “You have to eat something, Your Highness.”

  “I told you, I’m not hungry.”

  Dr. Espiaud looks to Paul, but neither of them can force me to eat. I lie back against my pillows and close my eyes. “Your Highness—” But he had my answer an hour ago.

  I feel a soft pressure on my bed and am sure it is Paul. He will tell me he, too, has lost a home. That he knows what it is to lose one’s family to war. But he will never understand what it is to win an empire and then watch it torn to shreds by hungry nations.

  “Paoletta,” a familiar voice says softly. I can’t tell if I am awake or dreaming. “Maria Paoletta, open your eyes.”

  I obey. Napoleon? “Napoleon,” I whisper. We embrace for so long I can hardly breathe. I scramble from the covers. “Is that an Austrian uniform?”

  He looks back at Paul, who understands his meaning and leaves. “It was the only way I could come here. The people are marching against me in the streets, calling for a return of the Bourbons. Haven’t you seen the white cockades?”

  “I haven’t left this villa in days.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “With worry. You have nine hundred thousand men, and only half of them are truly loyal. Why are they doing this to us?”

  “There is no us,” he says quietly. “The Allies say they’re fighting me, not the French.”

  “And if they invade Paris? Do you think the Russian Cossacks will remember that when they find beautiful women alone in their houses?”

  “Then God will have to protect them. I have done what I can for this nation.” He rises from the bed, and I grab onto his arm.

  “Don’t go!”

  “The army is waiting, Paoletta.”

  “Then they can wait until tomorrow. Please. Just for the night.” He looks down at my robe, which has fallen open. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

  He breathes heavily. “One night.”

  Napoleon to General Savary.

  Dresden, June 13, 1813.

  I want peace, which is of more concern to me than to anyone else … but I shall not make either a dishonorable peace or one that would bring an even more violent war within six months.

  Napoleon to Count Metternich.

  April 1813.

  I cannot take the initiative: that would be like capitulating as if I were in a fort: it is for the others to send me their proposals [for peace talks]. If I concluded a dishonorable peace, it would be my overthrow. I am a new man; I must pay more heed to public opinion, because I stand in need of it. The French have lively imaginations: they love fame and excitement, and are nervous. Do you know the prime cause of the fall of the Bourbons? It dates from [the French defeat at Battle of] Rossbach.

  Napoleon to Marie-Louise.

  1813.

  Peace would be made if Austria were not trying to fish in troubled waters. The [Austrian] emperor is deceived by Metternich, who has been bribed by the Russians. He is a man, moreover, who believes that politics consists in telling lies.

  CHAPTER 27

  PAUL MOREAU

  Tuileries Palace, Paris March 1814

  WARE THE ONLY HORSE AND CARRIAGE ON THE ROAD, and the stillness of the countryside is terrifying. Even when French warships arrived in Saint-Domingue, the villages didn’t empty. The coachman has warned us to keep the curtains closed, but as we ride, it’s impossible not to look. Shop after shop has been completely abandoned, their windows shuttered and their doors boarded up. On the farms, not a s
ingle person can be found.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” I ask.

  “During the first days of the Revolution,” Dr. Espiaud says. “The emperor laid waste to the cities outside of Moscow. Pillaging … rape … and now the Russians are coming for revenge.”

  I close the curtain and sit back. I fled Haiti to avoid the ravages of war, and now it’s followed me to France. Is it a mistake to go to Paris? When the Russians will arrive is a mystery: we might beat them by weeks or a single day. But Pauline wants news, and more important, Dr. Espiaud needs medicine from the Tuileries Palace. The doctor won’t tell me what the princess is suffering from, but I know. And now she is frighteningly thin, and her great dark eyes stare out from a face that is paler than marble. Her ladies say it’s nervousness, but I no longer agree with this convenient fiction.

  I was up with Pauline all night. She wanted to count the money she raised for her brother—all the funds she garnered from selling her jewels. I keep seeing her trembling fingers going through the money, counting it again and again and again. The coach stops suddenly, and Dr. Espiaud scowls. He opens the curtain, and as far as the eye can see, horses and coaches are crowding the road, jostling for space as their owners rush to get out of the city.

  “Are they here?” a woman shouts from one oncoming carriage.

  Espiaud shakes his head. “We’re coming from Nice.”

  “You’re going the wrong way!” someone else shouts.

  When we reach the city, it’s a mad crush of wagons and horses. Thousands are fleeing, and it appears that anyone with means has already left. Women in the streets are begging others to help them escape, and I recall the desperation in the women’s eyes as the French descended on Haiti. I watch an older man lean out of his carriage and promise a pretty girl a seat—for a price. She will pay either inside the coach or once the soldiers come, he tells her. When she accepts, he offers her his hand. No one knows what the Russian invasion will mean. If the Austrians are with them, marching under the Hapsburg flag, then Paris may be spared. But if the Russians come alone, there will be no mercy.

  From the gates of the city, it’s three hours before we reach the Tuileries Palace. And inside, the chaos is even greater. Servants are running from room to room, shouting out orders and carrying trunks.

  “Where is the empress?” Dr. Espiaud asks.

  A servant stops for long enough to point down the hall. “With her Regency Council, monsieur, deciding whether or not to flee the capital.”

  We hurry to the Council Chamber. The ministers have not bothered to shut the doors. So we stand outside with a dozen courtiers and listen as Joseph Bonaparte shouts about what can be salvaged of the Bonaparte empire. Nine months ago he was Napoleon’s anointed king of Spain. Then he lost the Battle of Vitoria against the British. “There is no one more loyal to Napoleon than me! But to ask the empress to stay in this palace is the equivalent of murder.”

  “If the empress flees, what will that tell the people?” the Duc de Feltre argues. “We might as well wave the white flag!”

  “What other color do you propose?” Joseph challenges. “Do you see my brother’s army marching toward this city? Are there reports it’s even close?”

  “It’s a risk we cannot take,” the Duc de Cambaceres says. “Talleyrand?”

  I am shocked. There is no minister in France less trustworthy than Talleyrand. Every courtier knows he has had dealings with both the Austrians and the Russians while claiming to be working solely for the good of France. No one is certain who Talleyrand supports, aside from Talleyrand. But behind every change of government in France in the past twenty years has been this man.

  The Regency Council waits for him to speak. Then finally he says, “The empress of France must stay. When the Austrians arrive, she will negotiate favorable terms for this city with her father. Until then, seal the palace.”

  Napoleon’s brother grows red in the face. “I tried reason,” he says heatedly, “but no one will listen.” He pulls from his pocket a letter and holds it up for the council to see. “From the emperor himself.” He hands it to Talleyrand. “If you would.”

  The old minister reads it aloud from his seat:

  If the battle is lost and no hope remains for saving my capital, the empress of France, along with my son, the young king of Rome, must repair to Château de Rambouillet and wait for me there. They must not, under any circumstances whatsoever, let themselves be taken by Allied soldiers. I would rather see my son’s throat cut than imagine him brought up as an Austrian prince in Vienna.

  Marie-Louise looks aghast, and Talleyrand wipes the sweat from his brow. The Duc de Feltre asks, “So what does Your Majesty think?”

  “Who in here would like to be the one to disobey the emperor’s orders?” the empress asks.

  The men look down. Even Talleyrand won’t meet her gaze.

  “I am willing to remain in this city,” she says. “This is my duty to France and her people. But there is a higher duty,” she adds cleverly. “The duty of a wife to her husband.” Obviously she wishes to flee Paris. Why would she stay in the same city that took her great-aunt’s life?

  “Then it’s settled,” Joseph announces firmly. “The imperial house moves to Château de Rambouillet.”

  Now the chamber is silent. The council is trying to comprehend the enormity of it. Napoleon reunited their country after it was torn by instability and civil war. He forged an empire from scraps, and no one, not even the emperor of Austria, could defeat him. For ten years, Europe has echoed his name. And now it has turned to dust.

  “We leave tomorrow morning,” the empress says. “Whatever happens, God be with each of you.”

  She rises, and I realize that both Hortense and her husband, the former king of Holland, are in the room as well. We stand back to let the members of the Regency Council pass, and when the empress appears, Espiaud steps forward. “Your Majesty!”

  It takes the empress several moments to realize she’s seeing the former court physician. “Dr. Espiaud? What are you doing here? The Russians are on the march. I don’t know if the Austrian army will be with them.” She hurries down the hall, and we try to keep pace. “Bring whatever you can.” Then she stops to look at me. “Now is your chance. I hope you take it.”

  CHAPTER 28

  MARIE-LOUISE

  Château de Rambouillet, southwest of Paris April 1814

  EVERYWHERE I LOOK, COURTIERS ARE HURRYING TO FILL the imperial carriages with as many of their belongings as they can fit inside. Groomsmen, chamberlains, Mistresses of the Robes—all of them are fleeing to Château de Rambouillet.

  I wait for Méneval to clear a space in the coach for me and Franz. When at last he motions us inside, I tell my son, “Take Sigi into the carriage.” He is old enough now to follow my instructions, but his small brow still creases.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Yes.” Nothing could keep me in Paris after hearing Napoleon’s letter to Joseph. I would rather see my son’s throat cut than imagine him brought up as an Austrian prince in Vienna. I look at Franz, and an overwhelming desire to protect him consumes me. What sort of ruthless father could wish for his own son’s death, whatever the circumstances? Even after all his petty cruelties, I would have remained in Paris as his loyal wife, but there is no forgiving that letter. I hope he returns to Paris to find the palace empty. More than that, I hope the Bourbon flag is snapping triumphantly in the breeze.

  I wait to see my son safely inside the carriage, then search for Hortense. “Beauharnais!” I shout, looking above the heads. “Beauharnais!” But there are people moving everywhere. Children are standing close to their mothers, while men carry trunks in and out of the palace. I search every carriage, but none of them are carrying Bonapartes. At last I find her standing away from the caravan, holding both of her sons by the hand. Her husband is shouting something, but she’s shaking her head.

  “Your Majesty,” Louis Bonaparte says when he sees me. “You must instruct my w
ife that her place is with the court in Rambouillet.”

  “Why would you not join us?”

  “My mother has already fled to Navarre.” Hortense bows her head. “With your permission, I would like to take my children there.”

  I feel a tightness in my chest as I realize this may be the last time I will ever see her. I reach out and gently take her hand. “Certainly.”

  “To Navarre?” Louis is beside himself. “I forbid—”

  “What do you forbid?” I demand. “She is free to go.”

  He looks from me to Hortense and back again. Then he shouts for his trunks to be unpacked and placed in a separate carriage. “I will wait for you in Rambouillet,” he says, his voice tight. “If you don’t come, consider yourself unmarried.”

  I feel the lightness in Hortense’s soul when he disappears in the crowds. Then she turns back to me. “Will you … will you be safe?”

  “If we can outride the Russians and find my father. He promised to come for me. I trust him.” We look back at the Tuileries Palace. In the morning light, it has a golden hue. The Minister of War told my Regency Council that Napoleon’s generals mutinied before the army could reach Fontainebleau. They simply refused to fight. I guess men will do that when they’ve had enough.

  “Where do you think my stepfather is?” she asks, softly.

  I squeeze her hands and lean in to whisper, “It’s over. Go and be with your family.” After eighteen years, she is finally free of the Bonapartes.

  She begins to weep. “I will write.”

  I embrace her tightly. “Me, too.” When I look over her shoulder, I see a handsome man is waiting for her. The Comte de Flahaut.

  AS THE CARAVAN of more than a hundred carriages pulls away from the palace, my son asks, “What will happen now, Maman?”

  I look down at my son, and my heart swells. “I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “But you will meet your grandpère,” I whisper into his ear. His letter came this morning with Talleyrand, and I’ve read it more than a dozen times since. I touch the small white envelope folded in my pocket; simply knowing it’s there gives me strength.