Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

The footman stood back. Captain Charles pressed down on the left side of the step and it gave way with a clatter. Bonaparte took my hand. “Careful!” he said—as if, I realized (heart heavy), I were a woman with child. I stepped down onto the dusty road. He put his hand under my chin. “I have been starved for you.”

  I smiled, speechless, overcome by the dust, the bright sun, the crowd. Overcome by the intensity of Bonaparte’s eyes. “Bonaparte, I—”

  He placed his right hand at the nape of my neck, his thumb pressing against my skull. Then he kissed me—without modesty, without restraint, as if, man and woman, husband and wife, we were the only two people on earth. For a moment I resisted, the roar of the crowd in my ears. And then I gave way to him.

  My hat slipped off. I grabbed for it, then I stood back, pressing Bonaparte’s hand to my heart. Distantly I heard people cheering. He stared at me, his eyes glistening. “We came as quickly as we could,” I assured him, but my voice was drowned out by a trumpet blare. “I’m feeling a bit faint.” Everything looked bleached. The crowd seemed to shimmer in the heat. I took hold of his arm. The other carriages in our caravan pulled into view: Hamelin’s wreck of a hired fiacre, the servants’ carriage, the baggage wagon.

  A man in yellow-striped rags ran through the line of soldiers. “Evviva Napoleone!” he cried out as they pulled him away. “Evviva la libertà!”

  Bonaparte led me to a carriage harnessed to four grey horses, their brass bells jingling. The ornate berlin was festooned with red, white and blue ribbons; it looked like a feast-day cake. “To cover the Austrian royal insignias,” Bonaparte said, lifting a bow to reveal a royal emblem underneath.

  “Aren’t the others coming with us?” I asked as he handed me in. The upholstery was a pale cream-coloured brocade. I sat down uneasily. My periodic sickness had become unpredictable. I could never be sure what to expect—or when. “What about your brother?” And Junot, for that matter?

  “This reception is in your honour,” Bonaparte said, settling himself beside me and taking my hand. He was thinking of kissing me again, I knew. I opened my fan and fluttered it, leaning my head against the tufted upholstery. The heat was oppressive.

  “Perhaps a little air,” Bonaparte said, letting down the glass. A bouquet came flying through. He put the glass back up. The crowd was chanting Evviva la Francia! Evviva Napoleone! Their fervour frightened me—frightened and amazed me.

  I heard the postillion cry out something in Italian. Our carriage swung gently as the team of horses pulled it forward. I put my hand to my side, against the pain.

  Crowds cheered as we wound our way through narrow, rutted streets, along waterways and canals thick with barges. The air was filled with the pungent smell of potatoes, chestnuts, aubergines cooking, fish frying. “This is a beautiful city,” Bonaparte said, stroking my hand. “You will love it here.”

  “Yes,” I said, although I felt disappointed, in truth. Milan was smaller than I’d expected, and it seemed curiously vacant in spite of the crowds. The few women I saw on the street were dressed entirely in black. The shops had no windows; even the residences were shuttered.

  Bonaparte pointed to a sign in the shape of a cardinal’s red hat: “A hatter.” A pair of scissors signified a tailor; a snake, a chemist; a bleeding foot, leeches. “But the water is unclean,” he went on as we crossed over a stinking canal. “We have much to do installing a new sanitation system.” A man in a banditti hat, defecating by the side of the road, raised his hand in salute. “And educating the inhabitants,” he added.

  At one intersection we were obliged to wait for the passage of a cart loaded with an enormous barrel of water. Chained prisoners followed behind, swinging long leather tubes out of which water came, dampening the dust.

  We came upon a great square where five goats were grazing. “This must be the famous cathedral,” I said, astonished by its grandeur. The church looked even bigger than Notre Dame and far more ornate.

  “Three murderers live in there and I can’t do a thing about it.”* Masons stopped their work on one of the turrets to cheer as we passed. I smiled at them and waved. (Like a queen, I thought.) “The façade has been under construction for five centuries,” Bonaparte said. “I intend to finish it.” His statements surprised me. This wasn’t a soldier speaking—this was a ruler.

  We pulled through a broad portico into the courtyard of a villa of glittering pink granite. In the centre was a fountain, spurting brown water. The footman opened our carriage door, his lilac jacket stained from running ahead of our carriage. I stepped down, lifting my skirt up out of the dust. An enormous number of servants dressed in black bowed at our approach.

  I hung on Bonaparte’s arm as he strode up the steps and through two majestic colonnades into a vast marble hall. I glanced back over my shoulder. We were being followed by a crowd of noisy, clattering “help.” Everywhere I looked there were men in uniform, standing at attention. “This is your home,” Bonaparte said proudly, sweeping his arm aloft.

  Lisette blew dust from her hands. “Our trunks will be brought up soon, Madame—or so they say.” She rolled her eyes. The rigours of travel had brought out a feisty humour in my maid.

  A clock chimed nine bells. Nine? “Do you know the time?” I guessed it to be around three in the afternoon.

  “I think it is nine, Madame, but the day begins a half hour after sunset, I am told, so the time is always changing, depending on the time of year.” She blew out her cheeks in exasperation.

  I smiled. She reminded me of Hortense, and a wave of longing came over me. “I’ll be needing a bath,” I told her. I had taken laudanum and was feeling more at ease, enveloped in a rosy glow.

  “I don’t think they know about baths here,” she said, crinkling her nose.

  Lisette reappeared some time later. “I give up, Madame! I tried French, I tried Latin, I even tried Greek. I told them water, they fetched a mirror—a cracked one. I told them a bath, they brought me a melon rolling around stupidly on a tray.”

  “We need Bonaparte.”

  “The General is in a meeting with his officers, Madame,” Lisette said, reappearing. “He said he would only be a moment.”

  But it was over an hour before Bonaparte appeared. A frowning child in a blue smock followed behind him, carrying a vase of flowers.

  “I want a bath,” I told him, accepting the girl’s solemn offering.

  Bonaparte raised his eyebrows in expectation.

  “But we can’t make ourselves understood!” I gave the girl a coin and she ran away giggling.

  A copper tub in the shape of a coffin was carried into a little room outside my bedchamber. An endless stream of maids with steaming jugs ran in and out. At last the tub was full. I told them thanks (grazie—the only word I know), and indicated that they could go, but they just stood there. “Could you ask them to leave, Bonaparte?” He barked something in Italian and the maids scurried away like a flock of birds, murmuring prego, prego, prego.

  Lisette helped me off with my gown. I slipped into the soapy water. The ceiling of the little room was painted with cherubs. Lisette’s fingers were strong. She massaged my scalp, my neck. My headache dimmed. She helped me into my best nightdress—a cool diaphanous blue silk. I was going to have to tell him.

  Bonaparte threw back the bed sheet. I blew out one of the candles and stretched out beside him on the musty feather bed. The laudanum and the bath had brought on a feeling of tenderness in me.

  He kissed my cheek innocently, as one kisses a child. I could feel the heat coming off him. “There’s something I have to tell you, Bonaparte.” I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. “I’m not with child. Not any more—at least that’s what my doctor said.” I could not bring myself to tell him that the doctor thought it might only have been a mole. There were things men preferred not to know.

  Bonaparte sat up, his arms encircling his knees. “When did this happen?” he asked, staring into the shadows.

  “About a month ago.” I put my hand on his
back. I could feel him rocking slightly. “I was going to write, but then I thought it best to tell you in person.”

  “This happens,” he said, turning back to me with tears in his eyes. “Oh Bonaparte!” I took him in my arms, my heart aching. If only I could give him what he wanted, what he needed. If only I could return his love.

  Bastille Day, some time after 10:00 P.M. (maybe later).

  We’ve just returned from a dismal Bastille Day ball. I now understand the meaning of the expression “bored to tears.” Bored to death.

  As we entered the vast, dark ballroom, Bonaparte was hailed. Then we were escorted to a podium where he was hailed yet again. “What do we do now?” I asked him, trying to make myself comfortable on the lumpy chair. Women in the corners whispered behind their fans, regarding me with disapproval. My gown was much more revealing than what the other women were wearing. I regretted not bringing a shawl.

  Bonaparte drummed his fingers. “We’re the guests of honour. We’re required to sit.”

  All night? I felt like a prisoner of the podium.

  We were hours, it seemed, listening to lofty addresses as every noble in Milan was introduced. (One man bowed so low he practically touched his nose to the floor.) My cheeks ached from smiling.

  After the introductions Bonaparte was called away for an emergency meeting concerning some military matter. I sat on display, looking out over the dance floor. Thin red, white and blue ribbons had been strung from the rafters. They gave a dismal impression. The air reeked of pomade, garlic and perspiration. A haze of rice powder from the thickly powdered wigs filled the air like a fog. The only laughter came from a cluster of valets standing by an empty marble fireplace. It was a joyless occasion, and I feared it did not bode well for the months to come.

  “Is the bellissima regina* permitted to dance with a commoner?” Captain Charles hissed from one side of the podium. He was wearing a charming Chinese ensemble of green silk trimmed with gold, and green slippers to match. “The musicians, although lacking in what a Parisian would call finesse, are, at the least, vigorous.” He removed a plume from his velvet toque to fan himself with.

  I smiled behind my fan. “First of all, Captain Wide-Awake, let us be clear: I am not a queen.”

  “You just happen to be seated on a throne?”

  “Which is where I’m required to stay, alas.”

  “How … thrilling.” With a comical expression.

  “Don’t make me laugh,” I said, laughing.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not allowed to enjoy myself. This is a serious position.” I sat up straight.

  “So, you won’t even join us for a cotillion? I thought all Parisian women had a passion for dance.”

  “In Paris there is only one true passion, Captain,” I said, “and that, I fear to say, is the pursuit of wealth.”

  The captain held up his green-gloved hands and made an expression of mock surprise. “Cynicism in a woman surprises me.”

  “Forgive me, Captain, I was trying to be clever—a mistake on my part, for I am not a clever woman.”

  “Yet I believe it fair to say there is truth in your observation. I personally have a passion for the pursuit of wealth, as you put it—or rather, a passion for beautiful things, the one necessitating the other.”

  “I suffer that weakness myself,” I said, smiling ruefully.

  “I prefer to think of it as a virtuous flaw, for is not the worship of beautiful things a religion of sorts?”

  “You jest and speak of holiness at the same time, Captain. You are a daring man.”

  “It is all one, I believe: the holy, the beautiful and the bold—with respect to men, in any case. I cannot speak for women, who, in my observation, regard daring with alarm, and certainly not reverence.”

  “We all enjoy daring, Captain, men and women alike. Men are driven to be daring on horseback, for example, or on the fields of war. Women, on the other hand, are dealt few wild cards. The few we get we tend to play somewhat innocently, at the dressmaker’s, or at the hatter’s.”

  “Or perhaps at …?” He tilted his head in the direction of the gaming room.

  “I enjoy games of chance, Captain Charles, but one wouldn’t call my approach daring by any means. I am by nature cautious.” “Yet you are said to win.” “I greatly dislike losing,” I confessed.

  “In that case, I have a wild card to suggest for you,” he said. “Speculation. It is, after all, the most thrilling of the games of chance, but”—he paused, regarding me seriously—”in the right hands, entails little risk. Just the thing for a woman who is, by nature, cautious.”

  A portly man dressed in an old-fashioned long velvet coat was heading in my direction. “Excuse me, Captain, but I believe I am about to be accosted.”

  “Do you require my protection, Madame? I could be your cavaliere servente.”

  “And pray, Captain Charles, what might that be?” I was relieved to see that the man in the long velvet coat had been detained by another.

  “The cavaliere servente is one of the few charming customs of this country. When a woman’s husband is absent, she requires the attention of a substitute: her cavaliere, who waits upon her hand and foot, who fulfills her every need.”

  “Her every need?” I gave the captain a teasing look. He was the type of man one could coquet with safely.

  “Well, excepting, of course, the marital obligations, to which only the husband has a right. It is due to the rigour of this understanding that jealousy rarely arises between a husband and his wife’s cavaliere servente.”

  “Interesting.” Both men were advancing toward me now. “Speaking of husbands, Captain Charles, might you know where General Bonaparte is?”

  “I believe he is conferring with his officers in the antechamber, Madame.”

  “Would you do me a favour, Captain?” He jackknifed from the waist. “Would you tell him to come here?” The captain looked aghast. “Moi?” “Yes, please.”

  “You want me to tell General Bonaparte what to do?” He mimed a nervous Nellie.

  “Yes, my cavaliere servente, I would like you to inform my husband that his wife needs him—now.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,” I told Bonaparte later, in the privacy of our room. There was a cooling breeze coming from the canal, carrying with it the pungent scent of sewage. “What were all your meetings about?” I asked, closing the shutters.

  “The Austrians are advancing again.” He took his sword out of its sheath and ran his finger along the edge, examining it. “I think I’ll take your horse with me when I go.”

  “You are leaving, Bonaparte?” Already?

  “In a few days.”

  My heart sank. Could I manage in Milan without him? “But why are you taking my horse?”

  “You will be coming to join me.”

  “On campaign? But Bonaparte, won’t that be—?”

  “You don’t think I can live without you, do you?” he grinned, tugging my ear.

  July 16, early morning.

  It seems Bonaparte and I are always parting. The soldiers whistled as we embraced. “For luck,” he said, kissing me. He slipped a ribbon from my hair and put it in the pocket next to his heart. “I’ll send for you,” he said, swinging onto his horse. Then he galloped out the gate, his men scrambling to catch up with him.

  * Churches were official sanctuaries. Any criminal who took refuge in a church could not be arrested.

  * Bellissima regina: Italian for “beautiful queen.”

  In which I learn about war

  Shortly after 5:00 P.M.—still very hot.

  A small afternoon gathering this afternoon. It was impossible! The men stood around the fireplace at one end of the cavernous salon to talk about horses and tell battle stories, while the women sat in the window alcove at the other end of the room discussing fashion, children and dogs. I was relieved when Captain Charles joined in, but shortly a footman came to inform the captain that his horse was ready.

/>   “But you just got here,” I said, dismayed. He was the only bright spark in the conversation, frankly.

  “General Leclerc expects me in Verona tonight, Madame.”

  I excused myself from my difficult guests and accompanied the captain to the entryway. “I thought you were my cavaliere servente,” I teased him, “and yet already you are abandoning me.”

  He bowed, a graceful melting movement that a girl might make. “Will you forgive me?” He took my hand and kissed it, his breath warm. “No doubt you will require proof of my attachment. Perhaps there are other ways I could be of service?”

  Oh, but he was a naughty boy, I thought, and oh but I was finding it an amusing charade. “What might my cavaliere suggest?”

  He took a coin from out of his pocket; before my eyes it became a handful! “My talent, if one could call it that, is an instinct for increase. I guarantee a return of thirty percent.” He took his cloak from the maid, his hat, and gave her the coins.

  “That’s a bold promise, Captain.” Was he serious?

  “I am said to be bold,” he replied, examining his hat in the looking glass, creasing the brim.

  Bold, indeed. I adjusted his plume so that it stood straight up. “There,” I said, feeling now rather hennish.

  “In addition to all the other requirements, I might add,” he said, buckling his sword sheath.

  “Such as?” I asked, stepping outside where a groom was waiting, holding his horse.

  “Discretion.” Captain Charles took a fistful of mane and leapt gracefully into the saddle. “Ten thousand, Madame, for starters?” His horse tossed its head, pawing at the cobblestones.

  I put up two fingers, twenty. Double or nothing: my game.

  July 23.

  Hidden under an enormous black shawl (like all the women here), I went to church this morning to light a candle for Alexandre. Two years ago today he died.

  If I’ve learned one thing, it is that life is precious and fleeting. I weep to be separated from my children. And I dislike being separated from Bonaparte as well. I prayed to Saint Michael that he would be victorious. Already I want to go home.