Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

  “I thought it was the other brother who was looking for a property near Senlis. What’s his name? Lucien. The young one with the thick spectacles.”

  “But didn’t he just buy that big town house on Grand-Rue Vert?” “On a deputy’s salary?”

  Fortunée Hamelin whistled. “I love this champagne.” “Did you hear about Fortunées adventure, Josephine?” “She walked down the Champs-Élysées—naked to her waist.” “They dared me.” Fortunée Hamelin looked smug. “She practically started a riot.”

  “I still don’t understand why,” Fortunée said. “It’s not as if people haven’t seen a woman before.”

  “You should have read all the articles in the journals.”

  “Speaking of journals.” Minerva put down her cards. “Did any of you read that article in La Révélateur* Something about the Directors having known for a week about the defeat of our fleet?”

  “What defeat?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know.”

  They turned to me. Tears filled my eyes. Please, no, I didn’t want to be the one to tell them.

  November 4.

  Rumours that Alexandria has been burned, that Bonaparte is in retreat.

  November 16.

  Rumours that Bonaparte’s army is faltering, that he’s surrounded.

  December 12.

  My manservant returned from the market in tears. “General Bonaparte has been killed in Cairo!”

  Immediately, I set out for the palace to see Barras. I had resolved not to read the journals, much less to believe them, but this account was impossible to ignore—I had to know.

  The journey to the palace was a slow one. There were signs of disturbance, more so as I neared the market. Several times my carriage was recognized. One man doffed his hat as if for a funeral procession. I sat back, out of view.

  What if Bonaparte had been killed?

  I burst into tears the moment I saw Barras—in spite of the presence of his guests—for I saw the answer in his eyes. My knees gave way.

  As if from a distance I could hear Barras giving out orders for cold cloths and salts. He felt my pulse, pulled back my eyelids. “Please,” I said, struggling to sit up. I felt bile in my throat. A circle of faces was looking down on me, men’s faces.

  “Help me get her onto the bed in the next room,” I heard Barras say. He pulled me up. My feet were comically disobedient, my legs like those of a rag doll. Inexplicably, I began to giggle.

  “She’ll be all right in a moment,” Barras said. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

  I was laid out on the bed, my ties loosened, a comforter pulled over me. I closed my eyes, turned my head. “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what you know.”

  His name meant “Desert Lion,” he’d told his men.

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. Bonaparte had dreamt of riding an elephant, of wearing a turban. “Go on.”

  Soldiers! he’d called out. From these pyramids, forty centuries of history look down upon you!

  “That’s beautiful. He had a way of putting things.”

  He’d entered Cairo with the Koran in one hand, Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man in the other. Triumphant.

  “He had a great sense of theatre,” I said, closing my eyes, imagining his feeling of exultation at such a moment, what it must have been like for him, his soul infused with the spirit of destiny, walking in the footsteps of Alexandre the Great, of Caesar.

  He believed himself chosen. I opened my eyes. “Barras, he can’t be dead.”

  [Undated]

  Every day, rumours—Bonaparte lives, Bonaparte has perished. I grieve, I rejoice, I grieve again. I begin each day with a prayer, and a conviction that Bonaparte will survive, that he will endure, that he will overcome—but by nightfall, doubt and fear have come into my heart like evil demons.

  I have been reading through the letters Bonaparte sent me when we first were married. I read his burning words of love and I want to weep. I have not loved him as I should, have not given him my heart. There are so many things I want to tell him—and now I fear it may be too late.

  [Undated]

  People watch me for clues. “She’s not smiling. He must be dead,” I overheard a market woman say.

  December 23.

  I’ve not been out for two weeks, unable to face the looks of mourning, of exultation. Everywhere I go, I feel eyes.

  January 1, 1799, New Year’s Day.

  The bottle of ink in my escritoire was empty. I went upstairs. There were writing supplies in the guest room.

  It took an effort to push open the door. I stood for a moment, waited for something to shape itself in the dark. It was light out still, yet with the drapes drawn, no light penetrated. I pulled back the curtains, opened the windows.

  What was to become of him? I thought. And what of my son?

  A breeze swept into the room, fluttering papers to the floor. The clock under the glass bell struck. Bonaparte had wanted the room made into a second study—but there had been no time, in the end, to even discuss such matters. A desk, I recalled, shelves, and a desk in the corner for his secretary.

  Yes, I thought, it will be done. I will get to work now, call in the architects, the furnishers, the drapers—prepare for his return. For he will return.

  * Lancette (lance), laitue (lettuce), rat: a play on the words l’an sept les tuera.

  In which I have enemies everywhere

  January 3, 1799.

  “It’s the damned ague again,” Barras said from under a mountain of comforters. “A family tradition.” His face, surrounded by cambric, looked like an old woman’s.

  I dislodged Toto from the little chair beside Barras’s massive bed, took a seat. It alarmed me to see Barras so weakened.

  “It comes, it goes. Don’t look so worried.” He took a sip of the quinine water his chambermaid brought for him, then spat it out. “You could at least put some brandy in it.” She slammed the door behind her.

  “My father swore by rum,” I said. The room smelled unpleasantly of parrot.

  “And he’s dead.” Barras thumped the side of the mattress. Toto jumped up beside him, sniffed around before curling up beside his master.

  “So tell me, is there news?” I always felt anxious when summoned.

  “I just want you to be assured that all these rumours of Bonaparte’s defeat are false. We’ve had a report that he has assembled an army of one hundred thousand and is going to head into Syria.”

  “That’s wonderful news!” I said, wondering where Syria was. I would look it up on my map when I got home.

  “In England they shot cannon from the Tower of London, thinking that he’d been killed. There’s even a play running in London called Death of Bonaparte, I’m told. Now they’re going to have to shoot cannon to announce his resurrection.” He laughed. “But there was something in this morning’s London Morning Chronicle I thought I should show you.”

  “The English paper?”

  He nodded, fishing around in a stack of journals on his bedside table. “My secretary’s working on a translation right now. Where are my spectacles? Damn, I can’t find anything any more.”

  “It concerns Bonaparte?” I found his spectacles on the side table and handed them to him. Whenever there was news, I assumed it would be bad.

  “I wish I could read English.” Barras squinted at the journal, holding it at arm’s length. “I wish I could see.”

  “The name Beauharnais is in there,” I said, looking over his shoulder. Something about Eugène?

  “Ah, there’s Botot.”

  “You’re not going to like it,” Barras’s secretary warned us, a paper in his hand. He read out loud, “The publication of the letters confidential to be written—”

  “To be written? Or written?”

  “Written. Excuse me. Yes … of the letters confidential written by Bonaparte and his men to friends and family in France (letters by our navy intercepted) does a little honour to the morality of our cabinet. Such scanda
l cannot serve to make good our national to ennoble—”

  “Wait a minute, slow down, Botot. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe it’s my translation.”*

  “Go on.” I sat forward on my chair. Something about publishing letters? “One of these letters confiscated is from Bonaparte to his brother, a song on his wife’s debauchery—” My debauchery?

  Botot shrugged. “Another, from young Beauharnais—” Eugène? “One of the letters is from my son?”

  “… the hope expresses that his chère maman is less evil than she was represented.”

  “I don’t understand.” Evil? The air in the room was close, the fire blazing.

  “The English intend to publish these letters?” Barras demanded, his teeth chattering. “But that’s unethical. There are international agreements that apply.”

  “Damn the Royalists,” the parrot suddenly squawked.

  28 Nivôse, Luxembourg Palace

  Chère amie,

  We’ve finally obtained copies of the two letters referred to in the London Morning Chronicle. I don’t think it wise to send them to you by courier. I will be in this afternoon, if you would care to come by.

  Père Barras

  January 17, late afternoon.

  “You’ll be comforted to know I intend to have them banned,” Barras said, searching through the stacks on his desk. “Are they that bad?”

  “Ah, here’s one.” He handed it to me. “It’s a copy of the letter Bonaparte wrote his brother Joseph. But where’s that other one, the one from your son?”

  I glanced at the words, I am undergoing acute domestic distress, for the veil is now entirely rent.

  “The one from Eugène will explain.”

  Chère Maman,

  I have so many things to tell you that I do not know where to begin. For five days Bonaparte has looked very sad, ever since a conversation he had with Junot. From what little I could overhear, it had to do with Captain Charles—that he returned from Italy in your carriage, that he gave you your little dog, even that he is with you now.

  You know, Maman, that I do not believe a word of it. I am convinced that all this gossip has been made up by your enemies. I love you no less, no less long to embrace you.

  A million kisses, Eugène

  “This letter is going to be published in England?” I asked.

  “And the one from Bonaparte to Joseph, apparently. The bastards—the English are totally immoral. We have an unwritten agreement with them to respect private correspondence. Of course, we’ll see what we can do to prevent them from making the letters public. My dear, are you all right?”

  I tried to swallow. “I think so.” I felt so exposed, my life on display. I felt mortified—but angry, as well. What had I done to be ashamed of? Yes, Captain Charles gave me Pugdog; yes, he accompanied me on the return from Italy; and yes, he is a friend and I enjoy his company—and why not? “Paul, you understand, don’t you, the captain is just a friend.”

  “Of course! Is our pretty captain even interested in women? But don’t worry about rumours, darling, no one will know.” He twirled his thumbs, frowning. “I just can’t understand why Junot would go out of his way to upset Bonaparte.”

  “I think I know why,” I whispered, remembering Lisette’s words: You will be sorry.

  January 24.

  The dressmaker arrived at eleven, her three assistants carrying enormous bolts of fabric samples, boxes of laces and ribbons, books of drawings. I selected a particularly lovely creation. “I do not recommend that one,” Henriette said. “Your sister-in-law, Madame Leclerc, has one very like it.” “Pauline Leclerc is one of your clients?”

  “And such a curious little thing. Every time we have a fitting—quite often, for she requires a new gown every week—she wants only news of you, Madame.”

  “She asks you questions about me?”

  “Indeed, Madame. All about you.”

  January 25, afternoon.

  My milliner arrived at three. I showed her the sketch of the gown I had chosen, the fabric samples. “Lola, we’ve known each other a long time.” “A very long time, Madame.”

  “If I asked you a question, would you tell me the truth?”

  “Madame, if I didn’t know you better, I would think you had offended me,” she said, her eyes bulging out.

  “You must forgive me, I am not myself.” I wasn’t sure how I was going to ask. But I had to know. “Have you made hats for Madame Leclerc?”

  “Oh yes, Madame, she has kept my girls quite busy—a new hat each week, sometimes two,” she said, a straw form in her hand.

  “Does she ever … inquire of me? I am just curious, that’s all.”

  “She does like to talk, that one.” Lola wrapped a length of gauze around the crown of the straw form, fashioning a turban in the manner of the East.

  “She says things about me?” I asked, looking into the glass, adjusting the plume. The hat didn’t suit me.

  “Of course, I don’t believe a word of it.” Lola pulled the hat off me. “If I didn’t have my girls to look out for, I would have told her long ago that I wouldn’t be making any more hats for her. She’s fussy and she’s never on time, always keeping me and the girls waiting. And her with three lovers.”

  “Oh?” It was common knowledge that Pauline was having affairs with Generals Moreau, Macdonald and Beurnonville now that her husband had been posted to Lyons.

  “And a valet she gets to lift her out of her bath and carry her to her bed. It’s not a sin because he’s Negro and not really human, she says, but still, one can’t help but wonder. Really, Madame, she is making a bad name for the General, may God bless him in his trial. And as for you, what she told my girl Doré was that she has seduced all your lovers, one by one, and asked each one who was better, you or she, and what were your—” She flushed, tongue-tied.

  “Go on, Lola. I’m finding this amusing.”

  “Your tricks is how she puts it.” Lola grinned. Her two front teeth were missing. “You know, Madame—female ways with a man, special things you might do when he’s in a heat, things that make him mad for you. I have a few myself. Drives my Lugger crazy—” I liked to think of Lola driving her crippled husband mad with pleasure. “But then she says that your lovers say she’s just as good, that the only difference is experience. Which I don’t believe for even a moment, Madame.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what Lola didn’t believe. “Please inform your girls, Lola, that I have no lovers.”

  Lola looked at me with an expression of incredulity. “But Madame, even I have lovers.”

  [Undated]

  I’ve received three Bodin Company bank notes, but I sent them all directly to Barras to pay off that debt. Others will have to wait. Joseph Bonaparte has cut me off entirely.

  February 1.

  The Seine flooded. Poor Thérèse—her lovely home is waist-high in mud. Barras has taken her in—Thérèse, the little girl, the nanny and eleven servants. I suspect he’ll find accommodations for them quickly.

  February 6.

  The Glories met at Thérèse’s (beautiful) new house on Rue de Baby-lone—a “gift” from Barras. After admiring the décor, after debating whether to play commerce, casino or loo, after exchanging news of our children and grandchildren, lovers and spouses, we settled down to what has, of late, become our main topic of conversation—gossip about the Bonaparte clan.

  “I finally met the hiccupper,” Madame de Crény announced.

  “Elisa Bonaparte?”

  “She introduced herself to me as a femme savante.”

  “She’s here in Paris?” I asked, playing a card. “I thought she and her husband were in Marseille.” Sadly, their child had recently died, I knew.

  “She left her husband in Marseille and is now living in Paris with her brother Lucien.”

  “I hear she’s started a salon.”

  “I went. The entire time she reclined on a sofa fanning herself.” Thérèse flicked her scarf in an imitat
ion of a woman putting on airs. “Pauline Leclerc was there, as well—alone, I might add.”

  “Serves her right. I heard her three lovers discovered each other—”

  “—and all agreed to abandon her!”

  But the big news was that Joseph had just purchased Mortefontaine, one of the most regal estates in the country.

  “I hear he’s pouring millions into it—a lake, an orangery, a theatre.” “Where does the money come from?” “His wife’s dowry?”

  I shrugged, pulling in my winnings (eleven francs). Julie’s dowry of 100,000 francs was substantial, true, but it was not enough to buy and renovate an estate like Mortefontaine. It just didn’t add up.

  “Every gentleman requires a country seat, Joseph told me.”

  “And every gentlewoman, I should think,” Minerva said, nudging me.

  “Poor Josephine. She’s the only Bonaparte without a country estate.”

  I rolled my eyes. Poor Josephine indeed.

  “I thought you and Bonaparte make an offer on a country château?”

  I nodded. “We did, for a place on the Saint-Germain road.” Malmaison—a property I’d fallen madly in love with. “But the offer was refused. And then Bonaparte left for Egypt.” I’d asked a land agent to look into the purchase again, but I’d yet to hear back.

  “Now’s the time to buy.”

  “Prices aren’t going to go much lower.”

  February 8—at Aunt Désirée and the Marquis’s small but lovely new house in Saint-Germain.

  The Marquis is eighty-five today. “I could go at any time,” he told me, making an attempt to snap his fingers. Aunt Désirée had dressed him up in his blue velvet smoking jacket.

  I smiled. “I think you will live to one hundred.”

  “I am content to die now but for one thing.”

  I tucked the comforter around his legs and moved his invalid chair closer to the fire. I knew what it was, this “one thing.” He stilled my hand. “Before I die, I must see François,” he said, his little rheumy eyes filling. François, his émigré son.

  “Marquis, I’ve tried, but I—” Can’t, I started to say, but the words, “I’ll keep trying” came out instead.