Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

by Sandra Gulland

  “I won’t incommode you, Joseph. As you are aware, the Ministry of War has become indifferent to Bonaparte’s plight. Another rescue must be attempted.” I laced my fingers together. “If we united, we might have an impact. For your brother’s sake …”

  Joseph shrugged. “It’s useless. I’ve done all that I can.”

  October 5.

  Glorious news. Bonaparte has had a victory over the Turks at Aboukir. Maybe now men will listen, maybe now they will work for his return.

  October 13—dusk.

  The windows of the palace glimmered with the light of a thousand candles, illuminating the faces of the beggars camped by the Palace gate. “Citoyenne Bonaparte,” they called out to me in chorus, and then began singing “Chant du départ,” which they knew I would reward with a shower of coins.

  Director Gohier’s valet announced me with dignity. I stood only for a moment, aware of the heads turning, the stares. There were about twenty or thirty present, a select group. Barras, his scarlet cloak draped dramatically over one shoulder, was on the window seat, conversing with a woman (an opera singer) who regarded him with a bored, voluptuous look. Talleyrand, distinct in black, was standing by the fireplace, leaning on his ebony cane. He looked up, grimaced, his broad forehead glistening. Seated nearby, the assistant to the Minister of War was talking with the Minister of the Interior. Good, I thought, assessing the crowd. Many of the key people I needed to talk to were here.

  Director Gohier’s wife greeted me with arms outstretched. “I love your hat,” she whispered. “A Lola creation? I knew it. I adore those gigantic silk flowers.” I enjoyed the Director’s wife, but in befriending her I was not blind to the importance of her husband in my cause. The powerful Director Gohier had been vehement in his opposition to Bonaparte. By degrees, I had succeeded in softening him.

  After civilities, I joined the group at the hazard table. The dice felt loose and smooth in my hands. I’d won over two hundred francs when I heard Barras say, “Well, look who’s here.”

  I looked toward the big double doors. There, standing without introduction, was the Minister of Police, my friend and spy, Citoyen Fouché. He came straight up to me.

  “Citoyen Fouché, how good to see you.” But there was something alarming in his expression.

  “May I speak to you in private, Citoyenne?” But even before we’d reached the antechamber, he handed me a scrap of paper.

  I turned it over in my hand. “What is this? I don’t understand.”

  “Your son sent it. It came by semaphore.”*

  “Eugène?”

  Director Gohier was sitting at the silent whist table, oblivious to all but his cards. “President Director.” I leaned to whisper into his ear. “There’s something you should know. Bonaparte is back; he’s in the south.”

  Gohier put his cards face down. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, Citoyens, Citoyenne,” he said, addressing his guests. He signalled to Barras as he hurried me out of the room.

  “With respect, Director Barras, from a legal perspective General Bonaparte has deserted his army.” Director Gohier crossed his arms, as if bracing himself against some invisible force. “I ask you, in all honesty, how can we not arrest him?”

  “Arrest Bonaparte and the nation will rise up against us, I guarantee it,” Barras said.

  I stood. “Directors Gohier, Barras—please, if you will excuse me. I must go.” Both men looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was present. “I’m going to try to meet Bonaparte on the road, before he gets to Paris.” Before his brothers get to him.

  “Now?” Director Gohier asked, astonished.

  “But the roads aren’t safe,” Gohier’s wife exclaimed. “And it’s so frightfully cold.”

  “And the fog,” Barras objected.

  I felt dazed, a strange combination of both joy and fear. It was true, the fog was thick—too thick to travel, especially at night. “I’ll leave at dawn.”

  “In that little coach of yours?” Director Gohier pulled the bell rope. His valet appeared, scratching his ear. “Tell Philip to ready the government travelling coach.” He put up his hand. “I insist. It can be made into a sleeping compartment.” He grinned at Barras. “Handy that way.”

  My manservant met me at the door holding up a lantern, which threw a ghostly light. “General Bonaparte is back,” the coachman called out to him before I could say anything.

  Gontier looked at me, not comprehending. A gust of chill wind blew dead leaves into the foyer. “The General’s back from Egypt?” he asked, pulling the door shut against the cold.

  I nodded, shivering. “He’s in the south. Eugène sent a message, by semaphore.”

  Hortense appeared in her nightclothes, a red woollen shawl draped over her shoulders. “What’s going on?” Yawning and then sneezing.

  “General Bonaparte is back,” Gontier exclaimed.

  “And Eugène is with him,” I cried out, my self-control giving way.

  Hortense put down her candle. “Eugène is back?”

  “They landed in the south, two days ago. They’re on their way to Paris. I’m going to meet them.” I would need linens, provisions, blankets, I thought.

  “I’m coming too,” Hortense said, her teeth chattering. It was freezing, even in the foyer.

  I paused, considered. “But you have a cold, sweetheart.” “I’m better now!”

  “I won’t be stopping,” I cautioned her. “I’ll even be sleeping in the coach.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Her golden curls framed her big blue eyes—her irresistible blue eyes. Bonaparte was fond of Hortense; it might help to have her with me. And I was in need of help. “You’ll wear your fur bonnet?”

  “Anything!” Even that.

  It was still dark when the enormous government travelling coach came rumbling down the narrow little laneway, harnessed to four strong carriage horses. It did not take long to ready it: a charcoal heater, down pillows, fur coverlets, bedpans, medications (laudanum for my nerves and back pain, spirits of hartshorn and Gascoigne’s powder for Hortense’s cold). We took an enormous basket of provisions: bread, eggs cooked hard, comfits and bonbons for Hortense, wine and brandy for us both.

  The sun was just rising when finally we started out, the big coach scraping twice against the garden wall. I waved to the porter, yawning in the door of his shack. The morning felt hopeful.

  We careened toward the south. I had thought that we would sleep, but we could not. Hortense was effervescent with excitement. Her beloved brother was alive, he was safe, he was coming home. And myself? I was going to meet my husband.

  October 15 (I think)—Auxerre.

  We have stopped briefly in a posting-station in Auxerre. We have requested a private room while a wheel is being repaired. The response of the people to the news of Bonaparte’s return has been overwhelming. All along the route arches of triumph are being built in his honour. Men, women and children line the road in hopes of seeing him pass. Last night the lights from all the torches made a magical effect. “The road to heaven,” Hortense said, awed.

  Such outpouring of enthusiasm is akin to madness, surely. Whenever we stop, we are mobbed, people crying out, “Is it true? Is the Saviour coming?”

  Savage,* I thought I heard the first time. Is the savage coming. “Pardon?”

  “The Saviour!” a cobbler exclaimed. “Our saviour.”

  October 16—Châlon-sur-Saône, dawn.

  We’ve missed him. At Lyons, he took the Bourbon route, west through Nevers, his brothers in close pursuit.

  “Ah, they’ll get there first,” Hortense said, as if this were a game.

  “Back to Paris,” I told the coachman, my anxiety rising. “Fast.”

  October 19—Paris, late morning

  It was after midnight when our coach pulled up at my gate, the horses steaming. There was a light in the porter’s shack, illuminating the sleeping forms of the beggars. The coachman jumped down and pounded on the door. “Chandler, wake up, open t
he gate.”

  I nudged Hortense. We were exhausted from five days of travel, eating and sleeping in the coach. Violently jolting over the rough roads had inflamed my back, my hip. The night before I’d been unable to sleep at all. A dreamlike daze possessed me, a curious tingling in my skin. Approaching the dark streets of Paris—the smell of garbage, even in the cold fall air; the mud hardened into ruts; the taste of smoke; the shadows of beggars and ruffians huddled around fires in the alleyways—I felt a sense of doom come over me.

  “Are we here?” Hortense asked, sneezing and blowing her nose. “It’s so cold. What time is it?”

  “We’re here.” I gathered up my basket, sorting through the travel clutter. I put my hand to my hair; I’d braided it, fastened it with a tortoise-shell comb, but some strands had worked loose. Why didn’t the porter open the gate? I took off my gloves so that I could do up the laces of my boots.

  The coachman came to the carriage door, holding a torch. “There’s a problem,” he said, his breath making mist. A freezing blast of air came in the open door.

  I pulled the musty fur coverlet around my shoulders. “Is the General not here?” And Eugène!

  The coachman nodded. “But the porter—” He stopped.

  “What is it, Antoine?” One of our horses whinnied. The porter was standing in the door of his shack, looking out. The shadows from a lantern gave his face a diabolic look.

  “He can’t open the gate,” the coachman said finally.

  “Can’t open it?” Hortense giggled, tying her hat ribbons.

  “What do you mean, he can’t?”

  “General’s orders, Citoyenne.”

  “Bonaparte’s ordered the gate locked?” Perhaps it was a security measure. “The porter said to tell you that your belongings are in his shack, all trunked up.”

  Hortense looked at me, puzzled.

  “I—I don’t understand,” I said. Trunked up?

  “The General, he …” The coachman looked up at the night sky, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “He moved your belongings out.”

  And then I understood—Bonaparte had dared to move me out of my own house, dared to lock my own gate against me, dared to instruct my porter to forbid me entrance!

  I was furious. I started to get out.

  “So we’re walking?” Hortense asked, fastening the top button of her cape. “From here?”

  It was dark in the verandah antechamber. Hortense pulled the bell rope. I leaned against one of the posts, panting from the effort to keep up with my daughter. “Here comes somebody.” Hortense jumped up and down so that she could see in through the little window in the door. “Oh, it’s Mimi.” Then she shrieked and burst into giggles. “Maman, I see Eugène! I see Eugène!” “You see him?”

  “Oh, he’s dark as an Arab!” she hissed, spinning, her hands on her cheeks in mock horror.

  The door swung open. “At last—you’re back.” Mimi rolled her eyes as if to say, You would not believe what’s been going on here. “It’s your mother and sister,” she said over her shoulder.

  Eugène was standing in front of the dining room fireplace with a wool blanket draped around his shoulders. He put down the candle, held his arms open wide, the blanket falling.

  Hortense threw herself into her brother’s arms, bursting into sobs. He held her shyly, blinking. He looked like a young man—thin, tall … and so dark.

  “Maman,” he said, his voice breaking. His voice told me so much—that he loved me, that I was in serious trouble, that he had tried.

  He stooped to embrace me. He smelled of cigar smoke, the smell of a man, not a boy. The smell of a soldier, I thought, not without regret. I put my hand on his cheek, surprised by the stubble of beard. He was smiling, yet there was something amiss, a tremor around his eyes, a slight convulsive twitch.

  “I can’t tell you—” I took a sharp breath. “I love you so much! We …” But I could not speak for a choking feeling welled up in me.

  “We thought you had died!” Hortense sobbed, all the nights of cold-sweat dreams breaking loose in her. She took a shuddering breath and laughed at herself, and then at the three of us, for we were all weeping.

  Sniffing, my breath coming in little gasps, I pulled away. There was so much I wanted to ask him—about Egypt, his injury, how they’d managed to return*—but now was not the time. “Bonaparte—is he …?”

  “He’s in the study,” Eugène said.

  “Upstairs?” In the room I had had made over for him. I took up a candle.

  “Maman, you know …?”

  “I know.”

  As I turned the narrow stairs onto the half-storey landing, a cry escaped me. In the dark at the top of the stairs, a black man had leapt to his feet in front of the door to the study. The light of my candle caught the curved edge of a scimitar, the whites of his eyes, his teeth. “You gave me a fright,” I said, catching my breath. He was young, more than a boy, but not quite a man.

  He said something to me in a foreign tongue. “I don’t understand,” I said, stuttering a little. “I am Madame Bonaparte. I must speak to my husband. Is the General in there?” I spoke slowly and simply, so that he might understand. But I kept my distance.

  “Bonaparte!” He clasped the pommel of his scimitar.

  The name Bonaparte he understood. “Me,” I said, pointing at my chest, “me wife of Bonaparte.” I paused, for effect, then said, “Go!” with a sweep of my free hand.

  With relief I saw that he understood and, sweetly obedient, slipped past me down the stairs. I went to the study door, knocked. There was no answer, although I heard movement within. “Bonaparte?” I turned the handle, pushed. “It’s me, Josephine!” The door was locked. “Please, open the door.” I knocked again, called out. I pressed my ear to the wood. I shook at the handle, turned it, rattled it. “Bonaparte!” Louder this time. “I know you’re in there. Please!”

  Silence.

  It was cold in the corridor. My thoughts were in disorder, slowed by exhaustion, anticipation. And now, I was stumped. I hit the door with my palm. “Bonaparte, let me in! I can explain. It’s not what you think.” I pressed my forehead against the door. “I love you,” I said, but too softly for him to hear. Then I banged on the door, violently, more violently than I’d intended. “I love you,” I cried out, weeping now. You bastard.

  After a long and terrible time, my children came to my aid. Hortense looked distraught. Eugène was standing behind her with a look of pained concern, his cheek twitching. I felt humiliated; how much did they know? I pulled my shawl around my shoulders. Why was it so cold? What season were we in?

  Hortense stooped down beside me, caressed a lock of hair out of my eyes, as if I were her child and she my mother. By the light of the single guttering candle she had an ethereal look. “Oh, Maman, please don’t cry,” she said, handing me a handkerchief.

  Her tenderness made me weep all the harder. “He won’t open the door.”

  “We know,” Eugène said.

  Of course. The house was small. “There must be a key somewhere,” I said. Or an axe.

  “Maman.” Eugène looked uncomfortable. “You can’t just—”

  “There is no key,” Mimi hissed up from the ground floor. “I looked.

  He must have it.”

  He—General Bonaparte. My husband. Hortense and Eugène’s stepfather. Barricaded on the other side of a small oak door. “This must be what a siege is like,” I said. A shadow of pain crossed my son’s face.

  “Eugène, maybe you could say something to the General,” Hortense said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “There is something you should know, Hortense.” I glanced at Eugène. “Bonaparte believes I have been—”

  “It’s all right, Maman.” Hortense gave me a knowing look, an expression curiously woman-to-woman.

  “Just keep trying, Maman,” Eugène whispered.

  Tears filled my eyes. What had I done to deserve such children? I felt I had somehow tarnished them.

  Eug
ène helped me to my feet. I pressed my forehead against the door. Bonaparte, please! Listen to me!

  How much can a man take? Now I know: a very great deal. Bonaparte, in any case.

  Yet when he finally lifted the latch, it was a shockingly frail man I saw before me. He’d wound grey flannel strips around his head in the manner of a turban. His skin, like Eugène’s, was bronzed by the sun. Although his face was in shadow, it was clear that he, too, had been weeping.

  We three, my children and I, froze in surprise. After hours of crying, pleading, praying—cursing—we’d come to accept the fact of that locked door.

  I don’t recall the children leaving, only the silence, the sudden awareness that Bonaparte and I were alone. I’d been talking to myself for days, imagining this moment, imagining what I would say. But now, words seemed foreign. “It’s cold out here in the corridor,” I said finally, starting to shiver.

  I followed him into the study and sat down in the leather chair by the fire. The room smelled of cinnamon and ginger. A snuffbox decorated with an Egyptian motif lay open on a side table. A single lantern burned on the desk, which was already covered with papers and reports, books and maps.

  Bonaparte pulled the door shut, not so much for privacy, but for warmth, I suspected. “Well? Are you not going to speak?” he said, holding his hands out over the fire. He’d put several waistcoats on over a linen shirt, and over that a heavy woollen smoking jacket. The layers of clothing made him look thin. He grabbed a chair and sat down, leaning on one arm with the air of an indulgent monarch. “You’ve been wailing to be let in, and now that I’ve opened the door to you, you have nothing to say.”

  I sat watching him, fighting the anger that was growing in me. “It is you who say nothing.” “I am speaking.”