Désirée (80 page)

"We ought to have the Norwegian coat of arms painted on the carriage, too," Rosen said in great excitement. "His Highness, the Crown Prince, is greater than Charles XII."

I asked him for a map, to try to find the second country of which I'm now Crown Princess.

Paris, March
5,
1815

This afternoon began like many other afternoons. With the help of my nephew Marius, I was drafting a request to the eighteenth Louis to extend Julie's permit to remain in France as my guest. Julie was in the small salon writing a long letter saying nothing to Joseph in Switzerland. Then Count Rosen came in and announced a visitor: the Duke of Otranto, M. Fouché

This man is incomprehensible to me. When, in the days of the Revolution, members of the National Assembly voted on the fate of Citizen Louis Capet, Representative Fouché spoke up loud and clear for
"la morte."
And now he's moving heaven and earth to persuade the executed man's brother to restore him to favour and give him a post. "Let him come in," I said disgustedly.

Joseph Fouché was in a state. His parchment-coloured face was flecked with red. I ordered tea. He stirred his cup amiably. "I hope I haven't interrupted Your Highness in some important business?"

"My sister has just drafted a request to His Majesty," Julie answered.

"To which Majesty?" Fouché inquired.

It was the silliest question in the world. "To King Louis, naturally," Julie said irritably. "To my knowledge no other majesty rules in France."

"This morning I might have had an opportunity to support your petition, madame." He sipped his tea and peered at Julie with amusement. "His Majesty offered me a post. In fact, a very influential one—Minister of Police."

"Impossible!" I burst out.

"And?" Julie asked wide-eyed.

"I refused." Joseph Fouché took a few more sips. 'If the King offered you the Ministry of Police," declared Marius, "he must feel insecure. And God knows he has no more reason to."

"Why not?" Fouché was surprised.

"The lists. The secret lists with the names not only of followers of the Republic, but also those of the Emperor. This secret, comprehensive list gives him absolute power," Marius asserted. "They say your name, Duke, is first on the list."

"The King has discontinued the compilation of this list," said Fouché, and put his teacup on the little table. "In his place, I'd feel insecure, too. After all, he's gaining ground."

"Tell me, just whom are you talking about?" I asked.

"The Emperor, of course."

The whole room began to spin, shadows danced before my eyes. I felt I was going to faint. Something I hadn't done since the days when I was expecting Oscar. . . .

As from afar, Fouché's voice reached me. "Eleven days ago the Emperor with his troops embarked at Elba, and on the first of March they landed at Golfe Juan."

And Marius, "That's fantastic, he has only four hundred men with him."

Fouché's answer: "—have gone over to him, kiss his coat and march with him in triumph to Paris."

"And abroad, Duke?" in a harsh French accent—Count Rosen, naturally. "The other countries will . . ."

"Désirée—you're awfully pale, aren't you well?" That was Julie.

And Fouché, "Quick, a glass of water for Her Highness—" They held a glass to my lips. I drank. The salon stopped spinning. Fuzzy outlines came back into focus.

My nephew Marius' face beamed. "He'll have the entire army behind him. No one can cut in half the pay of French officers who have made this nation great. We're on the march —on the march once more."

"Against all of Europe?" asked Marcelline dryly. (Her hus
band didn't come home. He fell in the fighting near Paris— actually into the arms of a young girl who hid him.)

My glance fell on a lackey who wanted to say something and kept trying to be heard. I gave him a chance. A new visitor—the wife of Marshal Ney.

Mme Ney is as massive as a grenadier and as overwhelming as an act of God. In she stormed, panting, and clasped me to her mighty bosom. "Well, what do you say to that, madame?" she boomed. "But he'll show him ! He pounded the desk with his fist and swore that he would show him!"

"Do sit down, madame," I pleaded. "And tell me who will show what to whom?"

"My husband will show the Emperor!" she roared, and fell into the nearest chair. "He's just had orders to attack the Emperor at Besançon And to take him prisoner. Do you know what my old Ney answered? He vowed he'd capture him like a mad bull, put him in a cage and exhibit him all over the country."

"Forgive me, madame," said Fouché"I don't quite understand. Why is Marshal Ney so angry at his former commander in chief and Emperor?"

Not until that moment had Mme Ney noticed Fouché, and she was dreadfully embarrassed. "So—you're here, too," she said. "May I ask why? You're still in disfavour at court? You are still in retirement on your estates?"

Fouché cackled and shrugged his shoulders.

Mme Ney became uneasy. Very uneasy. "You don't seriously believe that the Emperor will succeed?" she asked in an unusually subdued voice.

"Yes." Marius was emphatic. "Yes, madame, he will succeed."

Julie rose. "I'll write my husband all about it. It will interest him very much."

Fouché shrugged. "Don't bother. The King's secret police would get your letter immediately. And I'm sure, madame, that the Emperor has for a long time been in cahoots with your husband. It's practically taken for granted that the Emperor informed all his brothers of his plans from Elba."

"You don't believe it's an organized plan?" Mme Ney snorted. "My husband would have known about that."

"That the Army is discontented because both officers and men are on half-pay, and the pensions of old soldiers and of the disabled have been reduced can hardly have escaped the notice of Marshal Ney," thundered my nephew Marius.

"Nor the Emperor's on Elba," was Fouché's parting shot.

A long pause ensued. Mme Ney turned to me abruptly, her chair creaked, her deep voice growled. "Madame, you, as the wife of a marshal, will see I'm right, it is . . ."

"You're wrong, madame. I'm no longer the wife of a marshal, but the Crown Princess of Sweden and Norway. Please excuse me, I have a headache."

I had such a headache as never before. Painful, pounding. I lay on my bed, and had nothing to say to anyone. Not even to myself. Especially not to myself. . . . One can hide from the family, one can escape from servants. But one can under no circumstances evade Hortense. At eight o'clock that evening Marie announced "the former Queen of Holland, now the Duchess of St. Leu." I pulled the covers up over my head. Five minutes later Marcelline was wailing at my door. "Aunt, you must come, Hortense is sitting in the small salon, and says she'll wait for you, even if it takes all night. She's brought her sons with her."

I never moved. Ten minutes later Julie leaned over my bed. "Désirée! Don't be so cruel. Poor Hortense implores you to receive her."

I resigned myself to my fate. "Let her come up, but only for a minute."

Hortense shoved her sons in first. "Don't deny my poor children your protection, take them until everything is over," she sobbed. Hortense has got very thin in the last year and her mourning makes her look very pale, her colourless hair is untidy and neglected.

"Your children aren't in danger," I said.

"Yes, they are," she whispered despairingly. "The King can have them arrested any moment and hold them as hostages
against the Emperor. My children are still the heirs of the dynasty, madame."

"The heir to the dynasty is named Napoleon, like his father —and lives at present in Vienna," I said calmly.

"And if something happens to this child —while he's a prisoner—in Vienna?" she hissed.

"What then, madame?"

Hortense gazed lovingly at her two angular little boys. A slightly mad smile hovered around her lips as she brushed back a strand of hair from the younger child's forehead. "The King will not dare follow my children into the house of the Swedish Crown Princess. I implore you—"

"Of course, the children can stay here."

"Napoleon Louis, Charles Louis Napoleon—kiss your kind aunt's hand."

I hastily yanked the covers over my head again.

But I wasn't destined to rest that evening. I had hardly got to sleep when candlelight and rattling woke me up again. Someone was rummaging in my chest of drawers. I sat up.

"Julie! Are you searching for something?"

"My crown, Désirée. Do you know what's become of my little crown, the one I once forgot in your dressing room?"

"Yes, it knocked around for several days, and then I put it in the bottom drawer of the chest. Under the warm underwear from Sweden. But what do you want with a crown in the middle of the night, Julie?"

"I want to try it on," she said softly. "And perhaps polish it, so it shines again."

Paris, March 20, 1815

Last night Louis XVIII slunk out of the Tuileries through the back door. And now the Bourbons are back in their perennial exile. The rumour is they stopped at Ghent, so the old gentleman must have been very tired. . . . This morning, General Exelmans ordered the occupation of the deserted Tuileries and the Tricolour hoisted. In the streets broadsides with a proclamation by Napoleon are being distributed. And no one has ever worn a white cockade! Every lapel sports a blue-white-red ribbon. People's buttonholes and coat lapels must be stretched and worn out.

The lackeys and cleaning women in the Tuileries—always the same, of course—are once again working like people possessed. The new curtains and draperies have been torn down. And the dark-green ones with the bees taken out of storage and rehung. Hortense has taken charge. She's had all the gilded eagles hauled out of the cellar, and has dusted them personally.

At my house, too, everything is unfortunately at sixes and sevens. A courier from the Emperor informed Julie that His Majesty will reach the Tuileries at nine o'clock this evening. Good—Julie will be there swathed in purple, the crown of an Imperial princess on her head. (Probably crooked.) She is so excited and scatter-brained that she can't even fix her daughters' hair.

"The rest of the family are still on the way. Hortense and I have to receive him alone . . . Désirée, I'm so afraid of him!"

"Nonsense, Julie, he's the same Bonaparte he was in Marseilles. Your brother-in-law, Julie. What is there to be afraid of?"

"Is he really the same? This triumphal procession—from
Elba to Golfe Juan, from Golfe Juan through Grenoble to Paris! Regiments falling on their knees before him, Marsha Ney . . ."

"Yes, the great rebel, Marshal Ney, went over to Napoleon with flags flying. The entire Army is convinced that now everything will be as it was in the old days. War-time bonuses rapid advancements, marshals' batons, posts as governor, distribution of kingdoms . . . Julie, the Army cheers, but all the other people are silent!"

Uncomprehendingly, she stared at me. Then she borrowed the earrings of the Queen of Sweden and departed. I hope Joseph will bring back her jewels . . .

In the meantime, Marie filled my bathtub in the dressing room and scrubbed the Bonaparte boys. They are driving to the Tuileries later with Julie. I must, at Hortense's request, use the curling irons on their straight hair.

"Do you believe he's coming back, Aunt?" Louis Napoleon suddenly asked me.

"Of course, the Emperor's nearly in Paris."

"I mean his son, the little King of Rome," said Louis Napoleon hesitantly, avoiding my eyes. Silently I curled the fl lock of Louis Napoleon's hair.

Then I got out my diary and began to write.

Late at night.
At eight o'clock this evening a state carriage from the stables of the Tuileries arrived for Julie and the children. The carriage still carried the Bourbon coat of arms. My house became very quiet. I began to pace restlessly around the rooms. Count Rosen leaned out of an open window.

"I'd give a lot to be there," he admitted.

"Where?"

"In front of the Tuileries—I'd like to see the arrival."

"Put on a civilian suit, pin on a tricolour badge, and wait for me!" I exclaimed. He looked dazed. "Hurry," I urged. With which I slipped into a coat and grabbed a hat.

We had trouble getting to the Tuileries. First we hired a carriage, then we left it because one could get farther on foot. An impenetrably dense crowd pushed toward the Tuileries.
Pushed and was pushed. I clung to my young Count's arm so as not to lose him in the throng. We tried to go forward but found ourselves hemmed in.

The Tuileries were brightly lighted as on the night of a great ball. But I knew that the great ballroom was practically empty. Julie, Hortense, two little girls, two little boys. The Duke of Vicenza and Marshal Davout, and perhaps a few generals. That was all. . . .

Suddenly mounted guards rode full tilt into the crowd. "Clear the way!" In the distance a storm seemed to have broken loose. The storm moved closer, roared nearer, was upon us.
"Vive l'Empereur! Vive l'Empereur!"
the mob bellowed and boomed. The faces of the people next to us seemed to be all mouths, yelling mouths. . . . The carriage came in sight, the horses galloping wildly toward the Tuileries. Officers of all ranks, from all regiments, galloped after it. Around us and over us reverberated one single shout.