Désirée (90 page)

"The sword of this General Bonaparte," Persson said suddenly. "The sword stood in the hall nearly every evening at the house in Marseilles. I—was very annoyed about it." Persson's colourless face was quite pink.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. "Persson—were you jealous?"

He turned away. "If I had ever imagined that a daughter of François Clary would have been happy in Stockholm, I would have—" He stopped.

I was speechless. He would have offered me a home and a shop—quite close to the Royal Palace. Close to—

"I need a new dress, Persson," I said softly.

He turned to me again, his face colourless again and very dignified.

"An evening dress, or one Your Majesty wishes to wear in the daytime?"

"An evening dress, which I must wear by day. Perhaps you've read in the paper that I'm to be crowned August 21. Have you any material that—well, that's suitable for a coronation robe?"

"Of course." Persson nodded. "The white brocade."

He opened the door, "François," he called. "Bring me the white brocade from Marseilles. You know which one." And to me, "I've taken the liberty of calling my son 'François' in memory of your papa."

I held the heavy roll of brocade on my knees. Oscar laid aside the framed broadside, and examined the material. "Wonderful—Mama, the real thing." I stroked the stiff silk, felt the woven threads of genuine gold. "Isn't it heavy, Mama?"

"Dreadfully heavy, Oscar. I carried the package myself to the travelling coach. M. Persson had so much luggage I had to help him."

"And Your Majesty's papa said that this brocade was suitable only for a queen's robe of state," Persson added.

"Why have you never offered it to anyone at the court?" I asked. "The late Queen would have loved it."

"I've kept the brocade in memory of your papa and the firm of Clary, Your Majesty. Besides—" His horseface assumed a superior air. "Besides, I am not a court purveyor. The brocade is not for sale."

"Not even today?" Oscar asked.

"Not even today, Your Highness."

I sat very still while Persson summoned his son. "François wrap up the brocade from the firm of Clary." And bowing before me, "May I have the honour of presenting the brocade to Your Majesty?"

My head dropped, I couldn't speak.

"I'll send the material to the Palace immediately, Your Majesty," Persson said, and I stood up. On the wallpaper over the high desk there was a light spot where the broadside had hung. "If Your Majesty will wait a moment—" Persson rummaged in the wastebasket, found a discarded newspaper and wrapped it around the frame.

"May I ask Your Majesty to accept this, too. Many year ago I promised to cherish this broadside, and throughout my life it has been sacred to me." The long teeth protruded as he smiled ironically. "I've wrapped it up so that Your Majesty won't be embarrassed carrying it. I myself have had several unpleasant experiences because of it."

Arm in arm like a pair of lovers Oscar and I walked back. The Palace came in sight, and I still hadn't told him. Desperately I searched for the right words. "Oscar, perhaps you feel you've wasted an afternoon because of me, but—" The first sentries presented arms.

"Come along, Oscar, I want to talk to you." I felt how impatient he was, but I had to stop on the bridge. The Mälar frothed beneath us. My heart contracted. At this hour, the lights of Paris begin to dance in the silent Seine.

"I've always secretly hoped that Persson would give me back Papa's broadside. And that's why I took you with me, Oscar."

"Are
you going to discuss the Rights of Man with me now?"

"Only that, Oscar." But he had no more time and was extremely irritable.

"Mama, for me the Rights of Man are no longer a revelation. Here every educated person has heard of them."

"Then we must see that the uneducated also learn them by heart," I said. "I still want to tell you that . . ."

"That I must fight for them? Shall I solemnly promise you that?"

"Fight? The Rights of Man have long since been proclaimed. You must only—defend them." I stared into the shimmering water. A childhood memory cropped up—a severed head rolling in bloody sawdust.

"Before and after their proclamation, much blood was shed. Napoleon degraded them by quoting them in his orders of the day. Others desecrated them, Oscar—over and again. But my son should stand up for them, and teach his children to."

Oscar was silent. He was silent for a long time, then took the package, took off the wrappings and let them flutter into the Mälar.

Just as we were against our side door he suddenly laughed. "Mama, your old admirer's declaration of love was priceless— if Papa only knew."

My coronation day
(August 21, 1829)

"Désirée, I implore you, don't be late for your own coronation!"

This sentence will pursue me to the end of my days. Jean-Baptiste shouted it at me continually while I desperately searched through all my bureau drawers. Marie helped me. And Marcelline and Yvette. Betweentimes I marvelled at Jean-Baptiste who today wore his own coronation panoply. Gold chains around his neck and the comic boots with the the ermine braid which up to now I'd seen only in portraits. The heavy coronation robe he would don later. When he put on his crown.

"Désirée, won't you ever be ready?"

"Jean-Baptiste, I can't find them, I can't."

"What are you looking for now?"

"My sins, Jean-Baptiste. I wrote them all down and the list has disappeared."

"My God, can't you remember them?"

"No, there are so many of them, all too insignificant to remember. That's why I wrote them all down. Yvette, look in the laundry again."

Before the coronation, the Shooting Star and I were to go to confession. We're the only Catholic members of the Protestant Bernadotte royal family in Lutheran Sweden. So the clergy— the Protestant clergy of Sweden and the Catholic priest who looks after the welfare of my soul—decided that I must make my confession quietly in the Palace chapel. Oscar had this chapel built on the top floor of the Palace for the
devout young granddaughter of the somewhat less pious older Josephine. Right after the absolution of my sins I was quickly to put on my coronation robes and drive in the state procession to the Storkyrka. Everything had been arranged. On the bed lay the white-gold dress made of the brocade Papa once held in his hand. Beside it the purple robe of the queens of Sweden, which had been shortened somewhat for me, and the small crown, freshly polished. I had not dared try it on.

"Mama, it's high time." Josefina had come in.

"But I can't find my list of sins," I moaned. "Could you lend me yours?"

The Shooting Star was indignant. "Mama, I have no list! One should remember one's sins."

"The sins are not in Your Majesty's laundry," Yvette announced.

We departed for the small salon. Oscar, in his gala uniform, was waiting there.

"I never realized your mama's coronation would arouse so much enthusiasm. Even in the small villages people are celebrating. Look down below, Oscar, it's black with people," Jean-Baptiste said to him. They were both hidden behind the curtains so they couldn't be seen from the street.

"Mama is tremendously popular," Oscar answered. "You don't know what Mama means to . . ."

Jean-Baptiste smiled at me. "Really?" he said to Oscar, but he was annoyed.

"You must hurry, you and Josefina. Have you your sins or haven't you, Désirée?"

"I haven't them," I said, and sank down exhausted on the sofa. "And Josefina won't lend me hers. What are your sins, Josefina?"

"Those I tell only the father-confessor." The Shooting Star smiled with tight-closed lips and her head a little to one side.

"What are your sins, Jean-Baptiste?" I inquired.

"I am a member of the Protestant Church. . . . Perhaps Josefina can help you out with a few sins on the way. You must go now!"

Yvette handed me my veil and gloves.

'"One should never expect help from one's family," I remarked bitterly.

"I know a confession for you, Mama. You've lived in sin for years with a man!" Oscar declared.

"This jest goes too far," Jean-Baptiste exclaimed. But I quieted him.

"Let him finish, Jean-Baptiste. What do you mean, darling?"

"The Catholic Church doesn't recognize civil marriages. Did you marry Papa in a church or in a registry office?"

"In a registry office, only in a registry office," I assured him

"There's your sin, Mama, a great sin of long standing. There —and now you must hurry."

We got there in time for confession, and dashed back breathless. In my salon the entire court had assembled. I took a quick look and rushed by the line of court curtsies. "Aunt, you haven't much time," Marcelline said in my dressing room. And my Marie—old, bent, but determined—ripped the clothes off my back. Yvette wrapped me in a hairdressers cape.

"Leave me alone," I begged, "please leave me alone a moment."

"Aunt, the archbishop is waiting in front of the church," Marcelline warned me. Then she finally disappeared.

If a woman is vain and studies her face every day in the mirror, then it's no shock to find it older. It happens so gradually. I am forty-nine years old, and I've laughed so much and wept so much that I have many little wrinkles around my eyes, and two lines down to the corners of my mouth, dating to the time that Jean-Baptiste was fighting the battle of Leipzig. . . . I rubbed some rose cream on my forehead and cheeks, stroked a tiny brush across my eyebrows, which Yvette keeps well plucked. Then silver paint on my eyelids. Just as la grande Josephine taught me. . . .

How many letters and deputations from all parts of the country are here today. As if Sweden had been waiting for years for my coronation. Jean-Baptiste can't understand it. Does he honestly believe that it's enough to be married to him in to become a queen? Doesn't he realize that this coronation
signifies my final acceptance? Jean-Baptiste, it is a bride's promise. This time I'll even go to church and swear before an altar to be loyal and serve you for better or worse. . . . And because a bride should be young and beautiful, I'll be generous with the rouge.

The crowds in the streets began to gather at five o'clock this morning to see me drive past. I mustn't disappoint them. Most women don't have to look young when they are forty- nine. Their children are grown or their husbands have arrived. They belong to themselves again. But not me. I'm only beginning. But it's not my fault I founded a dynasty. . . . I took some delicate brown powder and powdered my nose as thickly as possible. When the organ plays I'll weep. Organ music always makes me weep. And my nose will turn red. If only, once in my life—if only today I could look like a queen. I am so frightened. . . .

"How young you are, Désirée—not a single grey hair!" Jean-Baptiste stood behind me. He kissed my hair.

I had to laugh. "Lots of grey hairs, Jean-Baptiste, but dyed for the first time. Do you like it?"

No answer. I looked around. Jean-Baptiste was wearing the heavy ermine cape, and on his forehead the crown of the kings of Sweden. He seemed suddenly very strange and very large —no longer my Jean-Baptiste, but King Charles XIV John, the King.

The King stared at the yellowed broadside on the wall. He hadn't seen it before, it had been a long time since he'd been in my dressing room.

"What's that, little one?"

"An old broadside, Jean-Baptiste. The first printing of the Rights of Man."

Steep furrows between his eyebrows.

"My father bought it many years ago. When it was still damp from the press. I had to learn it by heart. Now this yellowing paper gives me strength. And I need strength, you know, I—" Tears streamed over my fresh make-up. "I wasn't born to be a queen."

Then I had to powder over the traces of my tears. "Yvette."

Jean-Baptiste asked, "May I stay here?" and sat down beside the dressing table. Yvette brought the curling iron, and began to roll up the little side curls.

"Don't forget Her Majesty's hair must lie flat on top or the crown won't sit right," Jean-Baptiste warned. He took out a paper and studied it.

"Your sins, Jean-Baptiste? What a long list!"

"No, notes for the coronation ceremony. Shall I read them to you once more?"

I nodded.

"Listen carefully. The coronation procession opens with pages and heralds in the costumes that were made for my coronation. Very pretty costumes, you'll be impressed. . . The heralds have fanfares. After them come members of the Government, then the deputies. Finally a delegation from Norway. You will, of course, be crowned also as Queen of Norway. I'd rather thought that perhaps you ought to have another coronation in Norway. In Christiania. The overwhelming and really touching joy with which all Sweden is celebrating your coronation makes me consider . . ."

"No," I said. "Not in Christiania. Under no circumstances!"

"Why not?"

"Desideria—the desired one. Here, but not in Norway. Never forget that you forced Norway into this union."

"It was necessary, Désirée."

"Perhaps it will last Oscar's lifetime. But not much longer. Anyway, then it won't matter . . ."

"Ten minutes before your coronation do you realize that you're talking treason?"

"In a hundred years we'll both be sitting on a comfortable cloud in heaven and we can discuss it again. By that time the Norwegians will again have declared their independence and, to annoy Sweden, have elected a Danish prince as their King. You and I, on our cloud, will have a good laugh. For this Dane will surely have a drop of Bernadotte blood in his veins, marriages between neighbours' children are so frequent. . . . Yvette, call Marie, she must help me put on my coronation dress."