Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe (3 page)

Indeed, I’m learning never to predict how things might be with him. He can be imperious and insensitive one minute, tender and devoted the next. Last night we talked and talked …

“Like foam on the wave,” he told me, caressing my breast.

“I like that,”
I
said, watching the watery undulations that the firelight was making on the wall, thinking of the sea. “The poetry or this …?”

“That was poetry?
And that.”
His hands are soft, his touch surprisingly gentle.

“It’s a line from
Carthon
by Ossian.
Her breasts were like foam on the wave, and her eyes like stars of light.”

It took me a moment to realize who he meant. Bonaparte pronounced the Scottish bard’s name like “ocean.”

“Alexandre the Great chose Homer as his poet, Julius Caesar chose Virgil—and I have chosen Ossian.”

“Bonaparte, you disturb me when you talk like that.”

“Why? Don’t you like that progression: Alexandre, Caesar …
Napoleoni?”

“I’m serious. Can’t you be a normal man?”

“Aren’t I a ‘normal’ man?” He pressed against me.

“Well, in that respect, yes.” In that respect, absolutely. Except that Bonaparte was insatiable.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Of course!” I was enjoying the quiet intimacy of our talk, this late-night pillow confession.

“Sometimes I think I’m the reincarnation of Alexandre the Great.” He glanced at me. “Now you’ll think me mad.”

“I notice you read about Alexandre the Great a lot,” I said, not knowing exactly how to respond to such a statement. It was true—there were things about Bonaparte that seemed strange to me.

“You don’t believe in that sort of thing?”

“Sometimes. But not always. When I was a girl, a fortune-teller predicted I would be unhappily married and then widowed.” “So you see? The prediction came true.”

“Yes.” My first marriage had certainly been an unhappy one. “But she also predicted that I would become Queen.”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “That’s interesting.”

“More than a queen, she said.” But not for very long. “So
you
see, predictions are often just foolishness.”

“Let’s be foolish now.”

“Again?”
I smiled, wrapping my legs around him. “You have no idea, do you, how beautiful you are. You are the most beautiful woman in Paris.” “Bonaparte, don’t be silly.”

“I’m serious! Everything about you enchants me. Don’t laugh. Sometimes, watching you, I think I’m in the presence of an angel come down to earth.”

I stroked his fine, thin hair, looked into his great grey eyes. I felt confused by the intensity of his feeling. I have never been so loved before. My first husband scorned me; Bonaparte worships me. It makes me want to weep. The truth, the terrible truth, is that I feel lonely in my husband’s arms. If I am an angel, then why does my heart not open?

Throughout the night, I heard the clock chime one, two, three o’clock. At four bells, Bonaparte wasn’t there. I listened for the sound of his footsteps, watched for a flicker of candlelight, but the house was dark, silent. I tried to go back to sleep, but could not, night thoughts haunting me. Night doubts, night fears. Finally I put on my dressing gown, my slippers, and with a candle walked the rooms. From the half-storey landing I saw a light below. I slipped down the stairs and went to the open door of the study. Bonaparte was there, leaning over the octagonal table, holding a lantern above a map. I watched him like a thief. What did he see, looking over that map? He looked so intent. What were his thoughts, his dreams?

“Bonaparte?” I called out, finally.

He looked up, startled. “Josephine,” he whispered wondrously, as if he had found me.

Early afternoon.

What commotion! I have only a minute. Tonight Bonaparte leaves for the south, to take command of the Army of Italy. The entire household is engaged in frantic activity. My scullery maid is taking in his breeches
(he balked at the expense of a tailor). I asked my manservant to put a proper polish on his riding boots and the cook to prepare a basket of travelling provisions—hardtack, hard-cooked eggs, pickled pork brawn, beets. I sent my coachman to the wine merchant for a case of Chamber-tine—an undrinkable wine, in my estimation, but the one Bonaparte insists on (it’s cheap)—and to a parfumerie for the almond meal and rose soap he likes to use on his face. I must remember to boil elecampane root in springwater for his rash. And what else? What have I forgotten? Oh, the—

A half-hour later—if that!

Bonaparte burst into the upstairs drawing room and took a seat. I knew what his little smile meant. I told my scullery maid, “Agathe, perhaps I could have a word with my husband—alone.”

Bonaparte’s rumpled linen shirt was off even before we got to my bedchamber. “Junot and Murat will be here in fifteen minutes.”

“That doesn’t give much time.”

“I can be quick,” he said, as if this were an accomplishment.

I turned my back to him so that he could unfasten the buttons on my gown. He ran his cold hands over my breasts, pressed against me. I turned to him and kissed him. He is a small man, but vigorous. And quick, as he said.

“I’d like you to wash,” he said, disentangling his pantaloons.

“I was going to.” I was taken aback by his soldier bluntness.

Naked (small body, big head), he climbed into the bed and pulled the bed sheet up over him, looking at me expectantly. I went into my dressing room and re-emerged in a gauze nightgown trimmed with violet ribbons. “Take it off,” he told me.

I did so reluctantly (Bonaparte is six years my junior) and lay down beside him. “Position ten?” I asked, teasing.

“Twenty-three.” He ran his hand over my breast, my belly. “I’ve jumped ahead.”

I smiled. Was he joking? (It is so hard to know with him.)

Then he sat up, said, “Close your eyes. You just lie there.” I did as
instructed. I felt him crawl down to the end of the bed, felt his hands part my legs, felt the warmth of his breath, his … Mon
Dieu.
I swallowed, took a sharp breath.

Bonaparte was curiously unrushed. A voluptuous warmth came over me. I curled my fingers through his hair as waves of pleasure rose in my blood.

After, I lay for a moment, catching my breath, drying my cheeks on the covering sheet. Bonaparte was sitting on his haunches, regarding me with an awed expression. Then he grinned. “Well, that’s the best one so far,” he said, swinging his feet onto the floor.

“Come back here,” I said, grabbing his hand.

9:00
P.M.

A kiss and he is gone.

I hear the crackling of the fire, my scullery maid singing tunelessly in the bath chamber, the heavy tread of my old manservant’s wooden shoes on the narrow stairs, carrying up buckets of hot water for my bath. My pug dog Fortuné sniffs in all the corners, looking for “the intruder.” I listen to the busy clicking of his little nails on the parquet floor.

The sounds of normal life, I realize. But for the battered tin snuffbox forgotten on the window ledge, the dog-eared volume of Ossian’s
Carthon
on the mantel, one would not know that Bonaparte had ever been here. This man, who has come into my life like a whirlwind, has just as suddenly gone, leaving me breathless, dazed … and confused, I confess.

^*
Joephine’s first husband, Alexandre Beauharnais, the father of her two children—Hortense (twelve) and Eugène (fourteen)—was beheaded on July 23, 1794, at the height of the Terror, the violent phase of the French Revolution in which thousands of aristocrats were guillotined.

^*
Madame Campan had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette, who had been beheaded two-and-a-half years earlier during the Terror, when the monarchy had been abolished and a democratic Republic installed in its place.

^*
Josephine’s mother, a widow, lived on the family sugar plantation in the Caribbean island of Martinique (“Martinico”), where Josephine had been born and raised. A small percentage of the plantation’s earnings constituted Josephine’s main source of income—when she received it, that is, which was rarely. Formerly under French rule, the island was now controlled by England.

^*
The executive authority of the Republic was vested in a council of five directors—”five Majesties.” Director Paul Barras was considered the most powerful of the five, and hence the most politically powerful man in the French Republic.

In which I break the news to my family & friends

March 17, 1796—Paris. A bright spring day.

I’ve a new maid. She curtsied at the door, lifting the hem of her linen shift. Her long chestnut locks were pulled into a tight braid that hung down her back. She is young, not yet of an age to pin up her hair. “Louise Compoint, Madame,” she said, taking in the furnishings. “But I am called Lisette.”

I slipped a finger through Fortuné’s collar and asked her to come forward. Her mother had been a maid-of-the-wardrobe, she informed me, her father unknown. She’d been “adopted” by the aristocratic family her mother worked for and educated in a convent. Now her mother was dead and the aristocrats had fled during the Revolution. “I can wick lanterns, Madame, as well as dress hair. I understand clear starch and my needlework is good. My mother taught me well.”

“This is a small household,” I told her. “My lady’s maid must serve also as a parlour maid and even as a kitchen maid, should the need arise.”

“Yes, Madame. I’ve churned butter and blackleaded grates. I can also let blood. My mistress was often ailing,” she explained, in answer to my startled look.

She is only seventeen, but I liked her forthright spirit. She had a natural grace. “We are a Republican family, Lisette. I will treat you with respect; I expect the same in kind. I permit no followers, and if any man makes advances, I expect you to inform me. You are allowed a half-day
off a week to do as you please. Your room is in the basement. It is small, but it has a window and it will be your own.” “Yes, Madame!” Her teeth are excellent.

March 20, just past noon—still in Paris.

It was early, not yet ten in the morning, when I heard the children in the foyer. I stood and prepared to face them, clasping my hands to hide my betrothal ring. Nothing has changed, I was going to tell them; marrying Bonaparte did not mean I loved them less.

“… and then my horse
jumped
the cart.” Eugène lumbered into the drawing room with the grace of a heifer. Hortense followed, frowning, pulling at her hat strings.

My daughter greeted me with reserve, stiffening as I embraced her. “My hat, Maman,” she said, pulling off her crêpe bonnet, leaving on the white lace cap underneath. I knew by her manner, her averted eyes, that she was angry with me.

“I jumped the grey mare.” Eugène smelled of soap and perspiration. I pushed a curl out of his eyes. At fourteen, he would soon disdain his mother’s touch, I knew.

“But what’s this about jumping carts?” I reproached him.

My new maid came to the door. She looked comely in my cast-off gown of peach chintz. “You rang, Madame Bonaparte?”

Bonaparte.
Hortense and Eugène exchanged glances. I motioned to Lisette to come forward in order to introduce her. She curtsied to them both. A flush coloured my son’s cheeks. Hortense dipped her head, but it was clear her thoughts were elsewhere, her eyes darting about the room—looking for evidence, I realized, of Bonaparte.

“Thank you, Lisette. If you could bring us some hot chocolate? And the comfits.” Hortense has a weakness for sweets.

“Maman, it was safe. The mare can jump five feet easily,” Eugène said, falling into the down armchair, his legs sprawling.

Hortense lowered herself onto the chair with the horsehair seat, her shoulders back, her posture faultless (for once). I took a seat by the harp. “I understand that Madame Campan has talked to you both about my
marriage to General Bonaparte,” I said—too bluntly, I thought. Not the way I’d rehearsed this speech in my mind!

“Four days ago,” Hortense answered, enunciating precisely.

“Yes, she told us. We know all about it,” Eugène said, squirming.

“I want you to know that General Bonaparte cares deeply about both of you.” I felt I’d handled things poorly, that I’d let them down. I wanted to reassure them.

“Maman?”

I sat forward eagerly. “Yes, Eugène?”

“Can I go to the Luxembourg Palace this morning, before we leave for Fontainebleau? Director Barras told me I could ride his horses any time I wanted.”

I sat back, stupefied. Horses? Was that all my son could think of? How confusing this situation was! “No, Eugène,” I said, making an effort to sound calm. “I have another plan. Today is Palm Sunday. I was thinking we would go to mass together.”

Hortense looked surprised. (And pleased, I observed with relief.)

“Church?” Eugène groaned, sliding down into the depths of his chair.

“We’ll walk,” I insisted, standing.

I was surprised by the number of people standing in front of Église Saint-Pierre, enjoying the spring sun before going inside. Not only was it a Décadi
^*
and a
Sunday (a rare concurrence), but Palm Sunday as well. For once everyone could enjoy a feast-day together—Catholics and Atheists, Royalists and Republicans alike. I put my arms around my children as we climbed the steps. If there could be peace in the nation, then surely there could be peace in my little family.

Fontainebleau.

We weren’t able to leave for Fontainebleau until shortly after two, so it was quite late by the time we pulled into the courtyard of the Beauharnais home in Fontainebleau. “I expected you earlier, Rose,” Aunt Désirée said, patting at her powdered hair, which was dressed in fat sausage rolls. Her immaculate house smelled of beeswax and turpentine.