Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe (5 page)

“He has no willpower, the poor dear,” Minerva lisped softly.

“And to think he’s running this country.”

“He is running this country.” Madame de Crény perched on a chair, swinging her feet.

“Do you think he is dyeing his hair?”

“It must be that opera singer I’ve seen at his receptions.”

“More likely it’s her younger brother.” (Laughter.)

“And he’s
wearing a corset.”

“Just when we ladies have taken ours off.”

“
That’s
liberation.”

“So, Rose, where exactly
is
this husband of yours?” Minerva asked, peering into the study.

“Her husband who loves her
madly.”

“Thérèse!”

“How romantic.”

“How inconvenient.”

“He’s in Nice, taking command of the Army of Italy,” I explained with pride.

“So are we in an interesting condition yet?”

“It’s a little early, don’t you think? He left two days after we were married.”

“It only takes me one minute,” Thérèse groaned. “And look at me, twelve babies,” Minerva boasted. “My husband only has to smile at me and I’m in an interesting condition.” “We’ve noticed.”

“I’ve
noticed that most of the women of Paris are in an interesting condition these days.”

“It’s the style—even virgins are stuffing their gowns with pillows.” “Did you hear? Even Madame Lebon is in an interesting condition.” “No.”

“Yes.
Finally.
After five years of marriage, she went to a German doctor. He told her that barrenness is cured by the presence of immoderate heat in a woman accompanied by turgescence.”

“Pardon?”

“I think what it means is that a woman must … you know,
spasm.”

“In order to have a child?”

“Apparently, this is a common German belief.”

“I’ve never ‘spasmed’ with my husband, and believe me, I’ve had quite a few children by him.” “What’s a spasm?”

“The doctor told Madame Lebon that if she were …” Fortunée rubbed her fingers together. “Then that proved a spasm had occurred.” “Hardly!”

“What is this, Rose? It is a wig?” Minerva picked up the mass of ringlets.

“Rose is now Josephine,” Thérèse said, slipping on the golden curls.

“You’re changing your first name?”

“Bonaparte wants me to.”

“I thought his name was
Buon
aparte.”

“He’s changing it.” Everything was changing!

“Oh, a wig could be handy. No one would recognize you,” Fortunée said.

“I bought twenty-seven of them. Only twenty francs each, so I should be able to make a nice profit on them.”

“Real hair. Nice! But why so cheap?”

“Well …” Thérèse grimaced. “That’s the thing.”

“Oh no,” Minerva whispered.

“The … guillotine?” Madame de Crény squeaked.

“Hair is hair, isn’t it?” Fortunée Hamelin said with a shrug. “I’ll take three.”

Lisette entered the room with a tray of clattering glasses and an open bottle of champagne. She placed it on the side table and stood, smoothing the folds of her ruffled tulle apron.

“Speculation? Loo?” We settled on Speculation, Fortunée insisting on an ante of fifty francs to begin with, “to get the blood racing.”

“Oh, I feel lucky today!” Madame de Crény said, wiggling her silver-painted fingernails before shuffling the cards.

Thérèse raised her glass, her ringlets bouncing. “To Josephine Bonaparte.”

^*
A new calendar had been established during the Revolution. The ten-day week ended in Décadi, the official day of rest. The names of the months were changed as well: Vendémiaire (the month of vintage), Brumaire (the month of fog), Frimaire (the month of frost) and so forth. Nevertheless, many continued to observe the old calendar, causing considerable confusion.

^*
Hysteric water: a mixture that was said to cure uterine disorders—”an excellent water to prevent fits, or to be taken in faintings.” It was made of a mixture of roots of zedoary (similar to ginger), lovage and peony, parsnip seeds, mistletoe, myrrh, castor oil and dried millipedes steeped in mugwort tea and brandy.

^*
Fanny Beauharnais, a bohemian poet, is related to Josephine through her first husband. She is Émilie’s grandmother and Hortense’s godmother. She is being sued at this time by a young woman claiming to be her illegitmate daughter.

^*
The List was a listing of émigrés and relations of émigrés forbidden from entering France. Having left the country because of the Revolution, émigrés and even their families were considered enemies of the Republic. Those listed lost all civil rights, had their property confiscated and risked execution if discovered on French soil. The names numbered over a hundred thousand. To be “erased” meant to have your name taken off the List.

^**
In addition to Josephine and Thérèse, the group included Fortunée Hamelin, Madame de Châteaurenaud (called Minerva), and Madame de Crény. Fortunée Hamelin (nineteen) is a créole like Josephine. She is famous for her wit, her daring (un)dress and her dancing. Minerva (thirty-six) is a voluptuous woman known for a mild, sweet manner and an interest in the occult. Madame de Crény (thirty-five), met Josephine when Josephine’s first husband, Alexandre, forced her to live in a convent. Thérèse Tallien (twenty-three) is one of the famous beauties of the day. A wonderful teller of stories, she describes herself as a comedian.

^*
Drawers—or pantaloons—were considered men’s wear, worn only by women of ill-repute.

In which the past continues to haunt me

Mid-afternoon, March 28, 1796.

Good news: thanks to Barras, the sequester has finally been lifted on Alexandre’s property.
^*

March 31.

The Department of Confiscated Goods SW 24 is located in a former convent on Rue de Grenelle, not far from the Invalides. I presented my letter of authorization to the man at the gate, and then again inside to a man sitting at a desk playing solitaire. He held my document to the eight lit candles in a silver candelabra, squinting at the seals and stamps before pulling a ring of keys from a desk drawer (lying next to a pistol) and barking at a man with a matted beard snoring on a sofa: “Gaspard, you dolt!” Taking up a tin lantern, the yawning Gaspard gestured for me to follow him up a set of narrow, dark stairs and through a series of rooms, each one filled from floor to ceiling with crates labelled Comte this, Marquise that—the boxed remnants of lives lost, lives taken.

In the last of the rooms, Gaspard unlatched unpainted wooden shutters over a small window, illuminating a harpsichord, several (lovely) harps, statues, large oil portraits of men on horseback, women with their children … I turned away from their staring eyes. It was only by chance that I had survived.

“316, 317, 318 … 322.” Gaspard indicated a line of rough-hewn wooden crates on the floor, each labelled Vicomte A. de Beauharnais.

“Is this all there is?” I asked. Seven crates.

April 1.

I am overcome with the vapours. I asked Lisette to go for Dr. Cuce, to bleed me, but she offered to do it herself, from my foot. I owed the doctor money, and so I took the chance. Lisette made the cut quickly and with confidence; the bright blood flowed into the chipped porcelain bowl. I feel faint, but pure.

Late afternoon.

Stronger now. What happened:

I had risen early in order to help clear a spot in the study for the crates to go. But shortly after eleven, Lisette announced a caller: Louis Bonaparte.

“A young man, heavy-lidded eyes. Italian, I think.” Lisette has become forthright in her descriptions.

I was puzzled. I’d never heard of a Louis Bonaparte.

I ran my hand over my hair. I’d dressed in a gown of washed-out blue gauze, the flounce in need of mending—appropriate for a day of going through the musty crates, which I expected to be delivered at any time. “Tell him I’ll be a moment,” I said, pulling on a pair of silk stockings. I slipped a blue velvet pelisse on over my chemise and rouged my cheeks. An embroidered muslin veil thrown over my shaggy hair gave me a fashionably Roman look.
Bien.

The young man stood to greet me, slipping a green leather book into the inside pocket of his tailcoat. It was Luigi, Bonaparte’s young brother, the brother he regarded as a son! “Napoleon told me to change my name to Louis,” he explained. He looked to be Eugène’s age, although I understand him to be a year or two older. “I beg you to forgive my calling at such an early hour, Citoyenne Bonaparte,” he said respectfully and with a melancholy air. He’d been at a spa in Châtillon and was now on his way to Nice, he explained, to join his brother’s staff, as aide-de-camp.

I welcomed him warmly and asked if he would care for a coffee, tea or small beer. He confessed to a longing for my Island coffee, which his brother had told him about. “Alas, the last of my Martinico beans are gone—but my cook, who is himself from the Islands, has discovered an excellent substitute bean from the southern Americas.” I rang for Lisette, requesting coffee, chocolate liqueur and a basket of the biscuits my cook had made this morning.

We talked of the spa he had been at, his coming voyage, the danger of ruffians on the roads, the performance of Voltaire’s
Brutus he’d
seen at the Theatre de la Republique the night before. We agreed that the great actor Talma was “diverting beyond moderation” (his words). I told him Talma was an acquaintance of mine, and that he had even once lived in this very house, which astonished him—perhaps because it is so modest an abode. In short, a pleasant conversation.

It was just as Lisette appeared with the coffee that I heard Fortuné barking out on the verandah. “I’m having some things delivered,” I explained, standing. “No, please,
stay,
finish your coffee.”

Louis downed his coffee and stood, taking a biscuit. “I must be going in any case,” he said, accompanying me to the front steps. Two carters were unloading one of the crates—a heavy one, I gathered, from their strained expressions.

“You’ve made a purchase of a National Property?” Louis asked, observing the seals.

“In a manner of speaking,” I said, not wishing to explain that these crates contained my first husband’s effects.

The crates practically filled the tiny study. My manservant shifted a few so I could squeeze between them. Then he got a crowbar and began prying off the tops.

The first crate contained household items: china, linens, musty bed curtains. There were surprisingly few personal possessions: an inkstand, an oak box with mother-of-pearl inlay, a blue glass jar of metal military buttons. Some clothing: a pair of riding boots that Eugène might be able to use. Four riding crops, one with a gold handle. But no pistols or
swords—stolen, no doubt. And no silver, either. A leather portfolio contained financial records, letters of correspondence. I put these aside for Aunt Désirée and the Marquis. (I did not wish to read them.) And, as I feared, a velvet bag of small linens, garters, a mother-of-pearl hair ornament: Alexandre’s “trophies.” I threw these away, but then perversely retrieved the hair ornament, which I fancied.

And then there were the books: four large crates. Water had damaged one of them: the pages of the texts were swollen and dusty with mildew. I instructed my manservant to burn these in the garden.

In the remaining crates were a number of valuable texts:

-a complete set of Diderot’s encyclopedia, the pages uncut

-the complete works of Voltaire

-a lovely edition of Cicero’s
Treatise on Laws with
an embossed morocco cover and hand-stitched spine

-a folio Bible, much thumbed (surprisingly)

-Rousseau’s
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men
There were a number of books about Freemasonry, the natural world, art and architecture. At the bottom of the last crate were a few novels (including, in plain wrapper,
The Life of Frétillon the Wriggler).
And at the last, a sheaf of music and an oak box of artist’s supplies. These would be for Hortense.

But other than that, little of value. My children’s inheritance.

Dear Rose,

I will be coming to Paris to purchase fabric for my wedding dress on the 4th of April. Will you be in? Perhaps I could pick up the correspondence you mentioned. I was heartbroken to learn that all that lovely silver was missing. Ruffians! It was in the Beauharnais family for six generations.

Your loving Aunt Désirée

April 4, late afternoon.

Aunt Désirée hadn’t even taken her gloves off before she began to lecture. “Your scullery maid should have disappeared when I came into
the room,” she said, running her fingers over my shelves to see if they’d been properly dusted. “She should avert her eyes. And your lady’s maid is wearing silk. It makes a rustling sound that is suggestive to men. There will be trouble, I guarantee it. Servants should wear only linen of a dull colour, and certainly no powder. My priest gave me an excellent book on service. I’m reading it out loud to my servants after our evening prayers. You do say a prayer with them all at the end of the day?”

“Things have changed, Aunt Désirée,” I said weakly.

She gave me a scathing look. “Rose, my dear child, I had hoped that by now you would have realized that this foolishness about equality has nothing whatsoever to do with servants. It is God’s will that they serve us.”

She stayed for one hour. I’ve collapsed, exhausted. At least she didn’t get onto the subject of my Corsican husband, “the barbarian.”