The Second Empress (30 page)

C
HAPTER
22

MARIE-LOUISE

Fontainebleau Palace June 1812

I
SIT AT MY ARMOIRE AND TRY TO BREATHE
. I
T’S ONLY ONE
appearance. Even my brother Ferdinand could manage something like this. But as my lady-in-waiting arranges my curls, and I wait for Hortense to arrive with my
parure
, I can’t stop thinking about Marie-Antoinette. How almost twenty-five years ago she sat in this chamber with similar women in similar jewels, and the ministers came to tell her that France was on the verge of revolution.

Today my husband’s men will announce we are at war, and is it really any different? There will be weeping in the streets. Women will find themselves without money or protectors. And when the lame come home and the lists of the dead begin to appear, the people will look to us. We will be the ones who have caused their misery.

“Ready, Your Majesty?” Hortense opens a heavy velvet box and lifts out the diamond and ruby crown. There are a necklace and earrings to match. It’s a set Napoleon gifted me on our wedding night. I close my eyes while she finishes my toilette, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I frown.
Who is this woman whose husband will send seven hundred thousand men to war? Why doesn’t she go to the Council Chamber and stop him
?

But I will accept the task Napoleon asked of me last night. And
when the wounded come home in need of care, there will be hospitals ready. And when widows are created and left homeless, funds will be ready to take care of their children. France will not suffer as Austria did.

“It will be over in twenty days,” Hortense reminds me. “That’s what he’s saying.”

But an emperor can say a great many things that will never come to pass. I stand and study my reflection. In my red silk gown and white summer slippers, I might be leaving for a picnic on the lake. Only the crown on my head and the diamonds at my neck say otherwise. “I want to see my son first,” I say.

Hortense exchanges a look with my lady-in-waiting, but they say nothing as we walk toward the nursery.

“Maman!” Franz cries as soon as he sees us. I can see his tutor is shocked that I’ve come during the day.

“Your Majesty.” He rises, and Franz abandons his desk to run over to me.

“Maman!” he shouts again, and my heart swells with pride. At just sixteen months old, he has ten words, and two of them mean “mother.”

“How is your day, sweetheart?” I ask him, squatting so we can talk face-to-face.

He kisses my cheek, then looks at my gown and jewels and says, “Ohhh.” His lips form the perfect O. I can feel my heart bursting. He’s the most beautiful child in all of France, with a head of golden curls and sea-green eyes that look up at me with absolute love.

“How is he doing?” I ask his tutor, and the old man points to a pile of books.

“We go through them every day, Your Majesty. This afternoon is music.”

“And art?” I rise.

“After the pianoforte.”

“Good.” He’s to learn these subjects at my insistence. I feel a tug on my dress, and Franz is holding up a wooden soldier.

“You,” he says, and he offers me the toy in his pudgy hand.

“I can take him?” I ask, and my son nods eagerly.

“Thank you.” I bend to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be back tonight,” I promise. “And when I come, I’ll return your soldier.” But it breaks my heart to think of him in here, trapped in this room like an animal.

“We should go,” Hortense presses, but I can’t leave him like this.

“How much time does he have to play?” I ask.

Monsieur Laurent frowns. “What do you mean?”

“On his wooden horse. Or with his soldiers. When does he play?”

“That’s what the evening is for, Your Majesty. The day is for work.”

“At sixteen months old?”

“These are the emperor’s instructions.” He grows flustered. “I don’t understand—”

But I do. “There will be new instructions tomorrow.”

As we leave the nursery, Franz follows me to the door.

W
E REACH THE
Council Chamber. I take my seat to Napoleon’s right and look out at the grandeur. If I live for another fifty years in the Tuileries Palace, I will never cease to be amazed by its beauty. Gilded panels of laurel and flower motifs soar toward the ceiling, where angels take flight across the painted dome. Napoleon passes me a look, and when I nod, he shouts into the room for silence.

“As you know,” he begins, “our war with Russia is at its start. Tomorrow, on the twenty-fourth of June, the imperial army will march toward Moscow to defeat our enemy.”

This is when I should beg him not to go, when I should risk his displeasure to be the voice of reason and warn him against this. But the thought of his anger is too uncomfortable, and the pleasure of his
leaving too great. His advisers breathe furiously, and the only sound in the room is the creaking of leather chairs.

“In mere weeks,” he continues jubilantly, “our empire will touch borders it’s never seen.” He looks around the chamber. But if he’s expecting applause, he’s disappointed. “In my absence,” he goes on, “and in all further absences of mine in France, I am leaving the regency in capable hands.”

The men shift in their seats, and I notice Pauline look to her sister Caroline.

“Empress Marie-Louise, my wife and the mother to the king of Rome, shall be governing in my place.”

There’s a gasp in the chamber so loud that it echoes from the walls. Then everyone begins shouting at once. I hear murmurs of, “Twenty-one years old … she’s only
twenty-one
!” Then the noise grows deafening.

“Silence!” Napoleon shouts, but even the ministers are ignoring him. “THERE WILL BE SILENCE!”

The room goes quiet, and all eyes focus on me.

“The commands my wife gives are my commands. The laws my wife enacts are my laws. No one shall disobey her, or they disobey me.”

The regency of France has fallen to me. That the emperor should choose his young Austrian bride over all his siblings and ministers speaks loudly to the entire Bonaparte clan.

“There will be letters from me daily. If
anyone
”—and his gaze falls to his sisters—“should think to challenge the empress, she will remove them from France.”

I don’t remember what is spoken after this. Napoleon talks about weapons and twenty short days. But it is only when we have returned to our apartments and Hortense is holding out lemon water for me that I realize the magnitude of what has happened. I am the emperor of France. And the world is going back to war. It is as my father said. “
So long as there is Napoleon,
” he warned, “
there will never be peace
.”

B
UT THE NEXT
morning, as I make my way to the nursery, I execute my first command. “Good morning, Monsieur Laurent.”

He bows. “Your Majesty.”

“From now on,” I instruct him, “my son will enjoy more playtime. Half of the morning, and at least one hour in the afternoon. These are the emperor’s new instructions.”

C
HAPTER
23

PAULINE BORGHESE

Hautecombe Abbey, Savoy, France September 1812

I
STEP CLOSE TO THE WINDOW OF THE LIGHTHOUSE AND
let the autumn wind blow in my hair. The last rays of light are fading beneath the lake of Hautecombe Abbey, and the water looks like a stretch of liquid gold. I came to this monastery after my son, Dermide, was taken by the fever. I found peace and solitude then in these walls. I hope I can find it again.

I touch the cool stones and close my eyes. My brother should be in Moscow by now. Nearly seven hundred thousand men left with him to defeat the arrogant Russian czar, but for over three months, the cowardly Russians have refused to give battle. In Moscow, however, there will be no retreat. The Russians will be forced to fight or lose the most precious jewel in their crown. So this is where I’ll stay until my brother comes home.

Steps echo in the stairwell, and I know it is Paul coming to bring me my medicine. He believes the Russians have the advantage, since they know their own land and can survive the severe weather. If winter comes before this war is finished, he says, our soldiers will die of cold before anything else.
Dear God, be with my brother right now, and extend Your protection to de Canouville, who is carrying my silver locket and has not returned since Spain. If they have ever sinned against you, I pray for forgiveness on their behalves
.