Désirée (68 page)

Paris, summer, 1813

The coachman has carried Pierre into the garden. I am sitting at the window watching Marie bring her son a glass of lemonade. Bees buzz around the rosebushes, and there's also the sound of marching feet as the regiments pass the house. In step, always in step. . . .

Napoleon had gold bars that he'd hidden in the cellars of the Tuileries—said to be worth one hundred and forty million francs—melted down to pay for the equipment of his new regiments. How absurd that I once had to lend him my saved-up pocket money. A hundred and forty million . . . . Then I wanted so much to buy him a proper general's uniform!

Of course that was long ago. Meanwhile, the sons of France have perished in Russia, and the children of France, the 1814 and 1815 recruits, are marching to war. A great many of these have been taken into the newly organized guard regiments. The Emperor assumes that every lad in France dreams
of belonging to the guards. But since battles can't be fought by children who have never even seen maneuvers, the Emperor has simply assigned gunners from the Navy to the Infantry. On the Elbe the last horses still to be found on the farms of the peasants are being requisitioned, and hitched to gun carriages and wagons. Where is he getting horses for the cavalry? Every French town has been ordered to send the Emperor a company of volunteers. Paris has equipped an entire regiment. Ten thousand guardsmen have paid for their own equipment. And because of the shortage of experienced fighters, the gendarmerie is sending three thousand of their number to the front as officers and noncommissioned officers. The mood of the people reminds me of the days of the young Republic when it was a question of life or death to defend our frontiers however we could. This time, too, one feels that in reality the danger extends only to our frontiers. But now children are being called up, children sing "La Marseillaise," while on every street corner one sees disabled soldiers, and the hospitals are always overcrowded. The women, with their market baskets, look grey and tired. Sleepless nights, unbearable anxiety, waiting, reunions and farewells have robbed them of the best years of their lives.

Below, in my garden—yes, Pierre has finished his lemonade. Marie has put the glass on the lawn, and she sits beside her son. Her arm supports his back. His frost-bitten left leg was amputated at the hip. We hope a wooden leg can be attached to the stump of his right, which was amputated above the knee, when the wound heals. But the wound won't heal. When Marie changes the bandages, Pierre howls in pain like an animal. I have given him Oscar's room, and Marie sleeps there with him. But I must find him a room on the ground floor, it's too difficult always carrying him up and down the stairs.

Talleyrand called on me earlier this evening. Apparently only to inquire if I didn't feel too lonely. "I would have been alone anyway this summer," I told him. "I am, unfortunately, used to having my husband at the front."

Talleyrand nodded. "Yes—at the front. Under other circumstances, Your Highness would be alone, but—not lonely."

I shrugged my shoulders. We sat in the garden, and La
Flotte served us chilled champagne. Talleyrand told me that
Fouché has a new post. Governor of Illyria. Illyria is an
Italian state which the Emperor has just set up especially for
Fouché"The Emperor can no longer afford intrigues in
Paris," Talleyrand declared. "And Fouché always intrigues."

"And you—isn't the Emperor afraid of you, Excellency?"

"Fouché intrigues to win power or to hold it. I, on the other hand, my dear Highness, want nothing but the well-being of France."

I saw the first star twinkle in the blue velvet sky. It was still so hot one could hardly breathe.

"How quickly our allies drop away," Talleyrand remarked between sips of champagne. "First the Prussians, who, by the way, are under your husband's supreme command. Your husband has established his headquarters in Stralsund, and commands the Allies' northern armies."

I nodded. Rosen had told me that. "I read in the
Moniteur,"
I said finally, "that the Emperor of Austria is trying to negotiate an armistice between France and Russia."

Talleyrand held out his empty glass to Mme la Flotte. "Austria is negotiating to gain time to rearm."

"But the Austrian Emperor is the father of our Empress," said Mme la Flotte sharply.

Talleyrand ignored her. "If France is defeated, all the allied states will try to enrich themselves at our expense. Austria naturally doesn't want to be left out, so she's joining the Allies."

My mouth was dry. I had to swallow hard before I could speak. "The Austrian Emperor can't make war on his own daughter and his grandson."

"No? My dear Highness, he's already at war with them." Talleyrand smiled. "It's not yet appeared in the
Moniteur,
madame."

I didn't stir. Talleyrand's amiable voice continued. "The
Allies have eight hundred thousand men under arms, and the Emperor about half that."

"But His Majesty is a genius," said Mme la Flotte with trembling lips. It sounded like a phrase learned by heart.

Talleyrand again held out an empty glass. "Quite right, madame—His Majesty is a genius."

Mme la Flotte filled his glass.

"Moreover, the Emperor has forced our allies, the Danes, to declare war on Sweden. Your husband, therefore, has the Danes at his back, Highness," Talleyrand continued pleasantly.

"He'll take care of that," I said impatiently, and thought— I must find something for Pierre to do, a real occupation. That's most important. "Did you say something, Your Excellency?"

"Only that the day may come when I shall ask a favour of you." Talleyrand stood up.

"If you see my sister, Your Excellency, give her my love. Julie can't come here any more. King Joseph has forbidden her."

Up shot his thin eyebrows. "I also miss your two faithful aides, Your Highness."

"Colonel Villatte has been on active duty for a long time, he was in Russia. And Count Rosen. . . ."

"The tall blond Swede, I remember."

". . . told me a few days ago that, as a Swedish nobleman, he felt he must fight at the side of his crown prince."

"Nonsense. He's just jealous of Count Brahe, his personal aide-de-camp," Mme la Flotte declared.

No, he meant what he said. The Swedes are a very serious people, madame. Ride with God and come back safe and sound, I told him. Just as I told Villatte. . . . You're right, Excellency—I am very lonely."

I watched him limp away. Talleyrand limps so gracefully, so elegantly. At the same time I decided to entrust Pierre with the management of my household affairs.

I think that's a good idea.

Paris, November, 1813

At night fear takes me by the throat, for I am all alone with it.

Whenever I go to sleep, I have the same dream. Jean-Baptiste rides alone across a battlefield, on which a battle was fought two weeks before. Like the one I saw on my way to Marienburg. Mounds of loose earth, dead horses with bloated bellies, and deep craters where cannon balls had fallen. Jean-Baptiste rides a white horse, like that I've seen him riding at parades. He leans forward in the saddle. I cannot see his face, but I sense that he is sobbing. The horse stumbles over a fresh mound of earth. Jean-Baptiste falls to the ground and doesn't get up.

For over a week it's been rumoured in Paris that a decisive battle was fought at Leipzig. No one knows the details. Marie tells me that at the baker's they believe everything hinges on this battle. How do these women shoppers find out what's happening? Perhaps they, too, lie sleepless in their beds at night, or are haunted by bad dreams.

At first, I thought the horses I heard were part of my dream. I opened my eyes, my night light had almost burned down and I could see my clock only indistinctly. Four-thirty in the morning. A horse neighed. I sat up and listened. There came a cautious knock at the front door. So gentle, I was sure no one else heard it.

I got up, put on my dressing gown and went downstairs. In the front hall my night light went out. Again a knock — very light—so as not to frighten anyone.

"Who's there?"

"Villatte," and at practically the same time, "Rosen."

I pushed back the heavy bolt. In the light of the big lantern that hangs above the door, I distinguished two figures.

"Where have you come from?"

"From Leipzig," Villatte said.

"With messages from His Highness," Rosen added.

I went back into the hall, and, shivering, wrapped my dressing gown more tightly around me. Rosen felt his way to a candelabra and lighted a candle. Villatte had disappeared, presumably to take the horses to the stable. Rosen wore the coat and bearskin cap of a French grenadier.

"A strange uniform for a Swedish dragoon," I remarked.

"Our troops are not yet in France. His Highness told me to wear this comic coat and ridiculous cap so that I could cross the lines without trouble."

I was annoyed. "Do you think the bearskin cap of a grenadier really so funny?"

Just then Villatte returned. "We've been riding day and night," he said. His face was dirty and drawn and his unshaven beard was blue-black. He spoke indistinctly. "Besides, the decisive battle has been lost."

Has been won—His Highness himself stormed Leipzig," Rosen declared passionately. "At the same moment His Highness entered Leipzig through the Grimma Gate, Napoleon fled from the city. His Highness fought at the head of his troops—from beginning to end."

"And why aren't you with the fleeing French Army, Colonel Villatte?"

"I am a prisoner of war, Your Highness."

"Rosen's prisoner?"

A ghost of a smile flitted over Villatte's face. "Well—that is —yes. His Highness didn't have me marched off to the prison barracks with the others, but ordered me to ride to Paris immediately to be with Your Highness until—" He gulped.

"Until?"

"Until the enemy troops enter Paris."

So that's how it is. A lonely horseman rides across a battlefield at night and weeps. "Come, gentlemen, we'll go out to the kitchen. I'll make some coffee."

"I'll wake the cook, Your Highness."

"Why, Count Rosen? I make very good coffee. Perhaps you'll be good enough to light the fire in the hearth."

Rosen clumsily pushed a few logs onto the hearth. These aristocrats, these aristocrats. . . . "Kindling first, Count, or it won't burn. Help him, Villatte. I don't think the Count has ever in his life had anything to do with a hearth."

Villatte made the fire, and I put on a kettle of water. The three of us sat down at the kitchen table and waited. The boots, the hands, and the faces of both men were spattered with mud. "The battle was fought on the seventeenth and eighteenth of October. On the morning of the nineteenth, Bernadotte stormed Leipzig," said Villatte quietly.

"Is Jean-Baptiste well? Did you see him yourself, Villatte? Is he well?"

"Very well. I saw him with my own eyes in the midst of the worst fighting—at the gates of Leipzig. It was really a terrible battle, madame, and Bernadotte was throughout extremely well."

"Did you speak to him, Villatte?"

"Yes—afterward. After the defeat, madame."

"The victory, Colonel Villatte. I won't allow—" Count Rosen's youthful voice cracked.

"How did he look, Villatte? I mean—afterward?"

Villatte shrugged his shoulders and stared into the pale oil light on the kitchen table. I got up and made the coffee. Then I set the table with the servants' heavy cups and saucers and poured it out. "Villatte, what did he look like?"

"His hair has turned grey, madame."

The coffee tasted bitter, I had forgotten the sugar. I jumped up to look for the sugar bowl. I was suddenly ashamed because I no longer knew my way around my own pantry. Finally I found the sugar and set it on the table.

"Your Highness makes wonderful coffee," said Rose in awe.

"My husband says so, too. I always used to make black coffee for him when he worked through the night. Tell me everything you know, Count."

"If only I knew where to begin, so much has happened. I caught up with His Highness at Trachtenburg Castle. And I was there when His Highness explained his plan of campaign to the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria and the allied General Staff. The two Emperors and their generals studied the maps. But His Highness didn't need any notes. While he spoke he stared at the opposite wall, and was yet able to name tiny villages and little-known hills. His Highness' plan was unanimously accepted without discussion. His Highness suggested dividing the allied troops into three armies, which were to attack Napoleon in a half-circle. As soon as Napoleon moved toward one of the armies, the other two were to attack his flanks and cut off his line of retreat. Someone said to His Highness, 'The plan of a genius,' at which His Highness answered, 'Yes, but not original, it's based on Napoleon's tactics.'"

I poured out more coffee. A clock struck half-past five. "Go on," I urged him.

"His Highness himself commanded the Northern Army, with headquarters first in Stralsund. Then we took Berlin, and His (Highness lived in Charlottenburg."