The Josephine B. Trilogy (63 page)

The crowd was chanting
Evviva la Francia! Evviva la libertà!
I caught sight of an immense Roman arch festooned with bright banners. “Nervous?” Captain Charles whispered. I answered by widening my eyes. Yes!

There
was
a crowd—men in powdered wigs and old-fashioned court-style jackets, women (the few I could see) in wide-hooped gowns, their heads covered with black scarves. Behind the aristocrats were the peasants in rags, quite a number, a sea of faces. A column of
gendarmes stood at attention, the sun glittering off their muskets. I thought of my children, Aunt Désirée. They would have thrilled to see such a crowd.

I recognized Bonaparte’s young brother Louis on horseback with the aides. But where was Bonaparte? My stomach felt queasy. I must not be sick, I told myself. Not now.

We came to an abrupt halt. “We’re here,” Joseph said, with his annoying giggle.

“Finally,” Junot said, cracking his knuckles.

A footman in lilac livery opened the carriage door. A breeze blew dust in. I did my best to ignore it—to blink and to smile—for there, standing before me, was my husband, Napoleon Bonaparte.

His face was bronzed by the sun. Backed by the cheering crowd, his soldiers at attention all around him, he had a regal air. “Welcome,” he said without smiling. “What took you so long?” he barked at Junot, stepping back so that the footman could let down the step.

Evviva la libertà!
a man yelled. Fortuné, in his travelling basket, whimpered to be let out.

“Your wife has not been well,” Joseph told his brother contritely, his hands pressed between his knees. “We had to make stops.”

Bonaparte looked at me, his big grey eyes sombre. The footman was having trouble getting the step down. I felt I was in a dream. The man standing before me seemed a stranger—this man, my husband, the Liberator of Italy.

“May I help?” Captain Charles asked the footman, for the step mechanism had jammed again. “I have had to wrestle that latch many times over the last weeks,” he rushed on, aware of his presumption, “and consequently have come to have an intimate knowledge of its perverse ways.”

Bonaparte stared at the captain. “You must be Charles, the aide-decamp.”

“General Bonaparte, sir!” The captain saluted.

Evviva la Francia!
a child cried out.

“Be quick then, Captain—I wish to embrace my wife.”

The footman stood back. Captain Charles pressed down on the left side of the step and it gave way with a clatter. Bonaparte took my hand. “Careful!” he said—as if, I realized (heart heavy), I were a woman with child. I stepped down onto the dusty road. He put his hand under my chin. “I have been starved for you.”

I smiled, speechless, overcome by the dust, the bright sun, the crowd. Overcome by the intensity of Bonaparte’s eyes. “Bonaparte, I—”

He placed his right hand at the nape of my neck, his thumb pressing against my skull. Then he kissed me—without modesty, without restraint, as if, man and woman, husband and wife, we were the only two people on earth. For a moment I resisted, the roar of the crowd in my ears. And then I gave way to him.

My hat slipped off. I grabbed for it, then I stood back, pressing Bonaparte’s hand to my heart. Distantly I heard people cheering. He stared at me, his eyes glistening. “We came as quickly as we could,” I assured him, but my voice was drowned out by a trumpet blare. “I’m feeling a bit faint.” Everything looked bleached. The crowd seemed to shimmer in the heat. I took hold of his arm. The other carriages in our caravan pulled into view: Hamelin’s wreck of a hired fiacre, the servants’ carriage, the baggage wagon.

A man in yellow-striped rags ran through the line of soldiers. “
Evviva Napoleone!
” he cried out as they pulled him away. “
Evviva la libertà!
”

Bonaparte led me to a carriage harnessed to four grey horses, their brass bells jingling. The ornate berlin was festooned with red, white and blue ribbons; it looked like a feast-day cake. “To cover the Austrian royal insignias,” Bonaparte said, lifting a bow to reveal a royal emblem underneath.

“Aren’t the others coming with us?” I asked as he handed me in. The upholstery was a pale cream-coloured brocade. I sat down uneasily. My periodic sickness had become unpredictable. I could never be sure what to expect—or when. “What about your brother?” And Junot, for that matter?

“This reception is in
your
honour,” Bonaparte said, settling himself
beside me and taking my hand. He was thinking of kissing me again, I knew. I opened my fan and fluttered it, leaning my head against the tufted upholstery. The heat was oppressive.

“Perhaps a little air,” Bonaparte said, letting down the glass. A bouquet came flying through. He put the glass back up. The crowd was chanting
Evviva la Francia! Evviva Napoleone!
Their fervour frightened me—frightened and amazed me.

I heard the postillion cry out something in Italian. Our carriage swung gently as the team of horses pulled it forward. I put my hand to my side, against the pain.

Crowds cheered as we wound our way through narrow, rutted streets, along waterways and canals thick with barges. The air was filled with the pungent smell of potatoes, chestnuts, aubergines cooking, fish frying. “This is a beautiful city,” Bonaparte said, stroking my hand. “You will love it here.”

“Yes,” I said, although I felt disappointed, in truth. Milan was smaller than I’d expected, and it seemed curiously vacant in spite of the crowds. The few women I saw on the street were dressed entirely in black. The shops had no windows; even the residences were shuttered.

Bonaparte pointed to a sign in the shape of a cardinal’s red hat: “A hatter.” A pair of scissors signified a tailor; a snake, a chemist; a bleeding foot, leeches. “But the water is unclean,” he went on as we crossed over a stinking canal. “We have much to do installing a new sanitation system.” A man in a banditti hat, defecating by the side of the road, raised his hand in salute. “And educating the inhabitants,” he added.

At one intersection we were obliged to wait for the passage of a cart loaded with an enormous barrel of water. Chained prisoners followed behind, swinging long leather tubes out of which water came, dampening the dust.

We came upon a great square where five goats were grazing. “This must be the famous cathedral,” I said, astonished by its grandeur. The church looked even bigger than Notre Dame and far more ornate.

“Three murderers live in there and I can’t do a thing about it.”
^*
Masons stopped their work on one of the turrets to cheer as we passed. I smiled at them and waved. (Like a queen, I thought.) “The façade has been under construction for five centuries,” Bonaparte said. “I intend to finish it.” His statements surprised me. This wasn’t a soldier speaking—this was a ruler.

We pulled through a broad portico into the courtyard of a villa of glittering pink granite. In the centre was a fountain, spurting brown water. The footman opened our carriage door, his lilac jacket stained from running ahead of our carriage. I stepped down, lifting my skirt up out of the dust. An enormous number of servants dressed in black bowed at our approach.

I hung on Bonaparte’s arm as he strode up the steps and through two majestic colonnades into a vast marble hall. I glanced back over my shoulder. We were being followed by a crowd of noisy, clattering “help.” Everywhere I looked there were men in uniform, standing at attention. “This is your home,” Bonaparte said proudly, sweeping his arm aloft.

Lisette blew dust from her hands. “Our trunks will be brought up soon, Madame—or so they say.” She rolled her eyes. The rigours of travel had brought out a feisty humour in my maid.

A clock chimed nine bells. Nine? “Do you know the time?” I guessed it to be around three in the afternoon.

“I think it
is
nine, Madame, but the day begins a half hour after sunset, I am told, so the time is always changing, depending on the time of year.” She blew out her cheeks in exasperation.

I smiled. She reminded me of Hortense, and a wave of longing came over me. “I’ll be needing a bath,” I told her. I had taken laudanum and was feeling more at ease, enveloped in a rosy glow.

“I don’t think they know about baths here,” she said, crinkling her nose.

Lisette reappeared some time later. “I give up, Madame! I tried French, I tried Latin, I even tried Greek. I told them water, they fetched a mirror—a cracked one. I told them a bath, they brought me a melon rolling around stupidly on a tray.”

“We need Bonaparte.”

“The General is in a meeting with his officers, Madame,” Lisette said, reappearing. “He said he would only be a moment.”

But it was over an hour before Bonaparte appeared. A frowning child in a blue smock followed behind him, carrying a vase of flowers.

“I want a bath,” I told him, accepting the girl’s solemn offering.

Bonaparte raised his eyebrows in expectation.

“But we can’t make ourselves understood!” I gave the girl a coin and she ran away giggling.

A copper tub in the shape of a coffin was carried into a little room outside my bedchamber. An endless stream of maids with steaming jugs ran in and out. At last the tub was full. I told them thanks (
grazie
—the only word I know), and indicated that they could go, but they just stood there. “Could you ask them to leave, Bonaparte?” He barked something in Italian and the maids scurried away like a flock of birds,
murmuring prego, prego, prego.

Lisette helped me off with my gown. I slipped into the soapy water. The ceiling of the little room was painted with cherubs. Lisette’s fingers were strong. She massaged my scalp, my neck. My headache dimmed. She helped me into my best nightdress—a cool diaphanous blue silk. I was going to have to tell him.

Bonaparte threw back the bed sheet. I blew out one of the candles and stretched out beside him on the musty feather bed. The laudanum and the bath had brought on a feeling of tenderness in me.

He kissed my cheek innocently, as one kisses a child. I could feel the heat coming off him. “There’s something I have to tell you, Bonaparte.” I
took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. “I’m not with child. Not any more—at least that’s what my doctor said.” I could not bring myself to tell him that the doctor thought it might only have been a mole. There were things men preferred not to know.

Bonaparte sat up, his arms encircling his knees. “When did this happen?” he asked, staring into the shadows.

“About a month ago.” I put my hand on his back. I could feel him rocking slightly. “I was going to write, but then I thought it best to tell you in person.”

“This happens,” he said, turning back to me with tears in his eyes.

“Oh Bonaparte!” I took him in my arms, my heart aching. If only I could give him what he wanted, what he needed. If only I could return his love.

Bastille Day, some time after 10:00
P.M.
(maybe later).

We’ve just returned from a dismal Bastille Day ball. I now understand the meaning of the expression “bored to tears.” Bored to
death.

As we entered the vast, dark ballroom, Bonaparte was hailed. Then we were escorted to a podium where he was hailed yet again. “What do we do now?” I asked him, trying to make myself comfortable on the lumpy chair. Women in the corners whispered behind their fans, regarding me with disapproval. My gown was much more revealing than what the other women were wearing. I regretted not bringing a shawl.

Bonaparte drummed his fingers. “We’re the guests of honour. We’re required to sit.”

All night? I felt like a prisoner of the podium.

We were hours, it seemed, listening to lofty addresses as every noble in Milan was introduced. (One man bowed so low he practically touched his nose to the floor.) My cheeks ached from smiling.

After the introductions Bonaparte was called away for an emergency meeting concerning some military matter. I sat on display, looking out over the dance floor. Thin red, white and blue ribbons had been strung from the rafters. They gave a dismal impression. The air reeked of pomade, garlic and perspiration. A haze of rice powder from the thickly powdered wigs filled the air like a fog. The only laughter came from a
cluster of valets standing by an empty marble fireplace. It was a joyless occasion, and I feared it did not bode well for the months to come.

“Is the
bellissima regina
^*
permitted to dance with a commoner?” Captain Charles hissed from one side of the podium. He was wearing a charming Chinese ensemble of green silk trimmed with gold, and green slippers to match. “The musicians, although lacking in what a Parisian would call finesse, are, at the least, vigorous.” He removed a plume from his velvet toque to fan himself with.

I smiled behind my fan. “First of all, Captain Wide-Awake, let us be clear: I am not a queen.”

“You just happen to be seated on a throne?”

“Which is where I’m required to stay, alas.”

“How…thrilling.” With a comical expression.

“Don’t make me laugh,” I said, laughing.

“Why not?”

“I’m not allowed to enjoy myself. This is a serious position.” I sat up straight.

“So, you won’t even join us for a cotillion? I thought all Parisian women had a passion for dance.”

“In Paris there is only one true passion, Captain,” I said, “and that, I fear to say, is the pursuit of wealth.”

The captain held up his green-gloved hands and made an expression of mock surprise. “Cynicism in a woman surprises me.”

“Forgive me, Captain, I was trying to be clever—a mistake on my part, for I am not a clever woman.”

“Yet I believe it fair to say there is truth in your observation. I personally have a passion for the pursuit of wealth, as you put it—or rather, a passion for beautiful things, the one necessitating the other.”

“I suffer that weakness myself,” I said, smiling ruefully.

“I prefer to think of it as a virtuous flaw, for is not the worship of beautiful things a religion of sorts?”