The Josephine B. Trilogy (73 page)

“Neither Madame Chevalley nor Madame de la Pinel is the wife of General Bonaparte,” I reminded her gently. As well—although I declined to tell her this—the design lacked elegance. (She’d ruffled the hem!) I repeated my request for simplicity.

“Madame Bonaparte—if I may be so bold—are you sure you want such a plain tunic? I have three girls in my employ devoted entirely to the application of sequins.”

No ornaments, I insisted. And no muslin petticoat.

On account, Madame Bonaparte?

Yes, of course—on account.

And then the jeweller, who insisted on being shown in with his case of (I confess) irresistible wares. I selected a lovely strand of gold interlocking leaves. What else would look right with a Grecian tunic? “On account, Madame?”

And so, on it went. Lisette has just arrived with a jug of warm mulled wine. The carriages have been called for nine, she informs me.

“So early!”

It is time for my bath…

And perhaps just a bit of laudanum.

Bonaparte sat on a stool beside my toilette table, watching as Lisette made up my hair. He was pleased, he said, with the simplicity of my gown. “We must appear to live within my means.”

I refrained from laughing. Even the bachelor generals weren’t able to live on a general’s salary of forty thousand francs a year, and as for my “simple” tunic—

“How’s this?” Louis appeared in the doorway, pulling at the sleeves of a nankeen coat. He’d been ill earlier in the day and still looked pale. (Ever since Italy his health has been uncertain.)

“Ugly!” Jérôme called out from behind his older brother, jealous because he was too young to go to the ball.

Bonaparte jumped to his feet. “Who made that jacket for you?” The collar was of black velvet, the insignia of a Royalist.

“How about your blue one?” I suggested.

“Don’t move, Madame!” Lisette sprayed lacquer over my hair. “You look lovely,” she said, handing me the looking glass.

I looked hideous! The curls were stuck to my head with a substance that made me look as if I had just been drenched by rain.

Bonaparte pulled out his timepiece. “We’re late.”

We set out in a light snow, Bonaparte, Louis, Hortense and I. The jingling of the brass bells on the horses’ harness made a festive sound. At the Rue de Grenelle we came to a stop. Equipages were backed up all the way to the Seine. Hortense made a peek-hole in the steamed-up glass. Where had all the carriages come from? For years only shabby hacks had been seen on the streets of Paris, and now suddenly the roadway was crowded with elegant landaus, phaetons, barouches and curricles.

It was half-past nine by the time we pulled into the courtyard of the Hôtel Gallifet. A bivouac scene had been created at the entrance—a campfire surrounded by men in uniform, tents. “The fields of Italy,” Louis explained to Hortense, offering her his arm. “But for the snow, of course,” he added and my daughter laughed.

As we headed up the steps, the double doors were flung open. Four hall porters jumped to take our cloaks. A butler with an operatic voice announced us. The musicians stopped playing and everyone turned to stare. Then a cheer went up and horns blazed out a welcome.

I was overwhelmed by the scene I saw before me. A profusion of candles in enormous hanging chandeliers revealed a crowd of men and women in glittering finery. A man with a shiny forehead was making his way toward us with the help of an ebony cane. He was slithering rather than walking, dragging a club foot, I realized. It was Talleyrand, the famous (infamous) Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He bowed deeply to Bonaparte and then to me, extending two fingers of his right hand as if in benediction. (He had been a bishop, I recalled.) “We have awaited your arrival, Madame la Générale.” Only his eyes showed any sign of life. They filled with a fawning reverence whenever they happened to alight upon my husband. My husband, who was ignoring us, however, looking out over the crowd with a hawkish expression, his hands clasped behind his back.

“I am astonished by the beauty of the décor,” I told Minister Talleyrand, introducing Hortense, who curtsied, and then Louis, who bowed.

“Delighted,” Talleyrand said, his voice a drone.

The playwright Arnault appeared, greeting us shyly. Bonaparte clasped his arm. “Take me about the room, Arnault. We shall engage in
discussion; that way no one will accost me.” Louis offered to escort Hortense to the ballroom.

Which left me quite suddenly alone with our host. “For this entire evening,” he informed me, “I will be your cavaliere servente. Is that not how it is done in Italy?” He smiled, an expression that made him look frightful. I heard the musicians warming up. “Come,” he said, “you must see my quarrelsome dancers. In a misguided spirit of equality they insisted that if they were to perform for us, they should have the honour of eating with us.”

The crowd parted for us as we approached. I moved slightly to one side in order to make room for each swing of his big foot. “And who was the victor in this debate?”

“I am always the victor, Madame.”

The orchestra stuck up a chord. “Ah. They are about to perform a new dance from Germany. The waltz, I believe they call it.” One corner of the Minister’s thin lips curled. “It requires that the male and female grasp one another, and so of course the priests are endeavouring to have it condemned.”

The ballroom was crowded with musicians, dancers, men standing behind women who were seated, watching. The waltz was a swirling of couples holding each other’s arms. I saw Hortense in an alcove with Louis, showing him how it was done.

“Ah, there’s Bonaparte.” I spotted him in a far corner.

“In my humble estimation, all five Directors together are not worth the General’s little finger. Twenty victories are becoming in so young a man. General Bonaparte
is
the Republic.” The Minister’s toneless drone was at odds with the impassioned nature of his words.

Yes, I nodded, feigning to listen. Bonaparte was heading toward us, arm-in-arm with Arnault. A cluster of men and women were following behind him—like a king’s entourage, I thought, a dazed feeling coming over me.

In which I become involved in intrigues

January 4, 1798.

“Where to, Madame?” my coachman asked, tipping his sheepskin cap. Feeling poorly, I suspected. The drivers and postillions had hobnobbed and glass-jingled last night, while their masters were enjoying the ball.

“One hundred Rue Honoré,” I told Antoine, reading the card on which was printed the Paris address of the Bodin Company. I’d told Bonaparte I was going to call on Thérèse—which was true, in part. After I called in at one hundred Rue Honoré.

A butler in tails opened the oak door. I was shown into a salon so large it required two fireplaces. In a window alcove was a desk covered with files and a counting device.

I heard the even thump, thump, thump of a wooden leg. “Madame Bonaparte?” Hugo Bodin was younger than his brother, but every bit as round, and his complexion even pinker. He pulled on the bell rope. “Captain Charles,” he instructed the butler, pushing forward a shieldback chair for me. “I have been anticipating your call, Madame. We are honoured. The fervour of the people for your husband is
electric,
to use a modern word.” He lowered himself onto a crimson sofa, his stump sticking out to one side like the oar of a boat. “That was quite a fête last night in his honour, I am told. Even we plebeians who were not invited were all ‘in a twitter,’ as the English say.”

“It was an extraordinary display.” A ball in the style of the Ancien Régime: a full orchestra, dancers, a feast. “And quite cleverly done. The
Minister of Foreign Affairs transformed his residence to look like the backstage of the opera.”

“I was told that that dance the clergy wish to have banned was performed. Wallace? No, valse.”

From somewhere in the building, I heard a dog bark. “The captain said to tell you that he will be a moment,” the butler announced.

As if on cue the captain appeared, buttoning the top button of a corded white vest figured in gold. “Madame Bonaparte! I hope this means…?”

“I’m not sure,” I told them both. “My lawyer and I have gone over the contract carefully, and considering the amount of the investment, I’m afraid that the—”

Hugo held up his hands. “Before you say anything, Madame, you should know that we’d be willing to up your share to twelve per cent.”

They’d doubled it. “I appreciate your offer, Citoyen Bodin, but I’m afraid I’d require at least fifteen.”

“Done,” Hugo said.

Done? I looked from one man to the other. Then I smiled at the captain and said, “Captain Charles, it would appear that we are now business associates.”

“Hooray!” Hugo exclaimed in a burst of undignified enthusiasm. We toasted our partnership with thimble-glasses of Chartreuse.

After, in the privacy of my carriage, I laughed at my audacity. Fifteen per cent: a small fortune. A fortune I urgently needed.

Thérèse was thrilled. “You’re actually going to do it? You’re going to be a partner in a military supply company? That’s so daring! You’re the only woman I know who has done that.”

“But you’re the one who told me I should.”

“I just can’t believe it. You’ll be making
millions.
”

“Borrowing millions is more like it.”

January 6.

“It’s a large sum,” I warned Barras. The leather chair creaked as I shifted my weight. “Four hundred thousand.” I was conscious of blinking—once, twice, three times.

Barras sat back, examining his fingernails. Then he grinned. “Welcome to the world of high finance.”

High finance, high debt: high profit.

January 8.

“There’s a Negress outside demanding to see you,” Lisette informed me this afternoon. “I told her to go around to the back entrance, but she just stood there.”

I fumbled with the window latch and looked out. A Negro woman was standing in the courtyard—a tall, older woman, shivering in a worn wool cloak over a long calico gown. “Mimi?” She looked up, squinting against the sun. “Mimi!”

I did not know how to greet her. It had been over seven years. We’d parted in a difficult time, in a world torn by Revolution, a world divided. It seemed a lifetime ago. “I thought I would never see you again,” I said, my eyes filling. She’d been like a sister to me in my youth—a sister, a mother, a friend. It was Mimi who’d taught me to dance, read the cards, make charms, Mimi who had nursed me through childhood fevers, helped birth my babies, Mimi who had been their nanny.

“Yeyette,” she said, calling me by my baby name, her warm Island accent music to my ears, “still always weeping.” And then she smiled, that big-toothed, big-hearted grin.

We’ve been talking for hours. I’m
starved
for news of home. “And how is Maman?” was one of my first questions.

Mimi pushed out her big lower lip, the inside pink as an oyster shell. “She can’t walk or use her hands.”

“How awful!” My mother is a proud woman, independent. She had
run the family sugar plantation without any help from my hapless father. After his death she’d worked hard to pay off his debts.

“She says you’ve married a Jacobin, the Devil himself.”

I smiled. I was not surprised. My mother believes in God and the King. “I miss her!”

Mimi touched my hand. “She told me to look after you for her.”

My throat tightened. Oh,
Maman.

January 9.

I was reviewing procedures with Mimi when Hortense stuck her head into the room. She started, surprised by the presence of a dark-skinned woman.

“Hortense, do you remember Mimi?”

“My nanny, you mean?” Hortense asked, putting down her portfolio.

“Oh, my Lord.” Mimi slapped her hands over her cheeks.

[Undated]

News of an uprising in Rome. Lieutenant Duphot, Eugène’s friend who was to be married, was killed the night before his wedding. How awful! No word yet from Eugène. I can’t sleep.

January 22.

It was past midnight when I was awakened by a tap on the door, the sound of the door creaking open. “Madame?” Lisette’s candle threw ghostly shadows onto the walls.

I slipped out of bed, my heart aflutter. Bonaparte, asleep, did not stir. “What is it?” My teeth chattering, I pulled on a robe.

“Your son, Madame.”

I put my hand over my mouth, fearing the worst.

“He’s downstairs!”

“Maman!” Eugène pulled off a boot and lumbered to his feet.

“You’re back!” I wept. “I’ve been frantic with worry.”

He held his lantern high, letting out an appreciative whistle. “Is this the right house, Maman? The street name isn’t even the same.
^*
And a porter at the gate! He almost didn’t let me in.”

We talked late into the night, whispering by the fire. So many adventures!

Twenty-four days of storm at sea
…

“I was so sick, I thought I was going to die.”

“I get like that too.”

Murderers waking him in the night in Naples
…

“Murderers?”

“With these tiny rusty daggers.” Laughing about it now.

The gift of a jewelled sword from the Municipality of Corfu, which he proudly unsheathed for me
…

“Are those real rubies? It must be worth a fortune.”

“I was thinking of selling it and buying a horse, but Uncle Joseph says I can’t—that it was really intended as a gift to the General, and that therefore it belongs to the Bonaparte family.”

“He said that?”

And then, at the last, what happened in Rome, the uprising
…

“Is it true—was Lieutenant Duphot…?”

“The night before his wedding, Maman! We were giving a dinner for him when the trouble started. He grabbed his sword and went charging out into the mob. I
tried
to stop him. He fancied himself a hero, and now—” Eugène stopped, a stricken look in his eyes.

February 9.

I had planned to meet with Hugo Bodin and Captain Charles today, but it proved to be too difficult. Bonaparte insists on knowing every move I make.