The Second Empress (16 page)

Morning after morning I discovered what an extraordinary person he was. How his favorite painters were Francesco Guardi and Thomas Gainsborough, and how he saw himself as a soldier first but a collector second. His favorite antiques to acquire were Greek, then Roman, and finally Renaissance. We had known each other for more than a year when I suggested he visit me in my chamber. That night my ladies-in-waiting were dismissed, and I learned ways of preventing pregnancy.

When Napoleon sent his stepson, Eugène, to arrange this marriage, there were two questions that Joséphine’s son never asked: is Ferdinand’s sickness an inheritable disease, and has Maria Lucia been touched? As we make our way through the palace, I wonder if Napoleon believes that I am a virgin, and if so, whether he might be angry enough to return me to Austria once he discovers the truth.

“Your Majesty understands that the entire court is waiting beneath the grand staircase,” Méneval adds cautiously as we walk. “Everyone has been assembled there since noon. The Princess Borghese has just arrived, as has Madame Mère.”

“They can wait a little longer.” Napoleon sounds amused. He takes my arm as we reach the staircase, and together we cut a swath through the glittering courtiers in velvet hats and heavily jeweled vests. “Where is he going?” I hear someone exclaim, then a woman gasps. “He’s not really going to take her—”

Napoleon spins around. “Yes. I am.” The woman is shocked. “I’ll be back when I have reconquered Austria.”

C
HAPTER
11

PAULINE BORGHESE

Château de Compiègne March 28, 1810

I
DON’T BELIEVE YOU
.”

But Paul leans close to me during the final waltz and whispers in my ear. “It’s true,” he says simply. “Afterward she beat him at chess—”

“Not the chess,” I hiss. “That she asked for it again!”

He dips me back so that I’m looking up into his green eyes. “Her older sister probably told her what to say once he was finished,” he guesses.

“She doesn’t have an older sister,” I snap, and as we stand face-to-face, I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. Napoleon has only known her for a day, and Paul has sworn she isn’t any great catch. But he wasn’t there for the carriage ride back, when anything might have happened between them. “He likes her. That’s what he said to you this morning, isn’t it?”

He shrugs. “He likes all women—for a time.”

“But this one’s a Hapsburg. And for all his talk about equality and common blood, I know the truth. He wishes he were royal.”

Paul doesn’t argue. The music crescendos, and throughout the ballroom of the Château de Compiègne, hundreds of diamonds catch at the light. The gems dazzle from every surface: women’s necks, men’s cravats, the too-flirtatious Duchess of Devonshire’s hair. If the gods
could see us now, they would stop time so that not a single one of us would age. Osiris, both the brother and husband of Isis, could immortalize us all in our perfection.

Paul puts his hand on my back, and I enjoy the small thrill of scandalizing the members of the ancien régime.
The Princess Borghese is dancing with her chamberlain
! Then the floor begins to clear until we’re the only couple dancing. I catch the empress watching us as we go by, with her pretty blue eyes and a sweet-as-honey gaze. At every formal ball, at every weekend soirée,
I
am the one who ends the dance. It has been this way since my brother first held court, and it will be this way for as long as I am the Princess Borghese.

I close my eyes, and for a moment, nothing but the music exists. There aren’t five hundred guests from all across Europe to see my brother wed his second wife. I’ve worn my white silk dress embroidered with gold lotus flowers, and the tiara in my hair has similar diamond blossoms. In the light of the hanging chandeliers, I must shine like white fire. I search for my current lover, de Canouville, in the crowd. His pretty face is next to Napoleon’s. Not surprising. My brother has always been a great admirer of beauty.

“So what else have you heard?” I ask casually.

My chamberlain hesitates. Then finally, as the music softens, he says quietly, “He advised Méneval to marry a German, since German girls are as fresh and innocent as roses.”

I’m so shocked, I nearly forget that we are dancing. “He wants
innocence
?”

“For now,” Paul is quick to say.

But I feel a fire in the pit of my stomach that is all consuming. My brother, who had his way with the married Countess Walewska for the first time
after
she fainted dead at his feet, admires innocence? The same brother who enjoys spanking court women and then taking them to his chamber? The hypocrisy of it boils my blood.

When the piano stops, I face Napoleon and make my deepest curtsey.

“Very pretty.” Napoleon claps, and the entire court immediately follows suit. “
Bellissima
!” he exclaims in our native Italian. He beckons me with his eyes, and Paul leads me across the floor to where the emperor is standing.

“That was very impressive,” Marie-Louise says, and though we met this morning, her tone is formal. “You’re a wonderful dancer.”

I glance at de Canouville, who is watching me with open desire. “I’ve been dancing since I was a child in Corsica,” I reply. “I hope you dance as well. My brother likes watching beautiful women … waltz.”

Marie-Louise inhales sharply, and my brother gives me a thunderous look. “Come with me,” he commands, and everyone steps away as if I’ve suddenly become poisonous.

“Tonight,” I whisper in de Canouville’s ear as I pass. “My apartment at midnight.”

I follow Napoleon through the ballroom’s double doors. He is breathing so heavily that one of the passing soldiers asks if he is well. “Fine,” he barks, and the young man steps back into the shadows. No one has dared to follow us, and our footfalls are the only sound in the marble halls. My brother waits for me to enter the library first, and once the door is shut, I placate him. “It was a joke.”

“I will strip your title!” he shouts. “You will be nothing more than Madame Pauline!”

He watches me in the flickering light of the fireplace, and for a moment, I am actually fearful. “My husband was a prince long before you were emperor,” I say at last. My marriage to Camillo makes me a princess, not my brother’s whim. Like his tender bride with
Hapsburg
blood.

“I have summoned your husband to Paris,” he counters. “He’s to be at my wedding on the second of April.” I open my mouth to object, but he hasn’t played his final card. “For the occasion, you will be carrying the empress’s train in the chapel. You may be a princess”—he pauses—“but she is the empress of Rome.”

“I will not carry her train,” I warn him.

My brother’s lips twitch upward. “Jealousy has never become you, Pauline. And you most certainly will. Or you will find yourself living in Rome with Camillo.”

I search his face to see if this is an idle threat, but his gaze is unflinching. “Why are you doing this to me?” In the light of the flames, he looks younger than his forty years. I imagine him in the blue and gold
nemes
crown, an Egyptian pectoral around his neck and a crook at his side.

“It’s a silk train,” he says harshly, “not an explosive.”

I cover my face with my hands. “I can’t live with Camillo. He’s a fool.”

“I’ve had enough, Pauline.”

I watch my brother walk behind his desk and seat himself heavily. He looks weary, as if this conversation has drawn everything out of him. “In four days there will be an official ceremony, and you will be standing in the Louvre with your sisters and Camillo.”

“I want nothing to do with that man!” I shriek.

“Then you should have considered that when you took your vows, but he will be staying here for my wedding.”

“He will not live with me in Château de Neuilly,” I say flatly. My brother gifted me that house during his Spanish campaign. “I would sooner see Joséphine in it than Camillo.”

“Then you will send him to the Hôtel Charost!” he says angrily, referring to my property on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “But have a smile on your face come the second of April.”

He storms past me, and I can see there’ll be no moving him tonight.

C
HAPTER
12

PAUL MOREAU

The Louvre, Paris April 2, 1810

I
T MAY BE THE GREATEST SPECTACLE
P
ARIS HAS EVER WITNESSED
, with soldiers marching down the Champs-Élysées in a steady stream of red coats and silver carriages as far as the eye can see. It costs a fortune to put on a parade like this, and the general populace feels that another war will bankrupt this empire. Yet everywhere I look there is joy—in the faces of the people crowding the streets, in the excitement of the courtiers who will grow rich serving our new empress.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Méneval says, and I suspect he has seen his share of processions in this country. We’ve been standing outside the Louvre for an hour; Napoleon loves pageantry. “Nothing will ever be the same in Europe after today. The daughter of Austria is marrying the ruler of an empire so vast that Charlemagne himself would be envious. What nation will challenge an alliance like this?”

I try to imagine what peace will mean after decades of revolution and war.

There would be no more public lists of the dead. No more burials of courtiers who rode out to war with their ambitious emperor simply because he wanted more land. And once there’s peace in Europe, why shouldn’t there be peace abroad? Why would France have need of colonies and slaves when there’ll be so much prosperity and happiness here?