The Second Empress (28 page)

C
HAPTER
20

PAULINE BORGHESE

Tuileries Palace, Paris February 1811

I
T’S HAPPENING
!”
SOMEONE SHOUTS IN THE COURTYARD
, and I run to my balcony. A courtier in my brother’s favorite bicorne hat and black riding boots is standing in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace. When he sees me, his face breaks into a smile. “Wonderful news!” he exclaims from below. “The empress is giving birth!”

I slam the doors shut and turn to Paul. “He wants me to be present!” I cry. “Even when he knows that seeing it will make me sick.”

He shrugs. “Then don’t go. But the emperor will send for you anyway, and when his courtier doesn’t find you, he’ll come for you himself.”

“Aren’t you upset that I’ll be sick?”

“You’re always sick. It won’t be any different from yesterday or tomorrow.”

I am shocked by his coldness. “What’s the matter with you?”

He doesn’t say anything, although he hands me the special juice he prepares daily for me and watches to see that I’ve taken it all. He is different lately. Unsympathetic to my pain and less caring. Then I realize what it must be. Napoleon has made him afraid. He thinks what happened to de Canouville will happen to him. “Paul,” I say gently, and he looks away. “My brother would never send you to Spain.”

He laughs shortly. “You believe that’s what I’m worried about? Your Highness, I have told you. I wish to leave France.”

I inhale. “Paul, don’t leave me.
Please
. I need you.”

“And what’s different now from a year ago, or two years?”

“Just give me a year. One more year, and I’ll go back with you.” Suddenly, I can see myself on the island with Paul, dancing in his arms on those hot summer nights. My brother will hate to see me go, and certainly I’ll miss Paris. But life was calm in Saint-Domingue; it was easy there. I’ve never given him a date before. “Next December we’ll leave,” I say.

“And why not now?”

“Because there are things that have to be done,” I explain. In a year, Napoleon will be divorced, and I’ll have convinced him to return with his army to Egypt. Then, with Egypt as part of our empire, we’ll retake Saint-Domingue. “Paul, you’ll wait for me, won’t you?” He has to. We’ll make him king of Saint-Domingue, and I’ll visit him from Egypt the way Cleopatra visited Caesar as his true queen in Rome.

But Paul is silent.

“I have plans for us both. You’ll be happy, and we’ll be together. One year,” I repeat, and when he doesn’t argue, I turn to the mirror and imagine the crown of Egypt on my head. “Destiny,” I whisper, but a knock at the door interrupts the vision.

“The emperor or one of his servants,” Paul warns.

It’s one of his servants. The man is dressed in my brother’s green livery, and when he bows, I see that his hat is embroidered with the imperial emblem of bees. “You are wanted in the birthing chamber, Your Highness.”

Paul glances at me, expecting an outburst. But I have spent the last month preparing for this. “If you will wait one moment,” I tell the young man with a calm I certainly don’t feel. But it’s important no one knows how much the arrival of this child crushes me.

I go to collect my shawl, then stop in my room of antiquities. The high-vaulted chamber is brightly lit, and a pair of heavy chandeliers
cast light across the hundreds of artifacts I’ve collected since my brother’s coronation. I walk to the cabinet where the crown of Egypt rests on a velvet pillow, a powerful symbol of immortality. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Children do not ensure immortality. I reach out and touch the glass. If there were more time, I might take the crown from its resting place. But my brother is waiting.

When I return to the salon, the servant and Paul are both waiting for me.

“Is Your Highness ready?”

We follow the man through the halls. Napoleon has always loved this palace. It’s not as grand as Fontainebleau, but everything in the Tuileries is gilded, and the poorest courtier feels like a king walking these halls.

The courtier enters first and announces our names. Then we step into the antechamber.

Thirteen years ago the same people gathered for the birth of my son in Milan. Six years later, they came together again for his funeral. I rushed to the Villa Mondragone to be at his side as fast as the horses could carry me. But all the court can remember is that I wasn’t there when he was dying. That while he burned with fever, I was swimming and eating well in Tuscany. My only child, my precious Dermide, the only good thing to come of my first marriage. After his death, I cut off my hair and placed it in his coffin.

“Pauline!” Caroline calls as soon as she sees me, and we stand together in a corner of the antechamber, with its mother-of-pearl
secrétaire
and large porcelain busts. My entire family is present. My mother looks so happy, she might actually weep.

“The pain started an hour ago,” my sister confides. “She’ll give birth before nightfall. Napoleon is
in the chamber
.”

But my brother hates “women’s business.” From the time we were children, he vowed he would never attend a birth.

“He’s concerned for her well-being,” she tells me. “Apparently the child is breech.”

“Did he give his instructions to the doctors yet?”

“No one’s heard. But if I had to guess …” She hesitates, drawing out the suspense. “He’ll choose her life.”

“Over a future king of France?” I exclaim. My mother looks over at the two of us in the corner. I glance toward the closed door and immediately feel faint. “I need a chair.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” But my legs start to buckle, and Caroline panics. “Someone bring a chair!”

One of the servants hurries over with a fan and a stool, then helps me to sit.

“I feel hot.” My breath is coming quickly. “Am I hot?”

Caroline puts a palm to my forehead and looks to my mother. “She doesn’t feel well.”

“You’re working yourself into a state,” my mother says.

“You think I’m
creating
this?”

She touches my cheeks, and I see the slight frown between her brows.

I really do feel ill. My stomach
 …

“The child is coming!” someone shouts from within. Everyone rushes to the door, and no one’s concerned about me anymore. “A son!” I hear my brother cry, and then everyone begins to shout and clap. “A son!” Doctors are shouting for towels and bandages to stop the bleeding. A courtier runs to spread the news, and within moments the cannon shots begin. Twenty-two for a boy. Twenty-one if it had been a girl.

Only Paul asks if I am well. My mother is clasping her hands and praying. “A successful breech birth. It’s a miracle from God.”

I look up at Paul and wish he could embrace me. But in all of our time together, he has only held me once: the night my husband died in Saint-Domingue. I reach for his hand, and he lets me hold it until my brother appears.

A tremendous cheer goes up in the room. I have never seen him so proud.

“François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte has been born,” he announces. “Her Majesty will make a full recovery.”

There is immense rejoicing. Even Joséphine’s children, Eugène and Hortense, are congratulating their former stepfather. Don’t they realize this child has ruined everything for them?

Then my brother makes his way toward me. “You have a nephew,” he says joyously. “The king of Rome.”

“Congratulations,” Paul says on my behalf. “All of France will be celebrating in the streets tonight.”

But Napoleon is looking at me. “If you are ill, leave. No one must be sick around this child.”

“Of course not. He’s the
king of Rome
!” I can see my mother drawing close, and my sisters, too. “Will the court move to the Tuileries Palace now, because this is where his
Hapsburg
ancestors resided?”

He looks around the chamber and shrugs. “Why not?”

“Because you have always loved Fontainebleau!”

My brother’s face turns red, and he turns to our mother. “I’ve had enough of this family!” On the other side of the wall, his new son begins to cry. He hears the sound, and his face softens. “They will not ruin this for me,” he swears to Maman.

“Stay,” she implores, then looks at me. “No one will speak another word.”

A
S THE CHANDELIERS
are lit and dinner is about to be served, Napoleon finds me in the Grand Salon. Hundreds of courtiers have come to celebrate, and heavy platters are filled with roasted swan and wild duck, and a dozen different vegetables are piled high in silver bowls. The room is filled with talk of the future: France will be an undefeatable empire now that the empress has done in just twelve months what Joséphine failed to do in fourteen years. Who knows how many children she might go on to produce? Three sons. Four? But there’s none of the day’s excitement in my brother’s face.

“I must speak with you,” he says solemnly in my ear, and everyone’s gaze is on us as we exit the Grand Salon together. I follow him down the hall where we can talk in private, then wait for the tirade that is sure to come. Only he’s silent.

“I’m afraid,” he says at last.

I look around us, to see if he might be referring to some immediate threat, but he shakes his head.

“Not of someone—of
something
. What if my son is sick?”

I start angrily, “I wasn’t—”

“Not you,” he interrupts. “Because of me, or her.”

I hesitate.

“Her eldest brother is plagued with seizures. A sister, too.”

“Are you certain?”

“Metternich confirmed it.”

“And you’ve always known?”

“She’s a Hapsburg,” he reminds me. “And our son looks healthy. But what if …”

He doesn’t have to finish. I know what he fears. When we were children, I saw it happen in Corsica. One moment he was playing with the chickens, then suddenly he was rolling on the floor, his tongue out of his mouth, his body shaking. It’s happened at least a dozen times since, and there’s no telling when it will happen again. Only our mother knows about this. And Caroline. “How often is her brother … sick?” I ask him.

“Daily. She writes to him twice a week, but he isn’t right.” He indicates his head, and my heart begins to race.

“What do the doctors say?” I ask him.

“No one knows about it.”

“What about your advisers and Méneval?”

“They think I’m peculiar.”

“Then wait and see. It might come to nothing.”

He nods. “That’s right. The Bonapartes have never had bad luck before.” But he’s convincing himself, and I can hear he doesn’t believe
it. “What should I do about Joséphine? I—I think I did her wrong. I’ll tell her to return to Malmaison. And she’ll want to see the child.”

I look at him in the low light of the hall, and all forty years are etched in his face.
He misses Joséphine and wants my permission to let her see his child
. My
permission. Not Marie-Louise’s
. “You’re tired,” I say. “Tomorrow, when you’re rested and fed, none of this will seem important.”

C
HAPTER
21