Désirée (26 page)

Like a monster, the giantess stood over me; her shapeless shadow danced along the wall, many candles flickered—was it already dark again, or still . . . .

"Go away—leave me alone," I moaned, lashing out. They went away and then Jean-Baptiste was sitting on my bed, holding me in his arms. Again the knife turned inside me but Jean-Baptiste didn't let me go.

"Why aren't you in Paris—at the Luxembourg Palace—they sent for you?" The pain was ebbing but my voice sounded strange and gasping.

"It is night," he said.
                                                       
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"You don't have to go to war again?" I whispered anxiously.

"No, no. I'm staying here. I am now . . ."

I heard no more, for the knife thrust through me and I was drowning in a sea of pain.

. . . The pain had stopped. Soon I felt quite well again. I was too weak to think any more.

As I lay gently cradled by the waves, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing . . . Yes, I heard . . .

"Isn't the doctor here? If he doesn't come soon, it will
too late." A voice, high-pitched in agitation, that I didn't
recognize. Why a doctor? I felt so well now, rocking with
the waves, the Seine with its many lights . . . Burning hot,
bitter coffee was poured into me. I blinked.

"If the doctor doesn't come soon—" That was the giantess. How funny—I couldn't believe this high, excited voice was hers. Why had she lost her head? Soon it would all I over. . . .

But it wasn't over. It was only beginning.

Men's voices at the door.

"Wait in the living room, Mr. War Minister, sir. Be calm, sir. I assure you, Mr. War Minister—"

What Minister of War? How did a Minister of War get into my room?

"I beg of you, Doctor—" That's Jean-Baptiste's voice. Don't leave me, Jean-Baptiste . . .

Something stuck me. An injection, I found out later. The doctor gave me camphor drops and instructed the giantess to lift up my shoulders. I was conscious again. Marie and Julie stood at either side of the bed, holding candlesticks. The doctor was a short thin man in a black suit. His face was in shadow. Something shone, flashed between his hands. "A knife!" I screamed. "He has a knife!"

"No, only forceps," Marie said. "Don't scream so, Eugénie"'

But perhaps it was a knife, after all, for the pains shot through me again, as before, except oftener, ever oftener, finally without a break. I was ripped to pieces; ripped, torn— until I fell into a deep pit and knew no more.

The voice of the giantess again, rough and indifferent: "The end is near, Dr. Moulin."

"Perhaps she'll pull through, citizeness, if only the hemorrhage stops."

Something whimpered in the room—high and squally. I tried to open my eyes but my lids were like lead.

"Jean-Baptiste—a son, a wonderful little son," Julie was sobbing.

After a while I could open my eyes, wide—as wide as they went. Jean-Baptiste has a son. Julie held a small bundle of white cloth in her arms, and Jean-Baptiste stood beside her.

"How small a small child is," he said in surprise. He turned and came over to the bed. He knelt down and took my hand and laid it against his cheek, his completely unshaven cheek —and wet, too. Do generals also weep?

"We have a fine son, but he's still very small," he reported.

"They're always small at the beginning," I said. My lips w
ere so bitten that I could hardly talk. Julie showed me the
bundle. A crab-red little face peeped out of the wrappings.
The little face had scrunched-up eyes and looked offended. Perhaps he hadn't wanted to be born.

"I must ask you all to leave the room. The wife of the Minister of War needs rest," announced the doctor.

"The wife of our Minister of War? Does he mean me, Jean-Baptiste?"

"I have been the French Minister of War since the day before yesterday," Jean-Baptiste said.

"And I haven't yet congratulated you," I murmured.

"You were very busy." He smiled.

Julie laid the little bundle in the cradle; and they all, except the doctor and the giantess, left the room and I went to sleep.

Oscar! An entirely new name, one I had never heard before, Os-car. . . . It sounded rather pretty. Apparently a Nordic name. My son will have a Nordic name and be called Oscar. It was Napoleon's idea, and Napoleon insists on being his godfather. The name "Oscar" occurred to him because out there in the desert he's been reading
Ossian.
When he learned, from one of Joseph's long-winded letters, that I was expecting a son, he promptly wrote, "If it's a son, Eugénie must call him Oscar. And I want to be his godfather."

Of Jean-Baptiste—who, after all, also has something to say in this matter—not a word. When we showed Jean-Baptiste this letter, he laughed. "We mustn't offend your old admirer, little girl. As far as I'm concerned, he can be the boy's godfather; and Julie can represent him at the christening. The name Oscar . . ."

"It's a hideous name," said Marie, who happened to be in the room.

"The name of a Nordic hero," Julie, who had delivered Napoleon's letter, contributed.

"But our son is neither Nordic nor heroic," I said, and considered the tiny face of the bundle I held in my arms. The little face was no longer red but yellow. My son had jaundice, but Marie claimed that most newborn babies get jaundice when they are a few days old.

"Oscar Bernadotte sounds distinguished," Jean-Baptiste
said. And that settled the matter for him. "We'll move in fourteen days, if that's all right with you, Désirée."

In two weeks we are moving to another house. A minister of war must live in Paris, and therefore Jean-Baptiste has bought a small villa in the rue Cisalpine, around the corner from Julie, between the rue Courcelles and the rue du Rocher. It's not much larger than our little house in Sceaux; but at least we'll have a real nursery next to the bedroom, and a dining room as well as a drawing room where Jean-Baptiste can receive the officials and politicians who often call on him in the evening. At the moment, all this takes place in the dining room.

I myself am doing marvellously. Marie cooks my favourite dishes, and I'm not so weak any more—I can sit up by myself. Unfortunately, I have callers all day long and this makes me tired. Josephine came, and even Thérèse Tallien; and also that woman writer with the pug-face, this Mme de Staël, whom I know only slightly. On top of everything, Joseph solemnly presented me with his novel. For he has perpetrated a book and now considers himself a writer, heaven-sent. The book
is called
Moina, or the Peasant Girl of Saint Denis
and is so boring and sentimental that I go to sleep every time I try
I to read it. And along comes Julie, with, "Isn't it wonderful?"

Actually, I know quite well that the many callers don't come to see either me or my yellow son Oscar, but the wife of Minister of War Bernadotte. This woman with the ugly Pug-face, who is married to the Swedish Ambassador but doesn't live with him because she's a writer—and to write she needs stimulation which she finds among wild-haired, wild-eyed, adolescent poets with whom she is in love— As I was saying, this Mme de Staël told me that France had at last found the one man who can restore order; and that everyone considers my Jean-Baptiste the real head of the Government. I have also read the proclamation which Jean-Baptiste sent to all his soldiers on the day of his appointment as Minister of War. It is so beautiful that tears came to my eyes. He wrote, " Soldiers of France! I have witnessed your terrible sufferings;
indeed, as you know, I have participated in them. I swear
that I shall never rest until I have provided you with bread, clothing, and arms. And you, comrades, you must swear that once again you will defeat this powerful coalition that threatens France. We are bound by the oaths we have sworn."

Jean-Baptiste gets home from the Ministry of War at eight 'o'clock, has a small meal served at my bedside, and then goes down to his study to dictate to a secretary half the night. He goes off at six o'clock in the morning to the rue Varenne, where the Ministry is now. And Fernand says that the camp bed, which Jean-Baptiste has put up in the study, is often unused. It is dreadful that my husband all alone has to save our Republic. And also, the Government hasn't enough money to buy arms and uniforms for the ninety thousand recruits whom Jean-Baptiste is having trained, and there have been some wild scenes between him and Director Sieyès.

If only Jean-Baptiste were left alone in the evening to work at home in peace; but I constantly hear people coming and going. Jean-Baptiste told me only yesterday that members of various political parties are trying very hard to persuade him to side with them. Just now, as—rushed and exhausted—he was shovelling in his supper, Fernand announced that a "M. Chiappe," who wouldn't say what he wanted, was waiting downstairs. Jean-Baptiste wiped his mouth, jumped up and hurried downstairs to get rid of this mysterious M. Chiappe. A quarter of an hour later, Jean-Baptiste returned to my room. His face was red with rage.

"This Chiappe has been sent to me by the Duke of Enghien. Such insolence, such Bourbon insolence—!"

"And who is the Duke of Enghien, if I may ask?" I inquired

"Louis de Bourbon Condé, Duke of Enghien. The most able member of the Bourbon family, in the pay of England, now somewhere in Germany. If I can seize the power, and then give France back to .the Bourbons, they will make me High Constable, and God knows what else! What insolence!"

"What did you answer?"

"I threw him out, and told him to inform his principals that I am a firm Republican."

"Everyone says that today you really govern France. If you
wanted to, could you overthrow the directors and become Director yourself?" I asked cautiously.

"Of course," Jean-Baptiste said quietly. "In fact, the Jacobins proposed that I do so—some Jacobins and some of our generals, too. If I wished, I could be named Director with far greater powers than the directors have today."

"And you have refused?"

"Naturally. I support the Constitution."

At this moment Fernand announced that our brother-in-law, Joseph, wished to see Jean-Baptiste.

"The last person I wanted to see today," grumbled Jean-Baptiste. "Let him come up, Fernand."

Joseph appeared. First he leaned over the cradle and declared that Oscar was the most beautiful child he had ever seen; then he wanted Jean-Baptiste to go down to the study with him.

"I must ask you something, and our conversation will bore Désirée," he ventured.

Jean-Baptiste shook his head. "I have so little opportunity to be with Désirée, I would rather stay with her. Sit down, and make it brief, Bonaparte. I have a long evening's work ahead of me."

They both sat beside my bed. Jean-Baptiste sought my hand; peace and strength flowed from his nearness as my hand lay safe in his. I closed my eyes.

"It's about Napoleon," I heard Joseph say. "What would you say if Napoleon decided to return to France?"

"I would say that Napoleon cannot return unless the Minister of War recalls him from Egypt."

"My dear brother-in-law, we need not pretend with each other. In Egypt, a supreme commander of Napoleon's stature is now superfluous. Since the destruction of our fleet, our operations there are more or less at a standstill. And the Egyptian campaign can therefore . . ."

". . . . be regarded as a fiasco, as I predicted it would be."

"I wouldn't express it so baldly. Still, as we can expect no decisive developments in Egypt, my brother's talents could be used to greater advantage on another front. Napoleon is not o
nly a military strategist; you yourself know of his interest in administration. He could be of the utmost service to you here in Paris in the reorganization of the Army. In addition—"

Joseph hesitated and waited for some comment; Jean-Baptiste made none. His hand still lay protectingly on mine "You realize," Joseph continued, "that there are already several conspiracies against the Government."

"As Minister of War I could hardly be unaware of it. But what has that to do with the supreme commander of our Egyptian Expeditionary Force?"

"The Republic needs a—yes, it needs many strong men. In wartime, France cannot afford these party intrigues and domestic political differences."

"So you suggest that I should recall your brother to put down these various conspiracies? Do I understand you correctly?"

"Yes, I thought that . . ."

"It's up to the police to expose conspiracies. No more, no less."

"Of course, if these conspiracies are against the State, But I can confidentially advise you that influential circles are considering a consolidation of the powerful political forces."

"What do you mean by that?"

"For example, if you yourself and Napoleon, the two most capable . . ." Joseph got no further.

"Stop that drivel. Come to the point: To free the Republic from party politics, certain people want a dictator; your brother, Napoleon, wishes to be recalled from Egypt in order to compete for the position of Dictator. Be frank with me, Bonaparte!"