Désirée (30 page)

"I'm afraid of him. He has no heart." I heard her voice distinctly that early spring night on the bridge. Christine. Christine, the peasant girl from St. Maximin, the wife of Lucien Bonaparte. Hundreds, thousands of witnesses saw how Lucien pulled his brother up to the rostrum, and with shining eyes brought forth the first "Vive Bonaparte." A couple of weeks later the walls of the Tuileries trembled because they quarrelled so terribly. Minister of the Interior Lucien Bonaparte and First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. First they argued about the censorship of the press which Napoleon had introduced. Then about banishing of writers. And constantly about Christine, the innkeeper's daughter, who had been forbidden to enter the Tuileries. Lucien didn't last long as Minister of the Interior. Nor did Christine continue as a cause of family disagreement. The plump peasant girl with the apple-red cheeks and dimples began, after a miserable wet winter, to cough blood
.
One afternoon I was sitting with her, and we talked about next spring and read the fashion magazines. Christine wanted a dress with gold embroidery.

"In this dress," I said, "you will drive to the Tuileries and be p
resented to the First Consul, and you will be so beautiful that he will envy Lucien."

Christine's dimples disappeared. "I'm afraid of him," she said. "He has no heart."

Finally Mme Letizia insisted that Christine be received at the
Tuileries. Napoleon heeded this and a week later casually
told his brother, "And don't forget to bring your wife to the opera tomorrow evening and to present her to me."

Lucien answered simply, "I'm afraid my wife will be unable to accept this honourable invitation."

Napoleon's lips were a thin line. "It is not an invitation, Lucien, but a command from the First Consul."

Lucien shook his head. "My wife cannot comply with a command, even from the First Consul. My wife is dying."

The most expensive wreath at Christine's funeral was inscribed, "To my beloved sister-in-law Christine—N. Bonaparte."

The Widow Jouberthou has red hair, an ample bosom, and dimples which remind one a little of Christine. She had been married to some unknown little bank clerk. Napoleon demanded that Lucien marry the daughter of one of the repatriated aristocrats. But Lucien turned up at the registry office with the Widow Jouberthou. Whereupon Napoleon signed an expulsion order against the French Citizen Lucien Bonaparte, former member of the Council of Five Hundred, former Minister of the Interior of the French Republic. Lucien paid us a farewell visit before he left for Italy.

"Back there in Brumaire," he said, "I wanted to do best thing for the Republic. You know that, don't you, Bernadotte?"

"I know that," answered Bernadotte, "but you made a grave mistake—back there in Brumaire."

It was about two years ago that Hortense cried so loudly in her room in the Tuileries that the guards kept looking up her windows in alarm. Napoleon had betrothed his stepdaughter to his brother Louis. Louis, the fat, flat-footed youth, had no interest whatsoever in colourless Hortense. He preferred the actress at the
Comédie Française.
But Napoleon feared another
mésalliance
in the family. So Hortense locked herself in, and simply screamed. She refused to let her mother in. Finally they sent for Julie. Julie hammered with her fist on Hortense's door until the girl opened it.

"Can I help you?" Julie asked. Hortense shook her head. "You love someone else, don't you?" Julie said. Hortense's weeping ceased, and her thin figure stiffened. "You love some
one else," Julie repeated. Hortense nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'll talk to your stepfather," Julie said. Hortense shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. Julie continued. "Is the other man one of the First Consul's group? Would your step-father consider him eligible?" Hortense didn't answer. Tears flowed from her wide-open eyes. "Or—is this other man already married?" Hortense's lips parted. She started to smile, then suddenly laughed. Laughed and laughed—shrill and wild, like one gone mad.

Julie grabbed her shoulders. "Stop that! Pull yourself together
If you don't I'll have to call the doctor—" But Hortense couldn't stop laughing. That finished my patient Julie. With
out thinking she slapped Hortense hard.

Hortense was struck dumb. She closed her big mouth and took a couple of deep breaths. When she was calmer, "I love—
him
," she said softly.

Julie hadn't thought of this possibility. "Does he know?"
 she asked.

Hortense nodded. "There are very few things he doesn't know. And the rest he finds out from our Minister of Police, M. Fouché." She sounded bitter.

Julie stood up and took Hortense's hand. "You'd better marry Louis. Louis is his favourite brother. . . ."

The nuptials were celebrated a few weeks later. Paulette was held up to Hortense as an example. How she fought against her marriage. Napoleon practically had to push her into marrying General Leclerc. And how she wept because Napoleon ordered her to accompany Leclerc to San Domingo.She finally embarked with him, tears streaming down her face. Leclerc died in San Domingo of yellow fever. And Paulette was so disconsolate that she cut off her honey-coloured hair and laid it in his coffin. To the First Consul this was undying proof of Paulette's devotion to the late lamented. I once disagreed with him. "On the contrary, it proves that she never loved him. And that therefore she must at the last make a show of love."

Paulette's hair grew back into shoulder-length ringlets, and Napoleon decided that she should hold these curls up with
some valuable pearl combs. These combs are part of the family jewels of the Borghese family. The Borghese are old Italian nobility related to all the ruling houses of Europe. Napoleon practically shoved the aging Count Camillo Borghese, with his weak knees and trembling hands, at his favourite sister Paulette. That's a laugh—the Countess Pauline Borghese. Paulette in her soiled finery, picking up men on the street. . . .

They're all
so
changed, I thought. I took a last look at the lights dancing on the ripples. Why only I, why do they think I'm the only one who can, perhaps, succeed?

I walked back to the carriage. "To the Tuileries."

I thought over my project with some despair. This Bourbon, the Duke of Enghien, who is apparently in the pay of the English, and who keeps threatening to restore the Republic to the Bourbons, has been arrested. He wasn't arrested on French soil. They didn't find him in France but in a small town called Ettenheim in Germany. Four days ago Napoleon ordered an unexpected attack against this little town. Three hundred dragoons crossed the Rhine, snatched the Duke out of Ettenheim, and dragged him to France. Now he's waiting in the fortress at Vincennes for his fate to be decided. Today a court martial condemned him to death for high treason and for an alleged attempt to assassinate the First Consul. The death sentence has been sent to the First Consul. Napoleon will either confirm it, or pardon the culprit.

The old nobility, now frequent visitors at Josephine's, have naturally implored her to beg Napoleon for clemency. They were all at the Tuileries while foreign diplomats besieged Talleyrand. Napoleon received no one. Josephine tried to get a word in at lunch. With a "Please don't bother me," he shut her up. Toward evening, Joseph had himself announced. Napoleon asked what he wanted. Joseph explained to the secretary, "An appeal in the name of justice." The secretary was told to inform Joseph that the First Consul was not to be disturbed.

At supper Jean-Baptiste was unusually quiet. Suddenly he banged his fist on the table. "Do you realize what Bonaparte h
as done? With the help of three hundred dragoons he seizes a political enemy in a foreign country. Brings him to France and is holding him here for a court martial. To any man with even a spark of decent feeling this is a slap in the face!"

"And what will happen to the prisoner? He can't have him shot." I was horrified.

Jean-Baptiste was clearly appalled. "And he's under oath to the Republic: he swore to uphold the Rights of Man."

We said no more about the Duke. But I kept thinking about the death sentence that was right now on Napoleon's desk waiting for a stroke of his pen.

"Julie told me that Jérome Bonaparte has agreed to divorce his American wife," I said, to relieve the depressing silence. Jérôme, once such a dreadful child, was now a naval officer and on one of his voyages he had almost been captured by the English.

To escape them he was landed at an American port, and had married a Miss Elizabeth Patterson, a young lady from Baltimore. This naturally made Napoleon furious. Now Jérôme was on his way home, and, to please his distinguished brother, he had agreed to divorce the former Miss Patterson. "But she is very rich," had been Jérôme's only written protest to Napoleon.

The family affairs of the First Consul really do not interest me," remarked Jean-Baptiste. At that very minute we heard a carriage drive up.

"It's after ten," I said. "Much too late for callers."

Fernand stamped in and announced, "Mme Letizia Bonaparte."

I was astonished. Napoleon's mother never just dropped in. Now she was right behind Fernand. "Good evening, General Bernadotte! Good evening, madame."

In recent years Mme Letizia hasn't aged, she seems younger. Her
face that used to be drawn and careworn is fuller, the wr
inkles round her mouth are gone. There's a little silver in her
black hair, which she still wears peasant fashion, combed back
and knotted at the back of her neck. A few Parisian curls han
g down on her forehead and are very unbecoming.

We steered her into the drawing room, and she sat down and slowly drew off her light-grey gloves. I couldn't help staring at her hands and the large cameo ring Napoleon had brought her from Italy. I kept thinking of those red chapped hands that in the old days were always washing clothes.

"General Bernadotte, do you believe it possible that my son will have this Duke of Enghien shot?" she asked immediately.

"
Not the First Consul but a court martial condemned the Duke to death," Jean-Baptiste answered cautiously.

"The court martial acts according to my son's wishes. Do you believe it possible that my son will have the sentence carried out?"

"Not only possible, but very probable. I don't see why else he would even have ordered the Duke's arrest and court martial in the first place. He wasn't even on French soil."

"I thank you, General Bernadotte." Mme Letizia studied her cameo ring. "Do you know on what grounds my son took this step?"

"No, madame."

"Can you imagine?"

"I'd rather not say, madame."

Again she was silent. She sat on the sofa, leaning forward, her legs a little apart—like a peasant woman who is very tired and dares rest only for an instant.

"General Bernadotte, do you understand the full meaning of this death sentence?"

Jean-Baptiste gave no answer. He ran his hand through his hair, and I could see how painful this conversation was to him.

Mme Letizia lifted her head. Her eyes were wide. "Murder! Low, common murder!"

"You mustn't be so upset, madame . . ." Jean-Baptiste began in distress, but she raised both hands and cut him off.

"Not be upset, you say? My son is about to commit murder, and I—I, his mother, should remain aloof?"

I went over and sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand. Her fingers trembled. "Napoleon could have political reasons," I whispered.

"Shut up, Eugénie," she snapped. She looked Jean-Baptiste st
raight in the eye. "There is no excuse for murder, General.
 Political reasons are . . ."

"Madame," Jean-Baptiste said quietly. "You sent your son
for many years to the military academy and there he was
 trained to be an officer. It could be, madame, that your son
 places less value on the life of one man than you do."

She shook her head in desperation. "This isn't a question of the life of one man in battle, General. This concerns a man who was dragged to France by force to be shot. With this shot France will lose the respect of other nations. I won't have Napoleon become a murderer. I will not have it, do you understand me?"

"You should speak to him, madame," Jean-Baptiste suggested.

"No, no, signor—" Her voice shook and her mouth worked frantically. "That would do no good. Napoleone would say, 'Mama, you don't understand, go to sleep, Mama; shall I increase your monthly allowance?' She must go, signor—she, Eugénie"

My heart stood still. I began to shake my head desperately.

"Signor General—you don't know it, but before when my Napoleone was arrested, and we were afraid that he'd be shot, she—the little girl, Eugénie—rushed to the authorities and helped him. Now she must go to him—and she must remind him, and ask him . . ."

'I don't believe it would make any impression on the First Consul," said Jean-Baptiste.

"Eugénie—pardon, Signora Bernadotte—madame, you don't want your country exposed to the whole world as a republic in which murder is condoned. You don't, do you? People have told me—oh, so many people came to me today with stories of this Duke. They told me that he has an old mother and a young fiancée. . . . Madame, take pity on me, help me, I don't want my Napoleone—"