Désirée (31 page)

Jean-Baptiste was wandering aimlessly about the room.

Mme Letizia didn't give up. "General, if your son, your little Oscar, were about to sign this death sentence . . ."

"Désirée, get ready and drive to the Tuileries." Jean-Baptiste spoke calmly but very firmly.

I got up. "You'll come with me, won't you, Jean-Baptiste. You will come with me?"

"You know very well, little one, that that would deprive the Duke of his last chance." Jean-Baptiste smiled bitterly. He took me in his arms and held me tight. "You must speak to him alone. I fear you won't have much success, but you must try, darling." His voice was full of pity.

I still objected. "It wouldn't look well for me to go to the Tuileries alone at night," I ventured. "So many women go there alone late at night." I didn't care whether Mme Letizia heard me or not. "Yes, alone, to the First Consul."

"Put on your hat, take a wrap, and go," Jean-Baptiste said.

"Use my carriage, madame. And, if you don't mind, I'll wait here till you come back," Mme Letizia said. I nodded mechanically. "I won't disturb you, General. I'll sit here by the window and wait." Whereupon I hurried to my room and with shaking fingers tied on my new hat with the pale pink roses.

Since an infernal machine exploded close behind Napoleon's carriage four years ago on Christmas Eve, hardly a month goes by that Police Chief Fouché doesn't foil some plot against the First Consul. Now, no one can enter the Tuileries without being stopped every ten steps and asked what or whom one wants there. Nevertheless everything went more smoothly than I had expected. Each time I was challenged I said, "I wish to speak to the First Consul," and was allowed to pass. No one asked me my name. Nor was I asked the purpose of my visit. The soldiers merely smiled surreptitiously, stared at me curiously, and undressed me in their imagination. The whole thing was painfully embarrassing.

I finally reached the door from which it is possible to see into the anteroom of the office of the First Consul. I had never been here before since the occasional family parties I'd been invited to in the Tuileries had all been held in Josephine's apartments. The two soldiers of the National Guard, standing guard at this door, asked me nothing at all. So I opened the do
or and went in. A young man in civilian clothes sat at a desk writing. I cleared my throat twice before he heard me. When he did he shot up as though he'd been bitten by a tarantula. "What do you want, mademoiselle?"

"I want to speak to the First Consul."

"You've made a mistake, mademoiselle. These are the First Consul's offices."

I had no idea what the young man was talking about.

"Do you mean that the First Consul has already gone to bed?" I asked.

"The First Consul is still in his office."

"Then take me in to him."

"Mademoiselle—" It was really funny. The young man, who up to then had been concentrating on my feet, blushed and, for the first time, looked at my face. "Mademoiselle, Constant, the valet, must have told you that he is waiting for you at the back entrance. These rooms—are only offices."

"But I wish to speak to the First Consul, and not to his valet. Go in and ask the First Consul if he can be disturbed for a moment. It is—yes, it's very important."

"But mademoiselle—" the young man implored me.

" And don't call me mademoiselle, but madame. I am Mme Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte."

"Mademoi—oh, madame—oh, your pardon—" The young man goggled at me as though I were the ghost of his great-grandmother. "It was a mistake," he said.

"Mistakes can happen. But now will you finally show me in?"

The young man disappeared, and returned immediately.

"May I ask madame to follow me. The First Consul is in a conference. The First Consul begs madame to be patient for a minute. Only a minute, the First Consul said."

He took me to a small salon with dark-red brocade chairs grouped sternly around a marble-topped table. A salon obviously used just to wait in. But I didn't wait long. A door opened and three, four backs, reverently bowing low to someone I couldn't see, were wishing him "a pleasant rest, a very fine rest." The door closed behind them. The gentlemen—
each held a stack of files under his arm—steered a course through the anteroom while the secretary scurried past them and disappeared into the First Consul's office. He'd hardly closed the door when he popped out again and solemnly announced:

"Mme Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte—the First Consul will see you."

"This is the nicest surprise I've had for years," Napoleon said as I went in. He had waited for me right at the door. He took my hands and raised them to his lips. And—really kissed them. Cool, damp lips first on my right hand and then on my left. I withdrew my hands quickly, and didn't know what to say. "*

"Sit down, dearest! Sit down. And tell me how you are. You look younger every year."

"I do not," I said. "Time goes so fast. By next year we'll have to find a tutor for Oscar."

He urged me into the armchair beside his desk. He himself didn't sit opposite me at the desk, but paced restlessly up and down all around the room, and I had to crane my neck to keep him in sight. It was a very large room with a great many small tables, all loaded with books and papers. On the large desk, however, everything was in two neat piles. Both these piles were in wooden boxes that looked like narrow drawers. Between the two narrow boxes—right in front of the arm-chair behind the desk—I noticed a single document with a blood-red seal. In the fireplace there was a roaring fire. It was unbearably hot.

"You must see this. The first copies off the press—here. He held a few sheets, cluttered with print, under my nose. I saw it was in paragraphs. "The Civil Code is completed. The
Code
Civil
of the French Republic. The laws for which we fought the Revolution—worked out, written down and printed. And valid, valid forever. I have given France a new civil code!"

Year after year he'd shut himself up with our leading experts on civil law, compiling France's new civil code. Now it was finished and ready to be enforced.

"The most humane laws in the world," he said. "Read this
here—this applies to children. The oldest son has no more rights than his brothers and sisters. And here: Parents are required to support their children. And see this—" He picked up some other pages from one of the tables and began to leaf through them. "The new marriage laws. They make possible not only divorce but also separation. And here—" He held up another page. "This will surprise the aristocracy. Hereditary titles have been abolished."

"People already call your
Civil Code
the
Code Napoleon,"
I remarked. I wanted him to keep in good humour. Besides, it was true. He tossed the sheets of paper on the mantelpiece.

"Excuse me, I'm boring you, madame," he said coming closer. "Take off your hat, madame."

"No, no—I'm only staying a minute. I just wanted . . ."

"But it's unbecoming, madame. It doesn't suit you at all. May I remove your hat?"

"No. And furthermore it's a new hat, and Jean-Baptiste says it looks very well on me."

He retreated quickly. "Of course, if General Bernadotte says so. . . " He began to stride up and down behind my back. Now, I've annoyed him, I thought miserably, and hastily untied the ribbons on my hat.

" May I ask to what I owe the honour of this late visit, madame?" His voice was sharp.

"I have taken off my hat," I said. I realized he had stood still. Then he came over close behind me again. I felt his hand touch my hair very lightly. "Eugénie—" he murmured, "little Eugénie—"

I quickly ducked my head to shake off his hand. His voice was as it had been on that rainy night when we became engaged.

"I wanted to ask you something." I could hear my voice tremble.

He crossed the room, away from me, and leaned against the mantelpiece. The glow of the flames was reflected in his shiny boots.

"Naturally," he said.

"Why naturally?" I asked without thinking.

"I hadn't expected you to come to me unless you wanted something," he said cuttingly. And while he knelt another large log on the fire, continued, "Most people who come to see me have a favour to ask. A man in my position is used to that. Now, what can I do for you, Mme Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte?"

His sneering superiority was more than I could bear. Except for his short hair and his beautifully tailored uniform, he looked very much as he had in our garden in Marseilles.

"Had you perhaps flattered yourself that I would call on you in the middle of the night, unless I had an important reason to?" I spat out.

My rage seemed to amuse him. He cheerfully rocked back and forth, heel and toe, toe and heel. "No, I never expected that, Mme Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, but—perhaps I secretly hoped you might. May one still hope, madame?"

This isn't getting me anywhere, I thought desperately. I can't even make him take me seriously. My fingers plucked at the silk roses on my new hat.

"You are ruining your new hat, madame." I didn't look up. I swallowed and gulped and a tear escaped and trickled down my cheek to my lips. I put out my tongue to catch it.

"What can I do to help you, Eugénie?"

There he was again—the Napoleon of the old days. Tender, sincere.

"You say that many people come to ask you something. Do you usually grant their requests?"

"If I can justify it, of course."

"Justify it to whom? You—you yourself are the most powerful man in France, aren't you?"

"Justify it to myself, Eugénie Well—tell me what you want."

"I beg you to reprieve him."

Silence. The fire crackled.

"You mean the Duke of Enghien?"

I nodded.

I waited for his answer, and he let me wait. I tore one petal after another out of the silk roses on my hat.

"Who sent you to me with this request, Eugénie?"

"That's not important. Many people have made this request. I am only one of them."

"I must know who sent you." He spoke sharply.

I plucked at the roses.

"I asked who sent you? Bernadotte?"

I shook my head.

"Madame, I am accustomed to having my questions answered."

I looked up. His head was thrust forward, his mouth distorted, and there was saliva at the corners of his mouth.

"You needn't shout at me, I'm not afraid," I said. And I really wasn't afraid of him any more.

"I remember that you like to play the role of the courageous young lady. I remember that scene in the Tallien's salon—" He hissed the last part.

"I am not at all courageous," I said. "I'm actually a coward. But if there's a great deal at stake, I can pull myself together."

"And that day, in Mme Tallien's salon, you had a great deal at stake, didn't you?"

"Everything," I said simply, and waited for the next sneering remark. He made none. I lifted my head and sought his eyes.

"But before that I had once been very courageous. That was when my fiancé—you know I was once engaged, long before I met General Bernadotte—when my fiancé was arrested after the fall of Robespierre. We feared he might be shot. His brothers considered it very dangerous but I went to the Military Commandant of Marseilles with a parcel of underclothes and a cake . . ."

Yes. And that's precisely why I must know who sent you here tonight."

''What has that to do with it?"

"I'll explain it to you, Eugénie The person or the persons who have sent you to me know me very well. They have found a possible way to save this Enghien's life. I said only—a possible way. I am curious to know who knows me well enough
and is smart enough to exploit it. And yet is obviously opposed to me politically. Well?"

I smiled. How he complicated everything, how politically involved everything appeared to him.

"Try, madame, to see the situation through my eyes. The Jacobins reproach me for allowing the
émigrés
to return, and say that I favour them socially. At the same time, they spread the rumour that I intend to turn over the Republic to the Bourbons. Our France—this France which I have created, the France of the
Code Napoleon!
Doesn't that sound like madness?"

At the last word he went over to the desk and picked up the
document with the red seal. He stared at the short text on the document. Then he put it back on the desk, and turned again to me:

"If this Enghien is executed, I shall have proved to France and to the world that I condemn all the Bourbons as dangerous traitors. Do you understand me, madame? After that I will settle my accounts with the others—" In a few rapid strides he moved round the desk, stood before me, and rocked back and forth triumphantly on his toes—his heels—his toes again—and his heels. "With the plotters, the chronic complainers, the writers of broadsides, with all the chuckleheads who call me a tyrant. I'll drive them from the community of French people. And protect France from her enemies at home."

"Enemies at home" . . . Where had I heard that before? Barras had used it long ago, and, as he spoke, he had looked at Napoleon. The gilded clock on the mantelpiece, its face set between two hideous lions, showed one o'clock. I stood up.