The Last Great Dance on Earth (9 page)

November
27.

Clari Rémusat, her husband and children moved into a suite at Saint-Cloud yesterday. She is quick-witted and cultured, and seems eager to be of assistance—certainly, I can use help.

November 29
—
Saint-Cloud, chilly.

“I picked up your parcel in town, Madame,” Clari announced from the door, pushing back the hood of her cloak.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said, making smiling wide-eyes at Clari’s two boys, their cheeks red from the wind. “I’d like your advice.” I’d been studying a book of Greek statues that my architects had loaned me, and I was trying to get my shawl to fall in the manner of one statue in particular.

“We got held up on the Rue Saint-Honoré,” Clari said, handing her youngest child into her nursemaid’s arms. “You should see the lineup at the Théâtre-Français! Even at noon there was a long queue.”

“A lady got hurt and the police were there,” her eldest boy Charles said, one hand clutching the skirt of his mother’s gown.

“Oh dear!” I told the boy, putting my hands to my cheeks—or pretending to. I was
not
to touch my face. Citoyen Isabey, Hortense’s art instructor, had attended to my make-up and regarded my face as a work of art.

“It’s true.” The child nodded. He is an exceptionally sombre five-year-old, mature for his years.

“Apparently, there was a bit of a press when Mademoiselle Georges
arrived,” Clari said. “The Venus of Paris, people are calling the girl. Is it true she’s only fifteen?”

It was after six by the time Bonaparte and I arrived at the theatre. “Not a seat empty,” the theatre manager told us, escorting us to our box. “And now, may the performance begin,” he announced, bowing deeply as the audience cheered.

Over the balustrade I looked to see what faces I recognized, nodding to acknowledge Minister Talleyrand, and the Second and Third Consuls, Cambacérès and Lebrun. In the third tier, way at the back, I thought I recognized Fouché, sitting alone.
“Everyone
is here,” I whispered to Bonaparte. Caroline and Joachim (in pink), Elisa and Félix.
“And
Joseph,” I said—but not with Julie. “Ah, it’s your mother.” I made a little wave to them all, but they didn’t wave back.

By the end of the first act, the audience was becoming restless, in spite of Talma’s riveting performance as Achilles. Everyone had come to see Mademoiselle Georges play Clytemnestra, and she was not to appear until the second act. So when the curtain opened, the claque cheered loudly.

At last the moment arrived: Clytemnestra stepped onto the stage. She
is
beautiful—tall!—but from our close vantage point, I could see that the poor girl was trembling. “Mon Dieu, Bonaparte, she can’t speak,” I whispered. Fortunately, the appreciative murmur of the crowd seemed to give the young actress courage and she began to recite her lines—somewhat mechanically, however, and without that fire that one senses in the great artists of the theatre.

It was during the third act that the trouble began. My heart jumped at the first hiss. It seemed to come from the benches toward the front. Then increasingly the critics became more and more vocal until, during the fourth and final act, there was a very long hiss during one of Mademoiselle Georges’s speeches. Then the pit erupted: shouting, raising canes and umbrellas. Blows were exchanged!

Poor Mademoiselle Georges stuttered out a few lines. She looked as if she might faint. “Courage, Georges!” I heard someone yell out, and at this the young actress’s voice became strong—angry even—and the audience fell silent. At the final curtain, the audience burst into cheers.

December 1, early evening—Saint-Cloud.

Talma struck a pose, his eyes raised in prayer, his shoulders thrown back, signifying pride. “Even Geoffroy, that idiot of a critic, was impressed with my protégée’s masterful performance,” he said, crossing both hands on his chest, casting his eyes down slowly and bowing his noble head.

“Bravo!” Clari clapped with delight. The famous theatre critic had recently lashed out against Talma, calling him a “Quaker of dramatic art.” Talma’s new school of acting, in Geoffroy’s view, should be banished for tampering with the incantatory alexandrine.

“That’s wonderful,” I exclaimed, feeling that perhaps it was Talma who should be commended for a masterful performance. Although certainly beautiful, Mademoiselle Georges tends to speak her lines in a monotonous drawl, and that, to my mind, hinders perfect elocution. Still, she is only fifteen. “We should send her a note of congratulation, Bonaparte.”

“I’ve already seen to it,” Bonaparte said, staring out onto the terrace, lost in thought.

December 16
—
cold!

Troubling news from the Islands. Things are not going well in Saint-Domingue—apparently there has been a revolt. “Damn Victor Leclerc!” Bonaparte ranted. “I gave him my best men, our most seasoned soldiers, and even then he can’t manage so much as a skirmish.”

December 22
—
still at Saint-Cloud.

I confess I’m growing weary of Mademoiselle Georges—weary of the cult of enthusiasm that attends her every move. Or is it simply that I am growing old, and am jealous of her youth?

Bonaparte and I arrived late at the theatre. Mademoiselle Georges was centre stage, drawling a monologue. (There I go again!) The audience applauded our appearance, demanding that the actors start over—which they did.

All in all, it was a passable performance, I thought—at least on the part of the young actress. There was one curious moment when Mademoiselle

Georges said the line, “If I have charmed Cinna, I shall charm other men as well,” and the audience craned to look at Bonaparte.

“It appears they think you’ve been charmed,” I said, touching my husband’s hand (watching his eyes).

December 23.

Terrible news—Victor Leclerc is
dead.
He died in Saint-Domingue of yellow fever. We are stunned to hear it. Bonaparte’s beautiful sister Pauline is now a widow.

Bonaparte’s new secretary brought the bulletin just after Bonaparte and I had finished our midday meal. “It regards your sister’s husband, First Consul,” Méneval said.

Bonaparte scanned the bulletin, then folded it, creasing it methodically. “My poor sister,” he said, standing.

Victor Leclerc, dead at thirty-six. (He was older than I thought.) “The blond Bonaparte” we called him because of his habit of adopting Bonaparte’s movements, even Bonaparte’s expressions—which was why he irritated Bonaparte so much, I think.

We aren’t sure how to proceed, frankly. Victor’s family must be notified, of course. Who is to do it? My heart goes out to his mother and father, flour merchants, so very proud of their son.

[Undated]

The news is even worse than we originally thought. A vast percentage of the men sent to Saint-Domingue have died of yellow fever. The numbers are stupefying: of the twenty-eight thousand who sailed, fewer than ten thousand remain.
Mon Dieu.
How is that possible?

Bonaparte is overcome. This evening I placed his coffee at his elbow, touched his hand so that he knew it was there, returned to my frame. All the while he sat motionless, his hand over his mouth.

February 12, 1803.

Pauline is back, her husband in a lead coffin, her beautiful black hair
shorn, entombed with Victor’s body. She is enfeebled, both physically and emotionally. “They all died,” she said weakly, kissing Bonaparte’s hands. “Every last one of them.”

February 19, early—not yet 9:00 A.M. (and cold).

England is refusing to honour the terms of the peace treaty. Bonaparte is not sleeping well, if at all.

“Stay, Bonaparte,” I said, reaching for him in the middle of the night.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he said, pulling away.

I feel old in his presence—unappealing, without grace. I feel like a beggar, scrambling.

February 28
—
Paris.

“Mimi?” I found her in the wardrobe. I’d debated all morning about taking this step, was debating even as I spoke.

“I wish I could find that new lace veil, the silk one,” she said, going through an open trunk. “I know I saw it here not long ago.”

“Maybe it’s at Malmaison. Or at Saint-Cloud.” I never know where anything is anymore. I sat down on the little velvet stool in front of the chimney. “I was wondering, have you heard any rumours?”

Mimi closed the lid of the trunk. “About?”

I shrugged. “Oh, about Bonaparte and a woman.”

“There are always rumours.”

“For example?”

She blew out her cheeks. “Flowers are being sent upstairs of late.” “To the room above Bonaparte’s cabinet?” She screwed up her face.

“You could find out for me. You could ask Roustam, or Bonaparte’s valet—or even Hugo, the cabinet guard.” Even the new secretary would know, I realized with chagrin.
“Please,
Mimi.”

I may be played false, but I’ll be damned if I am going to be played for a fool.

March
2,
2:30 P.M.

“There’s a young woman who comes most every afternoon around four, and …” Mimi put up her hands. “And that’s
all I
know.”

March 3.

“It’s that actress everyone is talking about.” Mademoiselle Georges. I knew it! “The girl,” I said. “She’s not a girl anymore.”

March 12
—
-gloomy Tuileries.

“Your powder was smudged tonight,” Bonaparte said as I slipped under the covering sheet.

Of course it was—I’d been crying! Our weekly dinner for over one hundred in the Gallery of Diana had been unusually trying. Conversation kept coming around to theatre, to the “brilliance” of Mademoiselle Georges. Glances in my direction made it clear that everyone knows. “I’m miserable, Bonaparte.”

Bonaparte took a candle and disappeared into the wardrobe. He looked ghostly re-emerging, the light from the candle throwing shadows over his face. “I couldn’t find a handkerchief,” he said, handing me a madras head scarf. “Now—what’s this all about?”

I could tell from his tone that he knew the answer. “It concerns your amourette … with Mademoiselle Georges.”

He sat down on the end of the bed, his nightcap askew.

“There’s no use in denying it!” At the last theatrical we’d attended, Mademoiselle Georges had the audacity to wear
my
lace veil on stage.

Bonaparte crossed his arms. “Why should my amusements matter to you? I’m not going to fall in love.”

“But Bonaparte, it’s not right—”

“It is
my
right!”

[Undated]

Clari discovered me in my dressing room in tears. The gentle touch of
her hand on mine unleashed my torrent of woes. She, so sweetly comforting and wise beyond her years, advised me to be patient. “This is but a temporary affair, Madame. It will pass, time will cure.”

I know, I know, I nodded—but I was raging within. Plump, aging La Grassini was one thing—this beautiful young actress is another matter altogether.

“Just ignore it, that’s my advice. It’s your gentle acceptance that the First Consul loves. He will return to you, in time.”

Gentle acceptance? I imagine Bonaparte in the arms of that girl and I weep tears of despair! I imagine her young, supple body—so responsive and fertile—and I feel withered within. I am not a young woman, and in truth, I fear I am older than my years, for my passion is no longer of the flesh. Passion of heart I have—oh yes—and spirit in abundance. But no amount of salves, lotions and face paint can disguise the dryness of my skin, my thinning hair—my waning lust.

Oh, I know this emotion all too well, this humiliating jealousy, this
fear.
My first husband was a coxcomb, true—and he never did love me. Bonaparte does: I know that! And it is
this
that frightens me—the possible loss of his love.

March 14, 1803
—
Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

In spite of the wind and driving rain, I set out for Saint-Germain early this morning. The hastily penned note from Aunt Désirée’s new husband
^*
—sent by courier, no less—worried me: “Come quickly, your aunt is gravely ill.”

Therefore I was relieved (but also, I confess, not a little surprised) to find Aunt Désirée, her husband Monsieur Pierre
and
Aunt Fanny enjoying brandy and crumpets.

“What are
you
doing here?” Aunt Désirée demanded, trying to rise from the chaise longue.

“Gentle b-b-beloved,” Monsieur Pierre stuttered (for this is what he calls her!), “you have been ailing, and I thought—”

“You thought I was dying?” Aunt Désirée said in accusation.

The poor man turned crimson.

“Stop stuttering and pour my niece a brandy, Monsieur Pierre,” Aunt Fanny said. “She’s been out in all that fresh air. Grand Dieu, if anyone’s apt to die today, it’s going to be her, and then we’ll all be the worse for it. She brings the First Consul good luck—everyone says so. God knows where we’d be without
her.”

“So all the more reason for the First Consul to stay
home,”
Aunt Désirée said with an all-too-knowing look.

“And not to be going out all the time to the
theatricals,”
Aunt Fanny said, emptying her glass of brandy and holding it out for more.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I told Monsieur Pierre, declining a glass. “You have not been well?” I asked Aunt Désirée—intentionally changing the subject. It was humiliating to discover that Bonaparte’s amourette with Mademoiselle Georges was talked about even in Saint-Germain.

“Your Aunt Désirée has endocarditis,” Monsieur Pierre said.

“Which rhymes with nothing,” Aunt Fanny said, frowning.

“It’s something to do with the heart,” Aunt Désirée explained, fluttering her hands over her bosom, “with the irritation of blood passing through it. At least that’s what the doctor said, but what does
he
know? I’m the picture of health, as you can see.”

However, not long after Aunt Fanny departed and Monsieur Pierre excused himself to go to his club, Aunt Désirée did, in fact, become quite ill—an attack coming on suddenly and severely. I helped her to her chamber where she collapsed into her musty feather bed.

“I’m sending for a doctor,” I insisted.

“No, wait,” she said, gesturing me back to her bedside.

“Aunt Désirée—rest. You must not talk!”

“This is important! I speak from your mother’s grave.”

Mother’s
grave? But Mother isn’t dead!

“Just listen! To keep a husband, a wife must be cheerful and understanding, but above all,
blind.”

I promised to heed her advice on the condition that she rest and allow me to send for the doctor. He’s with her now.

5:20 P.M.

Mon Dieu, we’ve lost her. The doctor left with assurances that Aunt Désirée was not in danger. I was preparing the tincture he’d prescribed when she began to turn blue, struggling for breath.

“Aunt Désirée!” I cried out, overcome with alarm. She was slipping away, and there was no one to help, no one I could turn to. I ran to the door and yelled for the servants. Someone!

“Above all, be blind!” she gasped.

I was trying to calm her when she suddenly stopped breathing and died in my arms.

I persuaded a very distraught Monsieur Pierre to retire as I helped the maids lay Aunt Désirée out. I moved without tears, my heart curiously still. Gently, I closed her eyes, arranged her limbs, helped wash and dress her. We debated: should she wear stays? “She wouldn’t want to be without them,” I finally decided. Even in death. Even in the hereafter.

After all was done, I dismissed the servants, and sat by her side as the candles melted down. Oh, Aunt Désirée, how can
you
leave me?

March 19, Saint Joseph’s Day—Tuileries.

I returned from Aunt Désirée’s funeral in a melancholic state of mind, so it seemed only fitting to find Bonaparte sitting in a darkened room, the drapes closed against the bright spring sun. He got up, but did not pace. “I’ve been in meetings with the Minister of the Marine,” he said, leaning against the fireplace mantel.

Decrès? “And …?”

“You know how he has become so much slimmer of late? I suspected that there was a petticoat in the picture, but never in a thousand years would I have guessed whom the old dog was courting.” He snorted. “My sister Pauline, the bereft widow.”

I was not surprised to hear that Pauline is receiving callers. Mourning is boring, she had said when last we saw her. But
Decrès?
“I guess it’s time to look for a husband for her, Bonaparte,” I told him, picking a long black hair off his collar.
Above all, be blind,
I heard a familiar voice say.

Fort de France, Martinico
Chère Yeyette, my beloved niece,

This morning Stéphanie sailed on
Le Dard
for Brest, France. She is only fifteen, so you can understand a father’s concern. Have you arranged a chaperone for her? Were it not for the prospect of a proper education and a good marriage, my wife and I would have kept her near.

Your mother objected that the chicken coop attached to the magnificent house you bought for her in Fort de France was not sufficiently large. I ordered a larger one built, but chicken coop or no chicken coop, your mother refuses to be moved from her ramshackle country abode.

God bless you.

Your fond but aging uncle, Robert Tascher

April 8, Good Friday.

I’ve just hired Mademoiselle Avrillion, an impoverished aristocrat of impeccable credentials: quiet, serious, virtuous. She’ll help with the wardrobe for now, and when my goddaughter Stéphanie arrives from Martinico, she’ll be the girl’s chaperone.

When
young Stéphanie arrives!

April 28.

Bonaparte is in a temper of frustration. England is flagrantly breaking the terms of the peace treaty. “Peace hasn’t proved profitable for them,” he said. “The perfidious British are doing everything they can to provoke war again.”

May 17.

I’ve never been so upset. I don’t know what to do, where to begin.

England has seized French ships near Brest. Bonaparte made sure I was sitting down before he told me, very gently and with assurances that all would eventually be well, that the ship
Le Dard
was one of those captured, and that my goddaughter had been taken captive.

I listened, I heard, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Stéphanie has been kidnapped, you mean? By the British?”

There were tears in Bonaparte’s eyes as he nodded,
yes.

May 22.

The British are holding Stéphanie at Portsmouth and refuse to return her!

“Bonaparte, how can they do this? She’s only a child!”

“Maudits anglais,” Bonaparte cursed, pacing.

May 25
—
back at Saint-Cloud.

England has opened fire. Its navy captured one of our ships, killed ten men, wounded as many more.

No word on Stéphanie. I can’t sleep.

June 10.

Bonaparte has received an offer from England to return Stéphanie, but along with a demand for trade concessions he felt he couldn’t responsibly accept! I wept and begged and finally he agreed. We’re both weak with emotion.

June 14, 11:15 A.M.
—
Saint-Cloud.

At last: Stéphanie will be returned. We are
so
relieved. “But she won’t be here for a month at least,” Bonaparte told me.

My breathing was coming in sharp gasps. “It’s all right,” he said, holding me close. “It’s going to be all right.”

June 19.

“I have to tour the north coast,” Bonaparte informed me this morning. Of course, I nodded. War preparations. A fleet of flat-bottomed boats was being built, I knew—ships that could battle England’s fleet, ships that could invade. “I want you to accompany me. Spare no expense. I must make a strong impression.”

“Very well, Bonaparte,” I told him, only too happy to oblige. “But are you prepared to pay?” Bonaparte wants me to be luxuriously attired in a new gown every evening, but he balks at paying the bills. “In advance,” I persisted, suggesting an allowance not only for myself but also for Clari, the lady-in-waiting who will accompany me.

“Madame, how does one begin to dispense such a sum?” Clari asked
me later in all seriousness, for Bonaparte has given her thirty thousand francs.

“Don’t worry, Clari. It’s really quite easy,” I said, beginning a list of what I will need to take—but thinking, I confess, of what I will be leaving behind: a certain Mademoiselle Georges.

June 23.

We are ready, trunks packed, jewels in a velvet-lined strongbox. I’ve prepared for this trip as if for battle: my munitions are my gowns, my ointments, my salves.

I am forty today—an old woman, many would say, at an age when a woman has no claim on her husband’s passions. I think with affection of Aunt Désirée, the seductive swish of her taffeta skirts. “Too old? Nonsense!”

“Every battle should have a definite object,” Bonaparte says, and for me the object of this battle is his heart. In the north I will have Bonaparte to myself.

June 25, I think—Amiens (overcast).

The route to Amiens was decorated with a profusion of garlands, the streets and squares thronged with people cheering Bonaparte’s arrival. In the heart of the city our carriage was forced to a halt. We heard the coachman protesting—for the people were unhitching our horses. Bonaparte looked uneasy. Crowds make him nervous, I know. Who is to say what might happen? And then a thunderous cheer went up and our carriage began to roll forward again—slowly, for we were being pulled by the people, so great was their adulation. Even Bonaparte’s eyes were glistening.

June 26
—
a Sunday.

As I write this, I am deafened by the cheers of an enormous crowd at our window, crying out over and over, so fervently that the words become a heartbeat, a prayer: Long live Bonaparte! Long live Bonaparte! Long live Bonaparte!

I watch my husband, standing still as a statue. The cheers are a roar one can almost feel, a wave of rapture. What is he thinking?

“It’s frightening, isn’t it?” I have to raise my voice to be heard. “Who could ever have imagined
this?”

“I did,” he says, without turning, his tone strangely melancholy.

[Undated]

Bonaparte has succeeded in persuading most of the northern countries to close their ports to English goods. “Now if only I could stop the
exports
to England.”

Russian hemp, for example, which gets sent to England to make rope for the British fleet. “Without rigging”—Bonaparte made a downward motion with his thumb—”even the invincible sink.”

July
7—
Lille.

Bonaparte threw a scented letter onto my embroidery frame. I recognized Pauline’s unschooled hand. “Seems my beautiful sister has fully recovered from her devastating grief.” He sat down, frowning as he counted silently on his fingers. “But she’ll have to wait. It won’t be a year until November.”

“What won’t be?” I asked, confused, trying to decipher Pauline’s misspellings. “She’s asking your permission to marry?”
Already?
Not Minister of the Marine Decrès, surely. I read on. “Prince Borghése?”

Clari looked up from her lacework. Oh là là, her eyes said.

Oh là là,
indeed! Prince Borghése is the son of one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic families of Italy. I hate to think of the airs Pauline will put on if she becomes a princess.

July 14, Bastille Day—Ghent.

An exhausting day: audiences, visits to a public monument, two factories, a dinner followed by a reception, then the theatre. Bonaparte fell asleep during the after-piece in comic verse. “I’m not made for pleasure,” he said wearily, untying his neckcloth.

“Yet some forms of pleasure suit you very well.” I smiled archly over my bare shoulder as I turned back the bed covers.

August 12, 10:30 P.M.
—
Saint-Cloud again, at last.

Louis, Hortense and the baby welcomed us home. Little Napoleon, big and healthy at nine months, gurgled at Bonaparte, which pleased him greatly. As we sat in the family drawing room, talking of this and that, the baby fell asleep in Bonaparte’s arms—a precious portrait. Oh, how we love this child!

August 21.

Stéphanie has arrived! Bonaparte and I have collapsed.

She’s … oh, how to describe her? She is tall, for one thing, a giant of a girl with the body of a woman and the restless energy of a two-year-old. “I had the best time in England,” she exclaimed, smothering us in her embrace. “Getting kidnapped was so much fun!”

“When does she begin boarding school?” Bonaparte asked faintly, exhausted after only an hour of the girl’s constant chatter.

In two days, I told him. In the meantime, Mademoiselle Avrillion is charged with containing this cyclone of energy. And as for Madame Campan—she’s got a challenge ahead!

October 24
—
Saint-Cloud, very late, long past midnight (can’t sleep).

We’ve survived Pauline’s engagement dinner—nearly two hundred covers. There were fifteen of us at the head table: Bonaparte and I, Signora Letizia, Prince Camillo Borghèse and Pauline, Lucien, Elisa and Félix, Joseph and Julie, Louis and Hortense, Joachim and Caroline, Eugène.

Prince Camillo Borghése is well made, surprisingly ignorant, shockingly wealthy. Pauline was already flaunting the famous Borghése diamonds. Lucien and Joseph seemed uneasy—why? Elisa hiccupped through dinner, as usual. Joachim was more fancifully dressed than Caroline, in his pink velvet toque dripping with ostrich feathers. Eugène
dutifully attended to the (constant) needs of Signora Letizia—even going so far as to fill her nostrils with snuff.

Much of the conversation was in Italian, for the benefit of Prince Borghèse, who seemed, however, not to understand what was being discussed regardless of the language. Pauline insisted on feeding him chicken morsels herself, the grease dripping onto his gold-embroidered silk vest.