The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon's Court

  “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.”

  AS 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.”

  CHAPTER 21

  PAUL MOREAU

  Tuileries Palace, Paris April 1811

  LOOK AT THAT, PAUL. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GRIP LIKE that on a child? Tell me the truth.”

  I look into the cream and gold bassinet where Napoleon II is gripping the emperor’s finger and shake my head. “No, but then I’ve never been around children.”

  He laughs. Everything is a wonderful joke to him now, and in the two months since the king of Rome’s birth, the emperor has put on more weight than the child. “He’s carrying the next heir,” I’ve heard courtiers joke, and I smile privately, because this is really how he looks. But whenever he’s not playing with his son in the nursery, he’s sitting at a table in the Grand Salon, surveying the foods he had always resisted. There’s been turkey with truffles, wild boar, carp, loaves filled with jam, and trays bursting with pastries. Nothing is too rich for the emperor suddenly.

  “I guess you’ve heard about the Russians?” he asks.

  So this is why he’s asked me to come. He no longer works from his study, so now the court converses with him here. “They’re defying your edict,” I tell him, “which forbids trade with Great Britain.”

  “The Czar Alexander! Whom I tutored. Who was my friend.” He steps from the bassinet and moves to the fireplace, where he begins to pace. Then he indicates a chair across from him, and I sit. “Tell me, Paul, why he is he doing this?”

  I hesitate. He has a hundred advisers whom he could be asking.

  “From a courtier’s perspective,” he explains. “I want to know.”

  “The embargo is crippling their economy. Their trade with Britain is exceptionally beneficial.”

  “More beneficial tha
n an alliance?” he demands.

  “What alliance? You signed the Treaty of Tilsit with Czar Alexander,” I say brutally, unwilling to play this game, “and did not keep its terms.”

  His neck goes red. “And what should I have done?” he shouts. “Provide Russia with soldiers for a fruitless war against Turkey?”

  “That is the treaty you signed,” I say simply, telling him what courtiers are saying in the halls.

  The baby begins to cry and a nurse hurries in from the next room. “Your Majesty,” she exclaims, “you’ve awakened your son.”

  “Then he should get used to loud noises. Do you know what it’s like on the battlefield, Madame? The cannon fire, the gunshots, the horses charging like a moving, churning river.”

  She lifts the baby slowly from his crib and cradles him at her breast.

  “That child was born to fight,” he tells her, “which is why his doting mother may only see him at night. During the day,” his voice rises, “I will teach him to fear nothing!”

  The tiny king of Rome begins to scream, and when the nurse takes him into the second chamber for his feeding, Napoleon turns to me. “He will be fearless, Paul. War will be for him what acquiring useless baubles is for women. He’ll crave the sounds of battle; the scents of the field. A tent will be just as much a home to him as a palace.”

  Like father, like son.

  He takes a seat next to the fire and indicates that I should do the same. “I’ve forbidden the Russians from trading with Great Britain, and they defy me. Now there’s news that the czar is preparing his army. Clearly, he’s looking for war.”

  He is, or you are?

  “How long do you think it would take to amass an army of half a million men?”

  I sit across from him while he takes out his snuff jar and opens the lid. “I wouldn’t know, Your Majesty.”

  He pinches the snuff between his fingers and inhales. “You are very reserved on this subject,” he remarks. “Why?”

  “Because there are greater ills at home,” I say truthfully, “and in your colonies, where slavery still exists.”

  “So you think I should fight slavery instead of Russians?”

  “Yes.”

  He gazes into the fire. “You are a noble man, Paul. Your people would be proud to know that at every opportunity, you have advanced their cause, even when you knew it was futile.”

  “Then you are going to war.”

  “With an army of half a million men.”

  I FIND PAULINE in the ballroom. She is exactly where I left her, sitting on a heavily cushioned chair, looking out over the empty room. She turns as soon as she hears my boots, and in the soft light of the chamber, she is like a painting, with her hair in loose curls on top of her head and her red gown slipping from her small white shoulders. It takes everything in my power not to kiss her long neck, starting behind her ears and then working my way down her exquisite body. She wouldn’t stop me—she would welcome it. But I must never take the same liberties with Pauline that she allows her dishonorable lovers to take.

  I join her in the middle of the room, and she looks up at me with expectation. “We are going to war,” I say.

  She puts a hand on her stomach, and I am sure her grimace is real. “With Russia?”

  “Yes.” The court has been talking about it for weeks. “He plans to raise an army of five hundred thousand men.”

  “When?” she asks, and I already know what she’s thinking. Perhaps there’s time to convince him otherwise. Perhaps he will go to Egypt instead.

  “He didn’t say, but I’d guess within a year.”

  She leans back in her chair and groans. “What if I don’t make it, Paul?”

  Though she hasn’t asked me to, I sit beside her, and we look out on the empty ballroom together. “Are you really that ill?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s so bad, I can’t walk.”

  “Then have the servants carry you.”

  “And after that,” she asks fearfully, “what then? I’ll have to stop dancing? Walking?” She looks up at the heavy chandeliers and passes her hand over her eyes.

  “Is it always your stomach?”

  “Sometimes it’s my back, or just general aches. But it’s terrible pain.” She lowers her hand. “You don’t know …”

  Navarre, March 1811.

  Sire—Amid the numerous felicitations you receive from every corner of Europe, from all the cities of France, and from each regiment of your army, can the feeble voice of a woman reach your ear, and will you deign to listen to her who so often consoled your sorrows and sweetened your pains, now that she speaks to you only of that happiness in which all your wishes are fulfilled? Having ceased to be your wife, dare I felicitate you on becoming a father? Yes, sire, without hesitation, for my soul renders justice to yours, in like manner as you know mine. I can conceive every emotion you must experience, as you divine all that I feel at this moment; and though separated, we are united by that sympathy which survives all events.

  I should have desired to learn the birth of the king of Rome from yourself and not from the sound of the cannon of Évreux, or the courier of the prefect. I know, however, that in preference to all, your first attentions are due to the public authorities of the State, to the foreign ministers, to your family, and especially to the fortunate princess who has realized your dearest hopes. She cannot be more tenderly devoted to you than I; but she has been enabled to contribute more toward your happiness by securing that of France. She has then a right to your first feelings, to all your cares; and I who was but your companion in times of difficulty—I cannot ask more than a place in your affection far removed from that occupied by the Empress Maria Luisa. Not till you have ceased to watch by her bed, not till you are weary of embracing your son, will you take the pen to converse with your best friend—I will wait.

  Eugène and Hortense will write me, imparting their own satisfaction. But it is from you that I desire to know if your child be well, if he resemble you, if I shall one day be permitted to see him; in short, I expect from you unlimited confidence, and upon such I have some claims, in consideration, sire, of the boundless attachment I shall cherish for you while life remains.

  Joséphine

  To the empress at Navarre.

  Paris, March 22, 1811.

  My love—I have received your letter. I thank you. My son is stout and very well. I hope he will be prospered, qu’il viendra à bien. He has my chest, my mouth, and eyes. I hope that he will fulfill his destiny.

  I am always well pleased with Eugène. He has never caused me any dissatisfaction.

  Napoleon

  CHAPTER 22

  MARIE-LOUISE

  Fontainebleau Palace June 1812

  I SIT AT MY ARMOIRE AND TRY TO BREATHE. IT’S ONLY ONE appearance. Even my brother Ferdinand could manage something like this. But as my lady-in-waiting arranges my curls, and I wait for Hortense to arrive with my parure, I can’t stop thinking about Marie-Antoinette. How almost twenty-five years ago she sat in this chamber with similar women in similar jewels, and the ministers came to tell her that France was on the verge of revolution.

  Today my husband’s men will announce we are at war, and is it really any different? There will be weeping in the streets. Women will find themselves without money or protectors. And when the lame come home and the lists of the dead begin to appear, the people will look to us. We will be the ones who have caused their misery.

  “Ready, Your Majesty?” Hortense opens a heavy velvet box and lifts out the diamond and ruby crown. There are a necklace and earrings to match. It’s a set Napoleon gifted me on our wedding night. I close my eyes while she finishes my toilette, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I frown. Who is this woman whose husband will send seven hundred thousand men to war? Why doesn’t she go to the Council Chamber and stop him?

  But I will accept the task Napoleon asked of me last night. And when the wounded come home in need of care, there will be hospitals ready. And when widows
are created and left homeless, funds will be ready to take care of their children. France will not suffer as Austria did.

  “It will be over in twenty days,” Hortense reminds me. “That’s what he’s saying.”

  But an emperor can say a great many things that will never come to pass. I stand and study my reflection. In my red silk gown and white summer slippers, I might be leaving for a picnic on the lake. Only the crown on my head and the diamonds at my neck say otherwise. “I want to see my son first,” I say.

  Hortense exchanges a look with my lady-in-waiting, but they say nothing as we walk toward the nursery.

  “Maman!” Franz cries as soon as he sees us. I can see his tutor is shocked that I’ve come during the day.

  “Your Majesty.” He rises, and Franz abandons his desk to run over to me.

  “Maman!” he shouts again, and my heart swells with pride. At just sixteen months old, he has ten words, and two of them mean “mother.”

  “How is your day, sweetheart?” I ask him, squatting so we can talk face-to-face.

  He kisses my cheek, then looks at my gown and jewels and says, “Ohhh.” His lips form the perfect O. I can feel my heart bursting. He’s the most beautiful child in all of France, with a head of golden curls and sea-green eyes that look up at me with absolute love.

  “How is he doing?” I ask his tutor, and the old man points to a pile of books.

  “We go through them every day, Your Majesty. This afternoon is music.”

  “And art?” I rise.

  “After the pianoforte.”

  “Good.” He’s to learn these subjects at my insistence. I feel a tug on my dress, and Franz is holding up a wooden soldier.

  “You,” he says, and he offers me the toy in his pudgy hand.

  “I can take him?” I ask, and my son nods eagerly.

  “Thank you.” I bend to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be back tonight,” I promise. “And when I come, I’ll return your soldier.” But it breaks my heart to think of him in here, trapped in this room like an animal.