Desiree

  All that had been an idea of beautiful Koskull, and nobody could imagine a more pleasant birthday party.

  Jean-Baptiste was sitting between the Queen and myself. His eyes seemed to lie deep in their sockets and he chewed his lower lip restlessly.

  ‘Is Davout going to attack Pomerania?’ I asked him, whispering. He gave a faintly perceptible nod.

  ‘Great anxieties?’

  Again he nodded. After a pause he added: ‘I sent a courier to the Russian Tsar.’

  ‘But he is Napoleon’s ally. Do you think anything will come of that?’

  Jean-Baptiste shrugged his shoulders, then said: ‘Perhaps. The Tsar is arming.’ Then a very urgent tone came into his voice: ‘Désirée, when you talk to Swedes never mention Finland, never. You understand?’

  ‘I know nothing about Finland. Is it so important to them?’

  ‘Yes, it is a matter of national emotion. They hope they’ll get the Tsar to give the country back to Sweden.’

  ‘Is he likely to?’

  ‘No, never. Just look at the map and you will see why not.’

  This was the moment the Valkyries danced their minuet. It was dreadful, and I applauded enthusiastically.

  The next day but one was the birthday of King Charles XIII. It was our turn now to give a party to Their Majesties. Everything had been settled before my arrival. The Barber of Seville was performed, and Miss Koskull sang the leading part. The childish King devoured her with his eyes and again and again raised his shaky hands to applaud. At the opening of the ball Jean-Baptiste danced the first dance with Miss Koskull. They looked a well-matched couple. She is the first woman I have seen who is almost as tall as Jean-Baptiste himself. As to me, I had the honour of being asked for the first dance by a little man in a brand-new court uniform. ‘May I ask you for this dance, Mama?’ said the little man. It was Oscar’s first court ball.

  A few days later the old King had a stroke. I heard about it when I was in my new bath tub, which at one time had been nothing but a laundry tub. This tub was put at the far end of my very large bedroom behind a screen made of magnificent tapestries and from there I heard Madame La Flotte talking to Miss Koskull, but not very loudly. Marie bent over me rubbing my back.

  A door opened, and I gave Marie a sign to stop. The voice of Countess Lewenhaupt said: ‘I have just come from the rooms of Her Majesty. His Majesty the King has had a slight stroke.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Miss Koskull.

  ‘It cannot have been the first,’ said Madame La Flotte indifferently. ‘How is the King?’

  ‘His Majesty must have complete rest for the time being. There is no danger, the doctors say, but he must be careful and may not do any work for the next few weeks. Where is Her Royal Highness?’

  I moved my legs and made some splashing noises.

  ‘The Crown Princess is having a bath and cannot see anybody at the moment.’

  ‘Of course, having a bath! She will never get rid of her cough that way.’

  I continued my splashing.

  ‘Is the Crown Prince going to take over the regency?’

  Hearing that I stopped splashing.

  ‘The Chancellor suggested it to Her Majesty, because of our difficult situation. There are the secret negotiations with Russia and the threatening notes from France to take care of, and so the Chancellor wishes the Crown Prince to take over the Government as soon as possible.’

  ‘And?’ asked Koskull. The breath-taking tension in her voice was quite obvious to me.

  ‘The Queen refuses to suggest that to the King. And the King does only what she wants him to do.’

  ‘Really?’ said Miss Koskull sarcastically.

  ‘Yes, really. Even if you imagine yourself to be his favourite. Your reading to him and your laughing do no more than keep him awake, which at any rate is something … By the way, you read very rarely to him now. You do not seem to set so much store by being His Majesty’s ray of sunshine. Am I mistaken?’

  ‘It is more amusing,’ put in Madame La Flotte, ‘to dance with the Prince of Ponte Corvo, oh, I am sorry, I mean it is far more amusing to dance with your Crown Prince.’

  ‘Our Crown Prince, Madame La Flotte,’ corrected Miss Koskull.

  ‘Why? He is not my Crown Prince, I am not Swedish, and as a French woman I owe allegiance to the Emperor Napoleon, if it is of any interest to the ladies.’

  ‘It is not,’ said the Countess.

  Marie was leaning against the tapestries in complete silence. We looked at each other, I moved my legs in the warm water and then slipped deeper into the tub.

  ‘And why, if I may ask, does one not, in these words which are of such decisive importance to Sweden, transfer the regency to the Crown Prince?’ inquired Madame La Flotte.

  ‘Because she will never allow it as long as she is alive,’ whispered Countess Lewenhaupt. But she whispered it so loudly that I realised this conversation was for my benefit.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Madame Koskull. ‘She is playing first fiddle now.’

  ‘But she was Queen before the arrival of the Crown Prince,’ said La Flotte.

  ‘Yes. But the King had no power at all. That was in the hands of his ministers,’ was Miss Koskull’s friendly explanation.

  Madame La Flotte laughed. ‘Do you imagine perhaps that the King has any power now? He invariably goes to sleep in all the meetings of the Council of State. Do you know what happened the day before yesterday? I know because Count Brahe, who, as the Cabinet Secretary of His Royal Highness, has to be present, told me. The King was dozing away sweetly and in the intervals between the reports of the different ministers murmured mechanically, “I agree to the suggestion of the Council of State.” They were just discussing some death sentence or other, the Minister of Justice proposed that the King should sign it, and the King murmured his automatic “I agree to the suggestion.” Suddenly the Crown Prince gripped the King’s arm, shook him hard and waking him shouted – yes, shouted, your King is half-deaf too on top of everything else! – “Your Majesty, wake up, a man’s life is at stake!” So you see how it is, and yet the Queen will not make him Regent.’

  ‘And yet the Queen will not make him Regent,’ said Countess Lewenhaupt clearly. ‘She will suggest to the King to hand over the chairmanship of the Council of State to the Crown Prince. But he is not going to be Regent, at least not as long as—’

  ‘As long as what?’ asked Madame La Flotte.

  I didn’t stir, and Marie stood like a statue.

  ‘If the Crown Prince is made Regent the Crown Princess will be the Regent’s Consort,’ Countess Lewenhaupt said cuttingly.

  There was a pause, and then the Countess said casually: ‘The Crown Prince will preside over the Council of State and the Queen, during His Majesty’s illness, will act as Regent and represent the King.’

  Miss Koskull laughed. ‘And on the arm of the Crown Prince Her Majesty his mama, his dearly beloved mama, will show herself to the people to show them who governs Sweden. That would suit her!’

  ‘The Queen has told the Chancellor in so many words that that would be the only possible solution,’ the Countess concluded.

  ‘What reason did she give for it?’ asked Miss Koskull.

  ‘That the Crown Princess did not possess sufficient experience to fulfil the duties of representation which fall on a Regent’s wife. It would be injurious, the Queen maintained, to the prestige of the Crown Prince, if Her Royal Highness let herself be seen in public too often.’

  ‘I wonder whether she will tell that to the Crown Prince,’ said Madame La Flotte.

  ‘She has told him. The Crown Prince was present during this interview, as well as the Chancellor and myself.’

  ‘You were present? How is that?’ asked Madame La Flotte. ‘As far as I am informed you are lady-in-waiting to Her Royal Highness, are you not?’

  ‘Your information is quite correct. But I also happen to have the honour of being a friend of the Queen’s.’

  ‘And so the whole t
hing is a message of the Queen to me,’ I thought. ‘The towel, Marie!’

  Marie gave me the towel and with her strong and loving arms rubbed me dry. ‘Don’t put up with that, Eugenie,’ she said, ‘don’t stand for it.’ She passed me a dressing-gown.

  I came out from behind the screen. My three ladies had put their heads together and were whispering. ‘I should like to rest. Please leave me alone,’ I said.

  Countess Lewenhaupt bowed. ‘I have come with sad news, Your Highness. His Majesty has had a slight stroke, the left arm seems paralysed to some extent. His Majesty is to take a rest—’

  ‘Thank you, Countess. I have heard it all during my bath. I should like to be left alone now.’

  I wrapped myself more tightly into my dressing-gown and went to the window. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and already quite dark. Masses of snow had been shovelled away and piled high against the walls of the castle. ‘They are burying me here, burying me in snow,’ I thought. But that was a stupid thing to think, and it occurred to me that I had not yet done my Swedish lesson for the day. Jean-Baptiste engaged a Councillor Wallmark to teach him Swedish, and this gentleman turned up every afternoon at Jean-Baptiste’s rooms in vain. Jean-Baptiste was always in some conference or other and never had time for him, and as I thought it was a pity to waste all that money on lessons which Jean-Baptiste never took, I decided to have a lesson with Councillor Wallmark every day. Oscar knows quite a lot of Swedish already, but then he has three Swedish teachers and goes skating with Swedish children of his own age.

  Jag er, du er, han er, I learn, Jag var, du var, han var … Jag er I am, du er you are, han er he is … ‘Marie!’

  ‘Did you call me, Eugenie?’

  ‘You could do me a favour, Marie. There is a street here in Stockholm called Västerlånggatan or something like that. Persson’s father had his shop there. You remember Persson, don’t you? Perhaps you could make your way there and find out whether Persson’s silk shop still exists. If it does, ask for young Persson.’

  ‘He won’t be quite so young any longer.’

  ‘Tell him that I am here. Perhaps he doesn’t know that the new Crown Princess is the former Eugenie Clary. And if he remembers me, tell him to come and see me.’

  ‘I don’t know whether that is very wise, Eugenie.’

  ‘Wise! I don’t care whether it is or not. Imagine if Persson came to see me and I had someone here who knew our house in Marseilles and our garden and our summer-house where Julie got engaged, and Mama and Papa and – Marie, someone who knows exactly what it was like once upon a time! You must try and find him!’

  Marie promised she would, and at last I had something to look forward to.

  On the evening of that day the Queen took the King’s heavy signet-ring and put it on Jean-Baptiste’s hand. That meant that the King had entrusted Jean-Baptiste with the conduct of the Government. But it did not mean that he was to be Regent.

  Slowly, very slowly, with roaring floods heaving under green icefloes, spring approached. On one of the very first spring afternoons, Countess Lewenhaupt appeared with an invitation from the Queen to have tea with her in her drawing-room. Every evening after Jean-Baptiste, Oscar and I had our dinner we spent at least an hour with the Queen, whose husband’s health, by the way, had considerably recovered from the effects of the stroke. But I had never been to see the Queen by herself. What was the use of it, anyway? We had nothing to say to each other.

  ‘Tell Her Majesty that I am coming,’ I said to Countess Lewenhaupt, tidied myself up a bit and went across to Her Majesty’s rooms over miles of cold marble staircases.

  They were seated round a small table, the three of them: Queen Hedvig Elizabeth Charlotte, my adoptive mother-in-law, who ought to love me, Queen Sophia Magdalena, who had every reason to hate me, and Princess Sofia Albertina, an old flat-chested spinster with a childish ribbon in her hair and a tasteless string of amber beads round her scraggy neck, to whom I could mean nothing and who could mean nothing to me. All three were busy embroidering.

  ‘Sit down, Madame,’ said the Queen.

  They continued their embroidering till tea was served. Then they dropped their frames and stirred their tea. I swallowed a few drops hastily, burning my tongue.

  The Queen motioned to the servants. They withdrew. Not a single lady-in-waiting was present either. ‘I should like to have a few words with you, dear daughter,’ said the Queen.

  Princess Sofia Albertina showed her long teeth in a smile full of glee, but the Dowager Queen stared indifferently down into her cup.

  ‘I should like to ask you, my dear daughter, whether you yourself feel that you are fulfilling all the obligations resting on you as the Crown Princess of Sweden?’

  Her pale short-sighted eyes drilled into my face and I knew I was blushing. ‘I don’t know, Madame,’ I managed to say at last.

  The Queen arched her dark, boldly curving eyebrows. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t judge about that. It’s the first time I have been a Crown Princess, and I’m only just starting, too.’

  Princess Sofia Albertina started bleating. She really bleated like a goat.

  Irritated, the Queen raised her hand. In a silky voice she said: ‘The Swedish people, and the Crown Prince chosen by the Swedish people, are much to be pitied that you do not know how to conduct yourself as Crown Princess.’ Very slowly the Queen raised her cup to her lips and, drinking, looked at me fixedly over the top of her cup. ‘Therefore I should like to tell you, my dear daughter, how a Crown Princess has to behave.’

  ‘So everything was in vain,’ I thought, ‘the lessons in deportment from Monsieur Montel and the piano lessons and my keeping quietly in the background at all the court receptions in order not to embarrass Jean-Baptiste, all was in vain.’

  ‘A Crown Princess never goes for a drive in the company of one of her husband’s adjutants without being escorted by a lady-in-waiting.’

  Whom did she mean, Villatte? ‘I – I have known Colonel Villatte for many years. He’s been with us since Sceaux and we like talking about old times,’ I said with difficulty.

  ‘At court receptions the Crown Princess has to speak graciously to everyone present. You, however, stand about awkwardly and almost as if you were deaf and dumb, Madame.’

  ‘Man has been given the gift of language to conceal his thoughts,’ I exclaimed.

  The Princess bleated loudly and the pale eyes of the Queen widened in surprise. I added quickly: ‘That isn’t my own phrase but comes from one of our – from a French diplomatist, Count Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento. Perhaps Your Majesty has heard—’

  ‘Of course I know who Talleyrand is,’ the Queen said sharply.

  ‘Madame, if one isn’t very clever and very educated, but has to conceal one’s thoughts, one is forced to – keep silent.’

  A teacup clattered. The Dowager Queen had put her cup down with a hand that trembled suddenly.

  ‘You have to force yourself to make conversation, Madame,’ said the Queen. ‘Besides, I do not know why you should conceal your thoughts from your Swedish friends and future subjects.’

  I folded my hands in my lap and let her talk. ‘Everything must come to an end,’ I thought, ‘even this tea party.’

  ‘One of my servants reported to me that your old maid asked him about the shop of a certain Persson. I should like to draw your attention to the fact that you will not be able to make purchases in this shop.’

  I looked up. ‘Why not?’

  ‘This Persson is not appointed as Purveyor to the Court and will never be so. On account of your inquiry I asked for information about him. He is considered to be – well, let us say to be in favour of certain revolutionary ideas.’

  My eyes grew wide. ‘Persson?’

  ‘This Persson was in France at the time of the French Revolution, allegedly to learn the silk trade. Since his return he has frequently surrounded himself with students, writers and other muddle-headed persons and he s
preads those ideas which years ago became responsible for the misery of the French nation.’

  What could she mean? ‘I don’t quite understand, Madame. Persson lived with us in Marseilles, he worked in Father’s shop, in the evenings I often gave him French lessons, together we learnt the Rights of Man by heart—’

  ‘Madame!’ It sounded like a slap in the face. ‘I implore you to forget this. It is quite out of the question that this Persson has ever taken lessons from you or – or ever had anything to do with your father.’

  ‘Madame, Papa was a greatly respected silk merchant, and the firm of Clary is still a very solid business even to-day.’

  ‘I must ask you to forget all that, Madame. You are Crown Princess of Sweden.’

  A very long silence followed. I looked down at my hands and tried to think. But my thoughts got all mixed up, only my feelings remained clear. ‘Jag er Kronprinsessan,’ I murmured in Swedish and said awkwardly, ‘I have started to learn Swedish. I wanted to make a special effort. But apparently it isn’t enough.’

  There was no answer.

  I looked up. ‘Madame, would you have persuaded His Majesty to appoint Jean-Baptiste Regent if that had not meant that I should become the Regent’s Consort?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Another cup of tea, Madame?’ asked the bleating spinster.

  I shook my head.