Desiree

  My patience gave way. ‘Sire, you called me to examine me on questions of etiquette?’

  ‘Among other things. I should like to know why you came back to France.’

  ‘On account of the cold climate, Sire.’

  He leant back, folding his arms across his chest, screwing up his mouth ironically. ‘Well, well, the cold climate. You were cold in spite of my sable fur?’

  ‘In spite of your sable fur, Sire.’

  ‘And why did you not call at court? The wives of my Marshals are in the habit of calling on Her Majesty regularly.’

  ‘I am no longer the wife of one of your Marshals, Sire.’

  ‘Quite right. I very nearly forgot. We have to deal now with Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Desideria of Sweden. But in that case, Madame, you should know that members of foreign royal families when they are visiting my capital usually ask for an audience. If only for politeness’ sake, Madame!’

  ‘I am not visiting here. I am here at home.’

  ‘Oh, I see, you are here at home.’ He rose slowly, came out from behind his desk and suddenly yelled at me: ‘And you think I accept that, do you? You are here at home, and your sister and the other ladies tell you every day what is going on at court. And you sit down and write it all to your husband. Do they think you so clever in Sweden that they sent you here as a spy?’

  ‘No, on the contrary, I am so stupid that I had to return here.’

  He hadn’t expected this answer. He had even held his breath to continue his yelling. Now he said in an ordinary voice: ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I am stupid, Sire, stupid, unpolitical, uneducated, and unfortunately I have not made a good impression on the Swedish court. And as it is very important that we, Jean-Baptiste, Oscar and I, become popular in Sweden I came back. It’s all very simple.’

  ‘So simple that I do not believe you, Madame!’ It sounded like the crack of a whip. He began pacing the room. ‘Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps you are not here at Bernadotte’s direction after all. In any case, Madame, the political situation is so precariously balanced that I must ask you to leave France.’

  I stared at him, disconcerted. Was he throwing me out? ‘I should like to stay here,’ I said in a low voice. ‘If I can’t remain in Paris I should like to go to Marseilles.’

  ‘Tell me, Madame, has Bernadotte gone mad?’ He threw this question at me out of the blue. Rummaging among the papers on his desk he pulled out a letter. The writing on it I recognised as Jean-Baptiste’s. ‘I offered Bernadotte an alliance and his answer is that he is not one of my vassals!’

  ‘I don’t meddle in politics, Sire. And I don’t know what that has to do with my staying here.’

  ‘Then let me tell you, Madame!’ He banged his fist on the table, and I heard plaster drop from the ceiling. Now he was really infuriated. ‘Your Bernadotte dares to refuse an alliance with France! Why, do you think, did I offer him this alliance? Well, tell me!’

  I kept silent.

  ‘Not even you can be as stupid as all that, Madame. You are bound to know what everybody knows in all the drawing-rooms. The Tsar has raised the Continental Blockade and his Empire will soon cease to exist. The biggest army of all time will occupy Russia. The biggest army of all time …’ The words seemed to intoxicate him. ‘On our side Sweden could reap immortal glory. It could regain its position as a great power. I offered Finland to Bernadotte, if he marches with us, Finland and the Hanseatic towns. Imagine that, Madame, Finland! And Bernadotte refuses! Bernadotte is not going to march! A French Marshal who is not taking part in this campaign!’

  I looked at the clock. In a quarter of an hour the New Year would begin. ‘Sire, it will be midnight soon.’

  He didn’t hear me. He was standing in front of the mirror by the fireplace staring at his own face. ‘Two hundred thousand Frenchmen, one hundred and fifty thousand Germans, eighty thousand Italians, sixty thousand Poles, apart from one hundred and ten thousand volunteers of other nations,’ he murmured. ‘The Grand Army of Napoleon I. The greatest army of all time. I am marching again.’

  Ten minutes to midnight. ‘Sire—’ I began.

  He swung round, his face distorted with fury: ‘And Bernadotte slights this army!’

  I shook my head. ‘Sire, Jean-Baptiste is responsible for the well-being of Sweden. His measures serve the interests of Sweden and nothing else.’

  ‘Who is not for me is against me! Madame, if you do not leave France voluntarily I could have you arrested as a hostage.’

  I did not stir.

  ‘It is rather late,’ he said suddenly, went quickly up to his desk and rang the bell. Meneval appeared at once. ‘Here, Meneval, despatch this at once by express messenger.’ Turning to me he said: ‘Do you know, Madame, what that was? An order to Marshal Davout. Davout and his troops will cross the frontiers and occupy Swedish Pomerania. What do you say now, Madame?’

  ‘That you are trying to cover the left flank of your great army, Sire.’

  He laughed out loud. ‘Who taught you that sentence? Have you talked to any of my officers lately?’

  ‘No, Jean-Baptiste told me that a long time ago.’

  His eyes grew narrow. ‘Is he thinking of defending Swedish Pomerania? It would be amusing to see him fighting Davout.’

  ‘Amusing?’ I remembered the battlefields, the long rows of miserable little mounds with their wooden crosses blown over by the wind. And that he thought amusing …

  ‘You realise, Madame, don’t you, that I could have you arrested as a hostage in order to force the Swedish Government into an alliance?’

  I smiled. ‘My fate would not influence in the least the decisions of the Swedish Government. But my arrest would prove to the Swedes that I am ready to suffer for my new country. Are you really going to make a martyr out of me, Sire?’

  The Emperor bit his lips. ‘Even a fool can stumble on to the right answer at times,’ I thought. ‘Napoleon was certainly not going to turn Madame Bernadotte into a Swedish national heroine …’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We shall force our friendship on nobody. We are accustomed to be wooed for it.’

  It was three minutes to midnight.

  ‘I expect you to persuade your husband to ask for our friendship.’ Putting his hand on the door handle he added: ‘If only for your own sake, Madame!’

  He had an air of malice about him and I looked at him questioningly. At this moment the church bells rang out. Their chimes drowned my question and his answer. He let go of the handle and stared in front of him, listening to the bells like someone mesmerised. When they had finished he murmured: ‘An important year in the history of France has opened.’ I turned the handle and we went out.

  In the big study adjutants and lords-in-waiting were assembled. ‘We must hurry. Her Majesty is expecting us,’ the Emperor said, and broke into a run. His gentlemen ran after him with clanking spurs. I followed slowly with Meneval, through the empty rooms.

  ‘Did you send off the order?’ I asked him.

  He nodded.

  ‘The Emperor violates the neutrality of a country. The first action of the New Year,’ I said.

  ‘No, Your Highness,’ he corrected, ‘the last one of the old.’

  When I got back to the salon of the Empress I saw the little King of Rome for the first time. The Emperor was holding him and he cried enough to move a heart of stone. He was dressed in a lace shirt and the broad sash of an order. ‘Sashes instead of nappies, I must say!’ lamented Madame Letitia. The Emperor with the Empress at his side tried to soothe his screaming son and tickled him tenderly. But the crush of foreign diplomats and giggling ladies round him made him more frightened than ever. Catching sight of me, Napoleon came over to me with his fleshy face beaming down on his yelling son. Without thinking what I was doing I held out my arms and took the baby from him. Madame de Montesquieu, the child’s aristocratic nanny, was on the scene at once, but I held on to the child. He was wet under the shirt. I tickled his fair hair on the nap
e of his neck, he stopped crying and looked at me timidly. I pressed him to me, and my thoughts strayed across Europe to Oscar. ‘Oscar,’ I thought, ‘my Oscar …’ I kissed the fair silky hair of the little boy and handed him back to his nurse. Someone shouted, ‘To the health of His Majesty the King of Rome!’ His Little Majesty was at this moment carried out of the room.

  The Emperor and the Empress were in excellent mood and conversed – what did the Swedish Queen call it? ‘graciously’ – and conversed most graciously with their guests.

  ‘Your Highness will see, the Crown Prince is going to link up with Russia. And the Crown Prince is right!’ Did I dream these words or did someone whisper them into my ear? I looked round and saw Talleyrand limping away from me.

  I wanted to go home, I was tired. But now the Emperor came towards me, the Empress on his arm. ‘If only she didn’t wear pink, with those pink cheeks of hers,’ I thought.

  ‘And here is my hostage, my beautiful little hostage,’ he said amiably. The groups around us broke into cultured laughter. ‘But, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said in irritation, because he sometimes dislikes people to laugh prematurely at his jokes, ‘you don’t know what the point is. Besides I fear Her Royal Highness will not feel like laughing. Marshal Davout has regrettably been forced to occupy a part of the Nordic motherland of Her Highness.’

  There was dead silence everywhere.

  ‘I suppose the Tsar has more to offer than I have, Madame. I am told he is even offering the hand of a Grand Duchess. Can you imagine that this would attract our former Marshal?’

  ‘Marriage to a member of an old princely family is always attractive to a man of middle-class origin,’ I said slowly. The faces around me grew icy with terror.

  ‘No doubt,’ the Emperor smiled. ‘But an attraction like that could endanger your own position in Sweden, Madame. Therefore I advise you as an old friend to write to Bernadotte and persuade him to an alliance with France. In the interests of your own future, Madame!’

  ‘My future is assured, Sire.’ I bowed deeply. ‘At least – as mother of the future King.’

  Astonishment covered his face. When he had recovered he thundered at me: ‘Madame, I do not want to see you at court again before the Swedish-French alliance has been concluded.’ He passed on with Marie-Louise.

  Marie was waiting for me at home. Yvette and the other girls had the evening off to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Marie undid the ear-rings and opened the gold clasps of the robe on my shoulders.

  We had a glass of wine. ‘Your health, Marie. The Emperor told me he has massed the biggest army of all time and he also told me I am to write to Jean-Baptiste about an alliance. Could you tell me, Marie, how I managed to get all mixed up with world history?’

  ‘Look, if you hadn’t fallen asleep in the Maison Commune in your young days, that gentleman Joseph Bonaparte would not have had to wake you. If you hadn’t taken it into your head that he and Julie—’

  ‘Yes, and if I hadn’t been burning with curiosity about his brother, the little General! How shabby he looked in his worn-out uniform!’

  I propped my elbows on the dressing-table and closed my eyes. ‘Curiosity,’ I thought, ‘pure unadulterated curiosity got me into all this.’ But the way over Napoleon led to Jean-Baptiste. And I had been very happy with Jean-Baptiste.

  ‘Eugenie,’ Marie said cautiously, ‘when are you travelling to Stockholm again?’

  ‘If I hurry,’ I thought, ‘I might just be in time to celebrate my husband’s engagement to a Russian Grand Duchess.’ I felt desperate and didn’t say anything.

  ‘A happy New Year!’ Marie said at last.

  A happy New Year? It had only just begun, but I had an idea that it would be anything but happy.

  Paris, April 1812

  Pierre, my Marie’s son, arrived as a complete surprise to everybody. He had volunteered to join the biggest army of all time. Up till now I had gladly paid the 8000 francs every year necessary to exempt him from conscription – gladly, because I’ve always had a bad conscience about him, as Marie had had him brought up away from her so that she could come as a nurse to our house. Pierre, a sinewy, tall fellow with a sun-tanned, cheerful face and Marie’s dark eyes, was in a brand-new uniform.

  Marie was stunned by his arrival. Her bony hands kept stroking his arms. ‘But why?’ she kept asking. ‘Why? You were so satisfied with the bailiff’s job Her Highness got you.’

  Pierre showed his gleaming teeth. ‘Mama, one’s got to be in on it, march with the Grand Army, overthrow Russia, occupy Moscow! The Emperor’s called us to arms to unite Europe. Just think of all the chances, Mama! You can—’

  ‘You can what?’ Marie asked bitterly.

  ‘Become a General, a Marshal, a Prince, a King and God knows what!’ The words tumbled out of him, the enthusiastic volunteer about to march with the Grand Army, and, like all the enthusiasts of all the grand armies of all time, he wanted his rifle garlanded with roses. So Marie picked our roses, and we put roses in all the buttonholes of his tunic, wound them round the hilt of his bayonet and stuck one red bud into his rifle barrel.

  He stood to attention and saluted as he left. ‘Come back safely, Pierre!’ I said.

  Marie took him to the door. When she came back the furrows in her face had deepened even more. She took a rag and began to polish the silver candlesticks with passionate intensity.

  A regiment with drums beating was marching past just then. Villatte had joined us in the room. Since the Grand Army had begun to march a strange restlessness had come over him.

  I listened to the regimental music down in the street, and thought how empty it sounded, how tinny, all drums and trumpets and nothing else. How long ago it was that I had last heard the Marseillaise without any musical accompaniment, just sung, by dock workers, bank clerks and tradesmen! Now a thousand trumpets blare out the tune whenever Napoleon shows himself …

  Count Rosen entered holding a despatch in his hand and saying something. I couldn’t hear him because of the noise of the trumpets outside. We turned away from the window.

  ‘I have very important news for Your Highness. On April 5th Sweden concluded an alliance with Russia.’

  ‘Colonel Villatte!’ My voice went completely flat as I called Jean-Baptiste’s old colleague, his loyal friend, his most trusted collaborator, our friend Villatte …

  ‘Your Highness?’

  ‘We have just been told that Sweden and Russia have made an alliance.’ I couldn’t turn to face him but I had to go on. ‘You are a French citizen and a French officer, and I suppose that this agreement with the enemies of France will make your stay in my house impossible. When we left you asked your regiment to grant you leave to make it possible for you to accompany us and to assist me. I am asking you now to consider yourself free from all obligations towards me.’

  It hurt, it hurt badly to have to say that.

  ‘But, Your Highness, I – I cannot possibly leave you now,’ said Villatte.

  I bit my lips, then looked towards the fair-haired Count Rosen. ‘I shall not be alone.’ The Count stared past me into a corner. Did he realise that I was saying good-bye to our best friend? ‘Count Rosen has been appointed my personal adjutant. He will protect me if necessary.’ I didn’t mind Villatte seeing the tears running down my cheeks. I gave him both my hands. ‘Good-bye, Colonel Villatte.’

  ‘Has there been no letter from the Marshal, I mean from His Highness?’

  ‘No. I received the news through the Swedish Embassy.’

  He looked helpless. ‘I don’t really know—’

  ‘But I know what you feel. You must either ask for your discharge from the French Army like Jean-Baptiste or—’ I pointed towards the window through which came the sound of marching boots – ‘or march, Colonel Villatte.’

  ‘Oh, no, not march,’ Villatte said indignantly, ‘ride!’

  I smiled through my tears. ‘Ride, Villatte, ride with God! And come back safely.’

  Paris, the middle of Septe
mber 1812

  Thank God for my diary! I should go mad if I hadn’t that to write in. In all this big city I have no one now in whom to confide my thoughts, not even Julie, the wife of a Bonaparte. Nobody is left, strangely enough, but Count Rosen, who, Swedish to the core, cannot understand how the new Crown Prince could have made an alliance with the old arch-enemy of his country, Russia.

  Count Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento and adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Fouché, Duke of Otranto and former Minister of Police, were here and only left a few hours ago. They came separately, and met by chance in my drawing-room. Talleyrand arrived first. I am not used to having visitors now. My friends are intoxicated by the Emperor’s victories in Russia and avoid my house.

  Talleyrand was waiting in the drawing-room, studying the portrait of Napoleon as First Consul through half-closed eyes. Before I could introduce Count Rosen to him the Duke of Otranto was announced.

  ‘I don’t understand it!’ I exclaimed.

  Talleyrand arched his eyebrows. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s such a long time since I had any visitors at all,’ I said, confused. ‘Show the Duke in.’

  Fouché was disagreeably surprised to find Talleyrand there. He lisped, ‘I am glad to see Your Highness in company. I was afraid Your Highness would be very lonely.’

  ‘I was very lonely till this moment,’ I sat down under the portrait of the First Consul, the gentlemen took their seats opposite me. Yvette brought in tea, and as Count Rosen handed the teacups round I explained to him that the second visitor was France’s famous Minister of Police who had retired to his estates for reasons of health.

  We talked about the Russian campaign and I remarked that the church bells had been ringing almost continuously since the capture of Smolensk.

  ‘Oh yes, Smolensk,’ said Talleyrand, opening his eyes fully at last to examine Napoleon’s picture more closely still, ‘oh yes, Smolensk. By the way, the bells are going to ring again in half an hour’s time, Your Highness.’