The Josephine B. Trilogy

  “I have.”

  “You could have come to me.”

  He did not respond.

  “You have no affection for me, Buonaparte. In marrying me, you seek only promotion.” I would not look at him. “Nothing you can say can persuade me otherwise. Do not try to defend yourself.”

  “And you—are you so…?” He stood. “So free of self-interest? Can you claim that it is only for affection for me that you have consented to marry?”

  “So much the more reason to abandon this ill-fated union.”

  He left abruptly. There were tears in his eyes. I do not feel relief.

  In which we begin again, & yet again

  February 23, 1796.

  I was still in bed when Agathe informed me that General Buonaparte had arrived.

  “I heard the horse,” I said. Agathe brought me my white muslin gown. I tied a red scarf about my head and put rouge on my cheeks.

  I wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. “Stay near,” I told Agathe, slipping a shawl around my shoulders, “in case I need you.” I shivered from the cold.

  Buonaparte was waiting in the drawing room. He was standing by the window examining the bust of Voltaire. He turned to face me when I entered. I could see from his eyes that he had not slept.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Is it?” He was wearing a dark embroidered coat with a high stand-up collar.

  I took a seat to the left of the fire, gesturing for him to take the seat to the right. His boots, which he is in the habit of polishing with some obnoxious substance, threw off a strong odour. I asked Agathe to bring us coffee and toast. “And rum.”

  Buonaparte and I sat in uncomfortable silence until Agathe returned. She placed the urn and goblets on a serving table and left. “Coffee?” I asked. He refused. I poured myself coffee from the urn, added rum, cream, two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. My spoon made a scraping noise on the bottom of my cup.

  “The time has come for truth,” he said. He stood. I braced myself for recriminations, justifications. “You have accused me of self-interest in proposing marriage to you. I will answer your charges.” He clasped his hands behind his back and then across his chest, and then back behind his back again. “In the beginning, yes, I was attracted by the advantages marriage to you would offer. I saw that you were a woman of influence, a woman who was at ease with men of power and wealth, a woman who bridged both the old world and the new. These qualities would be an asset to me, I knew. And of course there was the plum of the Army of Italy. The Army of Italy! I would have married the most lowly of the market prostitutes to gain command of the Army of Italy.”

  “You need not insult me, Buonaparte.”

  “Insult you!” He fell to his knees before me. “I intend to honour you as no other woman has been honoured!”

  “Rise!” I said, alarmed and embarrassed.

  “You must hear me!” He took the seat beside mine, grabbed my hand. “Don’t you see? I have fallen in love with you!”

  “Yet you went to see my banker!”

  “I will not deny it. It was the act of a coward.” He stood back up again. “I was seeking reasons, cause and effect, premise and proof. I was seeking escape.”

  “From what?”

  “You. From the emotion that has engulfed me.”

  I sat back in exasperation. “I dislike riddles,” I said.

  “You don’t understand! When I am with you, it is as if a curtain has been opened, and all that has gone before has been merely an overture. Is this not frightening? I have held a dead man in my arms. I have walked to the mouth of a cannon set to fire. I have faced my mother’s fury. Yet nothing is as frightening to me as the tenderness that comes over me when I look into your eyes.”

  Abruptly I stood, went to the window. Fortuné was by the garden wall, by the rosebushes there, digging at something.

  “Will you not marry me?” There was desperation in his voice.

  I came back to my seat by the fire. “You know I do not love you,” I said.

  “Yes. I know that.”

  “You know I am…older than you, that I have loved another.” Love another still. I did not say that.

  “I do.”

  “Yet even so, you wish to marry me?”

  “I wish to worship you.”

  “Must you be so drôle, Buonaparte?”

  “You think I jest.”

  “Surely, you must.” I smiled.

  “Forgive me?”

  I took his hand. I had never noticed how fine his fingers were, how smooth his skin.

  “Join me for a promenade?” he asked.

  I stood. We were almost the same height. I felt he was a brother, a companion—“my spirit friend,” Mimi would have said. “I will not give up Chantereine,” I said, opening the doors onto the garden.

  “My hôtel on Rue des Capucines is more prestigious,” he said.

  “This is my first real home. It is everything to me.”

  He looked about. “After I liberate Italy, I will require a larger establishment.”

  “And when might that be, General Buonaparte?” Teasing.

  He looked at me with an amused expression. “Shortly after we are married, Josephine.”

  Wednesday, February 24.

  “I announced our betrothal to the Directors,” Buonaparte told me this evening.

  “And what was the response?”

  “Positive.” He seemed pleased, strutting around. “Very positive.” He slapped his hands together.

  March 2.

  Buonaparte’s footman unloaded a crate of papers into my entryway, Buonaparte coming in after him. “Behold,” he said with a dramatic flourish. “The Commander of the Army of Italy.”

  “It’s official now? Were you not expecting it?”

  “One can never be entirely sure of such things.” He rummaged through the crate of papers.

  “And now?”

  Buonaparte flipped through the pages of a report.

  “And now?” I touched his arm.

  He looked at me with a distracted expression.

  “And now?”

  “And now the work begins.”

  March 8.

  Buonaparte called for me at noon. I was ready. Together we went to my lawyer’s office on the Rue Saint-Honoré. Buonaparte waited in the entryway while my lawyer went over the marriage contract.

  “Are you familiar with this contract?” Raguideau asked when I sat down. His dusty office was cluttered with papers and legal forms. The windows looking out onto the Rue Saint-Honoré were covered with grime.

  “I am.”

  “Nevertheless, I am required by law to go over it with you.” He is a small man, yet he has an exceptionally deep voice. “Your finances will be kept separate. You will each contribute equally to the costs of maintaining a household. Even the cost of getting married will be shared between you.” He spelled out the terms: “Your husband assumes no responsibility for your debts. Other than paying you a nominal sum of fifteen hundred livres a year, you will receive nothing from this union.”

  He put the papers down on the desk, took off his thick spectacles. “Citoyenne Beauharnais, I must be frank. This man brings you nothing but a cloak and sword. I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, advise you to sign this contract.”

  I felt heat in my cheeks, in spite of the chill. “I have come to sign this contract, Citoyen Raguideau, not to question it.”

  “Please understand, it would be a disaster for you to marry this man.”

  “So be it.” I took up the quill.

  Buonaparte was waiting in the hall. He seemed amused. “Only a cloak and sword?”

  “You overheard? Are you not offended?” I was angry. Was nothing predictable with him?

  “We shall see what a cloak and sword can do!”

  Later.

  The parish bells had just struck four. I was standing by the window, looking out at the garden, when I was startled by a noise. Behind me was Lannoy with a worn leath
er valise in one hand.

  “Are you going somewhere, Lannoy?” I asked. I did not recall that a leave had been arranged.

  A vigorous tip of her head almost dislodged her hat, a modest straw creation overpowered by a white-and-blue-striped bow. “I cannot serve that Jacobin!”

  “You are leaving me? Now?”

  “Farewell!” she wailed, throwing herself into my arms.

  March 9.

  Barras and Tallien arrived shortly after seven. Tallien had on his black coat and top hat. He was carrying an umbrella instead of a sword. “His funeral ensemble,” Barras said, who was dressed more traditionally in velvet and lace.

  I smiled uneasily.

  The three of us headed off in Barras’s coach. Agathe and Gontier had attached little bouquets of flowers tied with white ribbons to the horses’ bridles.

  It was exactly eight when we entered the township office, a once-elegant white and gold drawing room decorated with frolicking cupids, now headquarters of the second arrondissement and covered with dust. A fire was dying in the marble fireplace. It was dark: a single candle flickered in a bronze sconce. The large gilt mirrors reflected only shadows.

  My adviser Jérôme Calmelet was already there, seated in one of the hard leather chairs. The registrar, Citoyen Leclerq, was going through papers at the desk. A thin lad with a wooden leg sat slumped beside him.

  But no sign of Buonaparte. “No doubt he’s been held up,” Barras said, removing his cape.

  We waited. After almost an hour, the registrar stood, yawned, put on his cloak. “I leave you in charge, Antoine,” he told the young lad. Citoyen Antoine manoeuvred his wooden leg under the big desk and regarded us with an attempt at authority.

  “No doubt he thought he was to be here at nine.” Tallien shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

  “It is past nine now.” My little bouquet of flowers had begun to wilt. “I insist that we leave.” I stood. I was angry. I was more than angry; I was humiliated.

  “Wait,” Barras commanded.

  It was past ten when we heard footsteps on the stairs. “He’s here,” Barras said.

  Buonaparte burst into the room followed by a youth in uniform. He went directly up to young Antoine and shook him. “Wake up!”

  The lad sat up, blinked.

  Buonaparte grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet. “Marry us,” he commanded the lad, pushing a gold band onto my ring finger.

  It was over in a few minutes.

  We rode back to Chantereine in silence, Buonaparte and I.

  “I have decided to change my name. Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s more French. Do you like it?”

  I said nothing.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “If Barras hadn’t insisted, I would have left. I don’t know why I stayed!”

  “So, divorce me in the morning.”

  “Perhaps I will!”

  We didn’t exchange another word all the way to Chantereine. I headed immediately up the stairs. I threw the flowers off my bed, embarrassed by the fuss Agathe and Gontier had made. Fortuné growled when Buonaparte entered the room.

  “Your footman put your bags in there this afternoon.” I nodded toward the wardrobe.

  “What about the dog?” Buonaparte asked, returning in his night-clothes. He was wearing a cotton nightcap with a silly-looking tassel on it.

  “The dog stays.” Fortuné was in his usual place at the foot of the bed.

  “I will not sleep with a dog.”

  “Very well, then, you will sleep on the settee.” I blew out the lantern.

  Buonaparte stumbled toward the bed in the dark. I heard Fortuné growl. Then I heard Buonaparte curse loudly in the Italian tongue.

  I sat up, my heart pounding. Fortuné was snarling. “What happened!”

  “That dog should be shot!” Buonaparte held up his hand. In the moonlight I could see something dark on it.

  “Mon Dieu! Is that blood? Did he bite your hand?”

  “My leg.”

  Agathe came running into the room, holding a lantern. Buonaparte’s leg was covered with blood. Buonaparte pressed a bedsheet to it to stop the bleeding.

  Fortuné was cowering under a chair, baring his fangs.

  “A basin of hot water and some bandages,” I told Agathe, grabbing Fortuné by the scruff of the neck and shutting the snarling little thing in the wardrobe.

  Gontier came to the door, his ruffled nightcap falling into his eyes. “Go for a surgeon,” I told him.

  “No surgeon will be necessary,” Buonaparte said.

  “Don’t attempt to be a hero over this, Buonaparte,” I said. “There is nothing to be gained by it.”

  “Do you think heroism is something that can be put on, like a cloak!” He turned to Gontier. “I am master of this house now, and I am telling you, do not go for the surgeon. I’ve spent too much time on the battlefield attending to my own wounds to be coddled like a tailor by some ignorant youth.” He took one of the bandages Agathe had brought and dipped it into the steaming water. “If your girl could bring some salt?”

  “Her name is Agathe. Ask her yourself.”

  Buonaparte glared at me. “Are we to spend the rest of our lives quarrelling?”

  “I believe so.” I nodded to Agathe. “If you could fetch the salt? And the cognac,” I added.

  Buonaparte cleaned and dressed his wound, securing it with two stitches of strong silk which he put in himself, gritting his teeth against the pain. I persuaded him to lie with his leg propped up on a pillow.

  “You may go now,” I told Agathe and Gontier, who were standing at the foot of the bed, trampling the flowers. “Take Fortuné with you.”

  “I’m to be woken at six,” Buonaparte instructed Agathe.

  “That’s only a few hours from now,” I said.

  “I have taken too much time already.”

  Agathe and Gontier withdrew, taking away the lanterns and a stillsnarling Fortuné.

  By the light of a single candle I poured two snifters of cognac. I handed one to Buonaparte. He put his hand up in refusal. “I must keep my wits about me,” he said.

  I sat down on the bed, took a sip of the cognac, sighed. I had wanted a father for my children, security—now it seemed so much more complex.

  “You doubt the wisdom of what you’ve done,” he said.

  What I’ve done. Yes. “Must you forever be telling me my thoughts?” I was being churlish, I knew. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It has not been a romantic evening.” Suddenly I felt tears pressing. Is one allowed to go back, begin again? Can mistakes be undone?

  Buonaparte pulled at a pillow.

  “Allow me,” I said. I put down my glass and adjusted the pillow behind him. He put his hand on my wrist. “There is something I haven’t told you.”

  “Please, no.” It was too late for confessions. I pulled my hand away.

  “A fortuneteller told me that a widow would be my angel, my lucky star.”

  I thought of the fortune I’d been foretold. You will be Queen.

  “You scoff,” he said.

  “I’m no angel,” I said. I lay down beside him.

  “You think the woman I love does not exist. You don’t believe in Josephine.”

  His grey eyes were so intense. I looked away.

  “Do you believe in me?” he asked.

  I regarded his profile by the light of the candle. He had a haunted look. What was it that fired him, drove him? It would never give him peace, I knew.

  “Are you cold?” He pulled the covering sheet over me.

  “Yes,” I said. I stilled his hand against my breast.

  He seemed unsure what he should do. I felt unsure, myself. Should I blow out the candle? Take off my gown? I felt my age, his youth.

  “I have read that if the tip of a woman’s breast is touched in a certain way, that she will go mad with pleasure,” he said. He sounded like a schoolboy, reciting a lesson. “I amuse you?” he asked, observing my smile.

  “You ha
ve a scientific mind,” I said.

  He cupped my breast in his hand, examined it. “Your breast is a perfect example of its kind—round, firm.”

  “Buonaparte!” A warmth had come into my heart.

  I leaned over him. His breath on my face was sweet.

  “Truly, you—” He stopped, unable to speak.

  I touched a tear that was running down his cheek. It tasted of the sea. “Yes,” I said. “I do believe in you.”

  Dawn.

  The sun has tinted the sky the most delicate shade of pink. It reminds me of the mornings of my youth. I listen for the animals stirring, the cock, the cow.

  Buonaparte, his leg wrapped in a bandage, is asleep. I listen to the sound of his breathing.

  I am married. Again.

  My husband is not the man I dreamt of as a girl, not my grand amour—and certainly not the king the fortuneteller had foretold. Only Buonaparte—strange little Napoleone. Now Napoleon.

  And I? Who am I?

  He calls me Josephine. He says I’m an angel, a saint, his good-luck star. I know I’m no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose: scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.

  I slip off my wedding ring, a simple gold band. Inside, I see an inscription. I hold it to the light: To Destiny.

  Chronology

  YEAR DATE

  1760 May 28 Alexandre is born in Fort-Royal, Martinique.

  1763 June 23 Rose is born in Trois-Ilets, Martinique.

  1764 December 11 Rose’s sister Catherine is born.

  1766 August 13—14 A hurricane destroys Rose’s home.

  early September Rose’s second sister Manette is born.

  1769 August 15 Napoleone Buonaparte is born in Ajaccio, Corsica.

  1777 October 16 Rose’s sister Catherine dies.

  1779 April 11 The marriage banns are published in Martinique.

  October 12 Rose arrives in France.