The Josephine B. Trilogy

  “I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,” I told Bonaparte later, in the privacy of our room. There was a cooling breeze coming from the canal, carrying with it the pungent scent of sewage. “What were all your meetings about?” I asked, closing the shutters.

  “The Austrians are advancing again.” He took his sword out of its sheath and ran his finger along the edge, examining it. “I think I’ll take your horse with me when I go.”

  “You are leaving, Bonaparte?” Already?

  “In a few days.”

  My heart sank. Could I manage in Milan without him? “But why are you taking my horse?”

  “You will be coming to join me.”

  “On campaign? But Bonaparte, won’t that be—?”

  “You don’t think I can live without you, do you?” he grinned, tugging my ear.

  July 16, early morning.

  It seems Bonaparte and I are always parting. The soldiers whistled as we embraced. “For luck,” he said, kissing me. He slipped a ribbon from my hair and put it in the pocket next to his heart. “I’ll send for you,” he said, swinging onto his horse. Then he galloped out the gate, his men scrambling to catch up with him.

  In which I learn about war

  Shortly after 5:00 P.M.—still very hot.

  A small afternoon gathering this afternoon. It was impossible! The men stood around the fireplace at one end of the cavernous salon to talk about horses and tell battle stories, while the women sat in the window alcove at the other end of the room discussing fashion, children and dogs. I was relieved when Captain Charles joined in, but shortly a footman came to inform the captain that his horse was ready.

  “But you just got here,” I said, dismayed. He was the only bright spark in the conversation, frankly.

  “General Leclerc expects me in Verona tonight, Madame.”

  I excused myself from my difficult guests and accompanied the captain to the entryway. “I thought you were my cavaliere servente,” I teased him, “and yet already you are abandoning me.”

  He bowed, a graceful melting movement that a girl might make. “Will you forgive me?” He took my hand and kissed it, his breath warm. “No doubt you will require proof of my attachment. Perhaps there are other ways I could be of service?”

  Oh, but he was a naughty boy, I thought, and oh but I was finding it an amusing charade. “What might my cavaliere suggest?”

  He took a coin from out of his pocket; before my eyes it became a handful! “My talent, if one could call it that, is an instinct for increase. I guarantee a return of thirty percent.” He took his cloak from the maid, his hat, and gave her the coins.

  “That’s a bold promise, Captain.” Was he serious?

  “I am said to be bold,” he replied, examining his hat in the looking glass, creasing the brim.

  Bold, indeed. I adjusted his plume so that it stood straight up. “There,” I said, feeling now rather hennish.

  “In addition to all the other requirements, I might add,” he said, buckling his sword sheath.

  “Such as?” I asked, stepping outside where a groom was waiting, holding his horse.

  “Discretion.” Captain Charles took a fistful of mane and leapt gracefully into the saddle. “Ten thousand, Madame, for starters?” His horse tossed its head, pawing at the cobblestones.

  I put up two fingers, twenty. Double or nothing: my game.

  July 23.

  Hidden under an enormous black shawl (like all the women here), I went to church this morning to light a candle for Alexandre. Two years ago today he died.

  If I’ve learned one thing, it is that life is precious and fleeting. I weep to be separated from my children. And I dislike being separated from Bonaparte as well. I prayed to Saint Michael that he would be victorious. Already I want to go home.

  July 17, Saint-Germain

  Chère Maman,

  Yesterday General Hoche sent me a letter. Since he makes mention of you, I copy part of it here:

  “It is with the greatest pleasure that I grant your request for a leave of absence for your friends. Perhaps they will help you forget the losses you have suffered. I will not leave Paris without seeing my dear Eugène. It would have been preferable if his mother had not taken him away from me; I would have made every effort to fulfill my duty toward an unlucky friend.”

  And now, just this afternoon, General Hoche fulfilled his promise and came to see me. Everyone at school was excited, even the teachers! I showed him my scrapbook, which he liked. Then we fenced. He taught me some excellent new moves. He agreed it was time I had a horse of my own.

  I am improving in my studies. The headmaster does not scowl at me quite so much. I’ve been riding every day. I saw Hortense twice this week—she is busy with her projects.

  Your loving son, Eugène

  H. Q., Castiglione, 4 Thermidor

  My brothers Louis and Joseph have arrived and assure me your health is restored. It is terribly hot; my soul is burning for you.—B.P.

  July 24.

  Suddenly there is such a flurry of activity. I’m to meet Bonaparte in Brescia. From there we will go to Verona together.

  In the midst of all the packing and preparations, the hapless Citoyen Hamelin (“the blinker”) came to call. “Please forgive me, Citoyen, for being distracted,” I told him, “but I’m preparing to join my husband in Brescia.” I was trying to decide whether I should take my pug dog with me. And what about my medications? Did I have sufficient laudanum? How long would we be gone? “We’re leaving tonight and we only found out last—”

  Hamelin blinked several times before exclaiming, “Brescia! Madame, the road to Brescia is infested with ruffians. I shall come with you. I will be honoured to risk my life in order that the wife of the General should enjoy a safe voyage.” Immediately he headed for the door. “Forgive me, but I must rush off! I must have my muskets cleaned, obtain grease for the carriage wheels. There is nothing more tempting to a rogue than a broken-down vehicle. No, no, Madame—I insist.”

  Evening—Brescia.

  Bonaparte met us on the road. I joined him in his carriage. “You are well? You look well,” he said, regarding me hungrily. “Close the curtains.”

  July 29—Peschiera.

  The dawn was breaking as our carriages pulled into the courtyard of a villa on the outskirts of Verona.

  “Is this where the Pretender lived?” I asked Bonaparte, yawning. I felt exhausted. We’d travelled from Brescia at night, but the road had been jolting and what sleep I’d managed to get had been fitful, disturbed by Bonaparte’s ardent caresses.

  “It’s not as grand as I expected it to be,” Bonaparte said, jumping out before our carriage had come to a full stop.

  We sat out on the verandah overlooking rolling hills dotted with mulberry trees, drinking coffee and eating fresh figs from a tree in the garden. The air smelled sweetly of cut grass. Bonaparte became animated as he told us stories about the Pretender. “He led a simple life. The people here knew him as Comte de Lille. No one realized he was King Louis XVI’s brother. Only his servants knew he was the Pretender to the throne of France.”

  “How do you know all this, Bonaparte?” I had had three cups of strong coffee and was beginning to feel alert.

  “I have spies following him. He’s in the north now, in Germany—my men never let him out of their sight. His daily rituals are very regular. He is dressed by eight each morning, a simple ensemble decorated with an insignia, a short sword. Then he sees his chancellor. And then he sits in his study and writes. At midday he stops for a meal—he keeps a frugal table. Then he shuts himself up in his closet and paces back and forth in a state of agitation for a little under one hour. This pattern is repeated every day.”

  “To think that he sat in this very chair,” Citoyen Hamelin said, blinking. He wiggled the arm. “It needs fixing.”

  “It must be a lonely life,” I said, gazing out over the mountains. I thought I saw movement in a dark crevice. Did they have mountain goats in this country? I
wondered. I stood and went to the stone balustrade. “What’s that moving on the mountain?”

  But Bonaparte was occupied telling Hamelin about the last report he had had on the Pretender, the book the Pretender had been reading. “And it’s still in the library,” he said, “with a marker on page 231. He was on page 204 several months ago, so he can’t be a very fast reader.”

  “Perhaps he did not read from it every day” Hamelin said, blinking. “Perhaps he only read a few days a week. If so, then one could say that he—”

  I turned to Bonaparte. “Austrian soldiers wear white uniforms, do they not?”

  He came to my side. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Over to the left—see that line of white dots?”

  Bonaparte pulled a collapsed glass from out of his pocket, shook it to open it and held it to his eye. “You must leave immediately,” he said, letting the glass drop.

  We were hours on the road, Lisette, Hamelin and I in the carriage, four dragoons following on horseback. At the fort in Peschiera a portly general with whiskers like sausages rushed out to meet us. “You can’t stay here—the Austrians are closing in.”

  Hamelin and Lisette regarded me with alarm. “My husband instructed us to stay here,” I told the general. The air smelled strongly of fish.

  “But Madame, what if…?” Hamelin exclaimed.

  “Madame Bonaparte,” General Guillaume stuttered, “I beg you to consider. If anything were to happen to you, I—”

  “I appreciate your concern, General, but we will not move unless ordered to do so by my husband,” I repeated, with a firmness that astonished even me. Bonaparte was the only rock I had to hold on to.

  I am writing this now in a small stone cell in the basement of the fortress. At least it is cool. An hour ago we had a meal of lake trout washed down with watered Montferrat. We ate in silence. “Leave the horses hitched,” I instructed the groom. Lisette and I will share a room. Our valises packed, we will sleep in our clothes. If we sleep.

  A numbing fear has enveloped me. That, and anger I confess. How could Bonaparte have put us into this position! Put me. For the sake of his lust, he has endangered my life.

  July 31, Sunday—Parma.

  I was woken at dawn by a clatter of horses in the courtyard, the sound of metal clanking against stones.

  I touched Lisette’s arm. “I think someone has arrived,” I whispered. She moaned and turned back into her pillow. “We might have to leave soon. Best to rise,” I said, releasing the pedal of the chipped washbasin and splashing my face.

  I tied a red scarf around my head créole-style and creamed my cheeks with rouge, blind without a glass. I heard a voice. “It’s Junot, I think.”

  Lisette opened her eyes. “Colonel Junot?”

  “It doesn’t look good,” I overheard Junot saying to General Guillaume as I came down the stone steps into the courtyard. “The Austrians outnumber us three to one.”

  “Colonel Junot, what has happened?” I asked anxiously.

  “We had quite a battle last night.” His breath smelled of liquor. “General Bonaparte has set up a command post at Castelnuovo. I’m to take you there, but we must leave immediately.”

  Hamelin, blinking against the morning sun, appeared at the entrance to the fort, followed by a servant lugging his heavy valise. And then Lisette appeared, carrying a wicker basket.

  Junot jumped to the door of our carriage. “Allow me,” he said, gesturing us in.

  “I’m so sleepy!” Lisette yawned, climbing in after Hamelin. “Did you sleep, Madame?” she asked, smiling with her eyes at Junot.

  “A little.” I was anxious to join Bonaparte, but anxious as well about leaving the protection of the fort. Nowhere seemed safe.

  Junot headed out the open gate on horseback, the dragoons falling in behind. A young dragoon with a pink face jumped onto his horse and trotted to catch up with them. He smiled and tipped his hat at me as he raced by.

  “The young men always like you, Madame,” Lisette teased, handing me a warm roll lined with a sausage.

  “Did I miss something?” Hamelin asked, looking up from his book of Italian phrases.

  “I remind them of their mothers,” I told my maid. The freshly baked bread lifted my spirits, restored faith. We’d not had time to eat.

  “Would you be offended if I told you that you remind me of my mother?” she asked.

  “Not at all. In fact, you remind me of my daughter.” We exchanged an affectionate look.

  Our carriage lurched forward. I waved to General Guillaume as we pulled through the gate. He turned away, his hand over his heart. He was frightened for us, I realized, a cold feeling of fear coming over me.

  It was cooler along the shores of Lake Garda, the vast water calm, the blue hills in the distance misty. I was relieved not to hear sniper fire.

  Lisette and I were playing cat’s cradle when we were startled by the ominous boom of a cannon. The carriage halted abruptly; I put out a hand to keep from falling forward. I saw a flash of light, heard musket fire, cannon again. But it was the sound of a horse’s scream that chilled me—that, and the violent jolting of our carriage. I realized we might tip. I heard Junot yelling, “Get down, get down, dismount, you idiot!”

  “What’s happened?” Hamelin hiccupped, pulling down on his hat.

  The door to the carriage was thrown open. “Jump!” Junot grabbed Hamelin and yanked him out. A crack of gunfire sent him scrambling.

  Lisette leapt into Junot’s arms. He let her down and pushed her toward the ditch. I gathered my skirts. I felt strangely calm; even so, I tasted tears. A sudden jolt threw me off balance. I heard a thunderous boom. “Get out!” Junot yelled.

  I jumped, scrambling after Hamelin and Lisette, my petticoat tearing. I rolled down an embankment, coming to rest in marshy reeds. I crawled through the mud to the others. Lisette looked deathly pale. I put my arm around her. She was trembling. Or was I?

  “My hiccups are gone,” Hamelin said, blinking.

  I heard the sound of a man crying out. “It must be one of the soldiers.” I climbed back up to the top of the embankment.

  “Madame, don’t! Be careful,” Lisette hissed. “Come back!”

  I peered through the tall grass. Junot was crouched beside a fallen horse, a big chestnut. It was thrashing, bleeding from a wound in its neck. The other horses were rearing and kicking, trying to free themselves of the entangled harness. It was all the postillion could do to hold onto them while a dragoon cut the traces. And then I saw the young dragoon…

  I ducked down, my breath shaky. My hand was covered in mud. I wiped it on the grass slowly, as if in a dream, then slid back down the embankment, trembling.

  “What’s going on?” Hamelin asked, holding a limp Lisette in his arms. Had she fainted? I tried to answer, but I could not, for I had seen the young dragoon, fallen from his horse, his foot caught in the stirrup, his face…

  “What’s wrong with Lisette?” I said finally, gasping.

  Hamelin shook her. “I can’t get her to wake up.”

  “Do you have a flask?”

  “Oh!” He felt in his pocket, pulled out a leather-covered bottle and handed it to me. “Whisky. There’s a little left.”

  I opened it and held it under Lisette’s nose. Her eyelids flickered. I poured some of the liquor over my fingers, wiped it on her forehead, her lips, her nostrils. She moaned. “Sit her up more.” I feared she might retch.

  Hamelin slumped her forward. Lisette shook her head, looked up at me. “I feel sick, Madame!”

  “Have a sip,” I said, handing her the flask. “But just a little,” I cautioned her, watching her tip back her head. We had to be ready to run.

  I heard Junot yell, the crack of a whip, the carriage clattering, horses. We were showered with loose stones. Then Junot came tumbling down the embankment. He cursed when he hit the mud. He crawled over to us, his face frightful with mud and blood. Lisette handed him her handkerchief out of her bodice. “Are you all right??
?? he asked, pressing her kerchief to his lips.

  “It’s uncomfortable here,” Hamelin said, slapping at a mosquito. They were everywhere now. “This pestilent air—”

  “Colonel Junot, we heard the carriage.”

  “I whipped it on.” He cracked his knuckles.

  “We’re stranded?” Hamelin exclaimed.

  “The Austrians will assume you’re in it and stop firing. But we’ve got to get into the woods without their seeing us.” Junot started crawling along the ditch. “Can you follow?” I nodded. “Stay down,” he hissed.

  Once in a more secluded area, not far, we were able to get up out of the mud. Lisette’s teeth were chattering, in spite of the heat. “Do you know where we are?” I asked Junot. I put my arm around Lisette, to steady her, steady myself.

  “Near Desenzano,” Junot said, slapping at a mosquito.

  I remembered Desenzano, a village of narrow little streets opening onto the lake. Bonaparte and I had passed through it two nights before on the way to Verona.

  I sensed the beat of a horse’s hooves. Cocking his musket, Junot went to the edge of the woods. “A carter,” he said, returning. “He’s stopped to look at the dead horse.”

  A creaking wagon pulled by a fat red horse came into view. Loaded on the back were crates of chickens. The carter was wearing a black scarf around his head, like a peasant woman. He pulled to a stop when he saw us, said something in Italian. “Can you understand him?” I asked Junot.

  “Just get in,” Junot said, aiming his musket at the peasant. We climbed onto the wagon, sitting down uneasily on top of the chicken crates. “Go!” Junot said to the driver, climbing up beside him, but the carter just sat there.

  “Do you have your little book?” I asked Hamelin.

  Hamelin felt around in his pockets, put on his spectacles, ruffled through the pages of his book of Italian phrases. “Nohn sahp-pee-AHmon DOH-veh chee troh-vee-AH-moh,” he said (or something like that).