The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

  It is midnight now. The light from the lamp burns low. I curl strands of the children’s hair around my fingers, press them into a locket. Eugène’s curls around my finger easily; Hortense’s is fine and straight, it defies confinement.

  They are sleeping. Eugène is sprawled across his bed, all long legs and arms. He sleeps soundly, without movement. I do not fear for him.

  It is Hortense who still needs me, Hortense who will suffer. She is curled in a tense ball, her face frozen into a frown even in sleep. I thank God that Eugène will be with her. He has heart enough for us all.

  September 5.

  It was dawn when we set out, Eugène and I taking turns carrying the canvas haversack. I tried to maintain a festive attitude. The coach and four were in the prince and princess’s courtyard, waiting. The driver was not in livery and the family crests had been painted over for fear of drawing attention.

  Poor Frédéric was flustered. He couldn’t get his sword to tie properly. Eugène helped him. Then the children and I sat down, out of the way, while the princess supervised the packing. So much had been stuffed into a trunk that the valet was unable to close the lid. Princess Amalia was obliged to take a number of robes out.

  At last they were ready. I helped the children into the coach. I kissed them and closed the door. The driver cracked his whip, the horses pulledforward. Hortense waved. Eugène pressed his lips to the glass, to make a funny face.

  That was the last.

  Quickly I headed home. Nearing the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas, I heard a child singing, a melancholy soprano much like Hortense’s sweet voice. I stopped.

  I would light a candle, I thought, say a prayer … a prayer for safe journey, for my children, but within the dark chapel my intention was thwarted. Labourers were dismantling church ornaments. In a corner a table had been set up and a line of young men had formed: army recruits. At the pews at the front a cleric and several old women were sorting army uniforms.

  I stood in the archway, confused.

  Two of the labourers moved by me, carrying a heavy statue of the Madonna between them. “Pardon,” one said. They loaded the statue onto a handcart and began to pull it away. The labourer in the blue tunic waved to me, as if in a procession.

  I recalled Hortense waving. Goodbye. Goodbye, Maman.

  For how long?

  For ever?

  A feeling of panic came over me. I fell to my knees. The cleric and one of the old women came to my aid. The cleric supported me as best he could to a pew, urging me to rest. “I must go.” I pulled away.

  I do not remember making my way to Rue Saint-Dominique. I do not remember climbing the stairs. All I remember is standing at the door to the children’s room. Scattered all over the floor were Eugène’s toy soldiers. One of Hortense’s dolls was slumped in a corner.

  “Oui?” Agathe was bent over Eugène’s bed, as if to straighten it. There was a hollow in the pillow, where Eugène’s head had been.

  “No!”

  Agathe looked at me in confusion.

  “Please.” Softly this time; I had alarmed her. “Don’t.” I reached for the door handle to steady myself.

  “I’m not to make up the bed?”

  “Not just now.” My voice was quavering.

  Agathe regarded me with suspicion. “I see.” She backed away.

  I closed the door behind us, turned the key, took a breath. I would have them with me still, their familiar disorder, their rumpled bedclothes—their scent, the imprint of their bodies on the pillows … evidence, of their existence.

  * Two weeks earlier (August 18, 1792), all religious institutions had been closed by the state. This included most of the schools, which had been run by the Church.

  In which I become a good Republican

  September 8, 1792.

  Aimée is horrified by what I’ve done.

  “I had to!”

  “You could have at least talked it over with me.”

  The truth was, I had been afraid to tell her, afraid she’d try to talk me out of it. Afraid she’d say: What about Lucie? What about my daughter?

  “I promised not to tell!”

  “Rose, don’t you see? This puts you in such peril!” she ranted, close to tears. “And what about Alexandre? I hate to think what’s going to happen to him when the authorities find out!”

  Alexandre—mon Dieu.

  Sunday, September 16.

  Rain, and more rain. I spent the morning in bed, listening to the crackling of the fire, the steady dripping of the rain on the roof, alone with my sad thoughts, a devouring ennui.

  At around eleven I must have fallen asleep, for I was dreaming of home, of the salty water of the bay, the tangle of the mangroves. … I awoke with a start. Outside, on the street, I heard a child’s voice, a girl’s bubbling giggle. How cruel, I thought, for a child so like Hortense to call at my window.

  I heard the impatient prance of a horse’s hoofs on the cobblestones, the front door open, a boy’s voice. Was it possible? I went to the landing, clinging to the railing for support. There, in the entryway looking up at me, were Hortense and Eugène.

  “Maman!” They clattered up the stairs and into my arms. I clasped them hard, disbelieving. They were confused—and perhaps a little uneasy—by the intensity of my welcome, my tears.

  “Father wrote a letter for us to come back,” Hortense explained. She seemed pleased by this.

  “Alexandre?”

  Princess Amalia came in the front hallway. Frédéric was behind her, looking harassed. He was wearing his National Guard uniform, now tight on him. I motioned to them to be cautious, for Agathe had come to the landing with a basket of linens.

  “Would you like Agathe to make you a hot chocolate?” I asked the children. They followed her happily down into the kitchen. I opened the double sash doors to the parlour. Princess Amalia and Frédéric followed me in, Frédéric checking to make sure there was no one behind the curtains. I closed the doors behind me. “What happened!” I whispered.

  “We received an estafet close to Saint-Paul,” Princess Amalia said in a hushed voice, taking off her feathered hat. Her heavily powdered hair was dressed in an elaborate pouf. “From Alexandre. He demanded that the children be returned to Paris at once.” She took a document out of her basket and handed it to me. “It arrived two days before we were to depart for England.”

  “Alexandre sent you this?” I sank onto the sofa. “How did he find out?”

  “You didn’t inform him?” Princess Amalia glanced at her brother. “We thought …”

  “Is it possible the government knows?” I asked.

  “They have spies everywhere,” Frédéric said bitterly.

  I didn’t know what to think. I was overwhelmed with joy to see Hortense and Eugène again, yet alarmed by the perilous situation into which they had been returned. “But you could have gone on to England,” I told them.

  “Someone had to accompany the children,” Princess Amalia explained.

  “There was no one we could trust,” Frédéric said.

  It wasn’t until they had left that the enormity of Alexandre’s actionstruck me. The lives of our children, of dear Frédéric and Princess Amalia, have been put at risk. I’ve penned Alexandre a letter of rage and regret. I watch as it burns in the fire.

  September 21, 1792—Strasbourg

  Rose,

  How can you say that I do not understand the situation in Paris! I understand it clearly: the Parisians were overcome with an irrational panic. The Austrians would never have attacked! But even so, to send the children to England? Can you imagine what that would have meant to my career? As a former aristocrat, daily I am required to submit proof of my loyalty.

  Your much enraged and offended husband, Alexandre

  Friday, September 21.

  Aimée is intent on my safety. “You’re to become a good citoyenne, a model Republican.” She’s put a red cap and a worsted linen cockade by the door—not even a silk cockade will do—“for
whenever you go out.”

  I groaned.

  She took the liberty of suggesting that I find a less attractive cape to wear in the streets. “Any show of wealth is dangerous,” she said. “Even clean linens.” She gave me a cape she’d found in a used clothing shop. It is worn and patched, an unbecoming dirty yellow. “Perfect. You look horrible.”

  Saturday, September 22.

  The new Republic dawned wet and dreary. The streets are crowded with people milling about in the rain, sharing wine, singing, celebrating the new Era of Liberty. Dressed in Roman tunics, ragged old army uniforms, mouldy court gowns, they link arms and roam from one neighbourhood to the next.

  Aimée has cluttered the front parlour with revolutionary newspapers and magazines. “For our salon,” she explained.

  “Our salon?”

  “Every Tuesday evening, revolutionaries welcome,” she said, scratching out a guest list. “They’re a rowdy bunch—it might even be amusing.”

  September 26.

  Our “salon” was a success. There were seventeen guests. Fanny arrived first (looking fashionably rustic). She came with Michel de Cubières (looking fat), her daughter Marie (looking thin) and a Citoyen Lestaing (looking wealthy), a mulatto widower from Saint-Domingue who appeared to be on more than friendly terms with Marie. (Everyone pretended not to be shocked.)

  Marie informed me that she has filed for a divorce from François under the new law. “It’s easy!” She was wearing a worker-woman cap with an enormous tricolour cockade stuck to the front. “When are you going to divorce Alexandre?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it,” I said. In spite of everything, I still felt Alexandre was my husband—the father of my children.

  A number of deputies had been invited, including Deputy Barras, who arrived in the company of Citoyen Botot and Deputy Tallien, all of them in spirits.

  Deputy Barras kissed my hand. “Citoyenne Beauharnais,” he said, his big eyes mournful. “I regretted learning of your friend’s—”

  Citoyen Botot looked equally stricken. “The timing—” he lisped. He shrugged.

  “I have been meaning to write to you both,” I said, “to thank you for your help.”

  “Should aging libertines be trusted in the company of a lady?” a young man in a red frock coat interrupted. Inordinately tall with a bristly head, he moved like a cat.

  “Did your mother give you permission to go out tonight, Tallien?” Deputy Barras asked, setting up a table for cards. Citoyen Botot laughed.

  “Deputy Tallien is Secretary of the Commune?” I asked Aimée later, when I had a chance. “But he’s so young.” Although gentle in appearance, his manner is one of a gay blade: sarcastic, irreverent, a bit of a wit.

  “Hardly five and twenty, the son of a valet. But comely, is he not? Andeducated, apparently. His father’s master made the mistake of educating him. I’m told he quotes Plutarch as well as any noble. In fact, it’s said the master is his father. Do you not see something aristocratic in his profile? In his nose? A gentle, good-hearted man, by the looks of him, but ruthless, they say—one of the Commissaires. Did you hear about that nineteen-year-old woman from Saint-Denis? Disguised as a delegate, she was apprehended in the Assembly carrying sulphuric acid—intended for his face.”

  “He’s a Septembrist?” I thought of Luce de Montmorin, his violent death. How could we have invited a Septembrist to our home?

  “But influential—he’d be the one to ask about passes out of the city for Princess Amalia and Frédéric.” Aimée squeezed my arm. “It’s said he fancies aristocratic women.”

  After innumerable toasts to the Republic, I invited Citoyen Tallien to join me in a game of écarté. He has a weakness for gambling, I perceived. I pleased him greatly by losing. After two games (at a cost of seventeen livres) I summoned the courage to put forward my request on behalf of my friends.

  “And allow your friend Frédéric to join the army of the enemy?” Tal-lien responded.

  I had to smile.

  “Forgive me if I fail to see the humour,” Tallien said.

  I explained: “This is perhaps the first time my friend has been regarded as an asset on the battlefield.” Dear Frédéric had a reputation for being a coward. He had even had the dishonour to be dismissed from the volunteer National Guard.

  Levity or no, Tallien said he doubted that passports could be obtained.

  “But there must be a way.” Were it not for me, Frédéric and Princess Amalia would be in England now, they would be safe.

  September 30, 1792—Strasbourg

  Rose,

  How can you accuse me of valuing my own safety over that of my children! I would die for them! And as for Amalia and Frédéric, they are better off in Paris.

  Alexandre

  October 2.

  This afternoon I went to Deputy Tallien’s office, to ask him once again about passports for Frédéric and Princess Amalia. I was kept waiting for some time. He was working on the layout of L’Ami des citoyens, the revolutionary news-sheet he publishes, he explained, when finally he consented to speak to me. He had a deadline to meet, he said.

  “Some other time?” I inquired, making the bold step of inviting him to supper.

  “Perfect,” Aimée said when I told her, offering to keep Eugène and Hortense in her apartment for the night.

  That evening.

  Deputy Tallien is gone; my virtue intact. Tarnished, perhaps, but unsullied.

  We spent the evening together, sharing two bottles of wine, which Deputy Tallien clearly enjoys. We played piquet and talked—of the Republic, the constitution, the future. Under a gentle demeanour is a young man who longs to make a difference. He is fervent in his belief in the Revolution, dedicated to a vision of a better world.

  “The moderate deputies maintain that the radicals aren’t heeding the past,” he said, “yet the moderates ignore the present. They refuse to see the poverty that surrounds us.”

  “It is difficult to understand how one could not see it.”

  We talked of our families, our hopes and aspirations. “You are—twenty-four? Twenty-five?” I asked. “Do you not seek a wife?”

  “I seek the wife of a brigadier-general,” he said sweetly.

  “You know what I mean.” I smiled.

  “I believe I am incapable of the emotion they call love.”

  I looked at him, surprised. “That must be a sad feeling.”

  “It is a secure feeling.” He stood to go. “You’ve not asked about the passes for your friends.” He pulled a paper out of his vest pocket. “I’vearranged for two to be issued.”

  The light from a candle reflected in his eyes. “You are kind to have done this,” I said.

  “Not many call me kind.”

  “I have another request to make,” I said, made bold by wine. “Regarding a girl named Anne-Julie de Béthisy, in the Port-Libre prison. She’s only nineteen.”* A weeping Marquise de Moulins had contacted me three days earlier about about her niece, imprisoned when the girl’s family returned from Germany.

  Tallien smiled. “One gets the impression your list may be long. …” He leaned toward me.

  I stooped suddenly to take up his sword, handed it to him. “I believe it time you fell in love,” I said.

  He sighed, put a hand to his heart. “Everyone seeks my downfall.” I laughed. He left content; I am relieved.

  Thursday, October 4.

  Frédéric and Princess Amalia departed this morning, quietly, before I could bid them farewell.

  October 9.

  This evening I received a note from Frédéric: “Alas, we’re back.”

  I hurried to the Hôtel de Salm. Frédéric came to the door. He’d been weeping. “It’s hopeless. We’ll perish!”

  Princess Amalia entered. She told me what had happened. They’d set out for Amiens, but at a post station near Clermont their papers had been questioned. No amount of persuasion—“Or gold,” Frédéric interjected—could persuade the station-master not to turn them
over to the authorities. Fortunately, the precinct commander was more lenient and let them go, provided they returned immediately to Paris.

  “And so here we are, in the gayest prison in all of Europe,” Frédéric concluded, waving an embroidered handkerchief through the air. “At least here we may go to the opera.”

  Friday, October 12.

  A military coach pulled into our courtyard this morning.

  “Lieutenant Soufflet,” Agathe informed me. “He has a message from your husband.”

  “From Alexandre?”

  “Oui, oui.” Lieutenant Soufflet remembered to remove his hat. He seemed a boy—no more than fourteen or fifteen. “Oui,” yet again. He felt around in his pockets and handed me a letter.

  I recognized Alexandre’s hand. I can no longer trust you. I do not have to remind you of the law.

  “I am to take General Beauharnais’s son back to Strasbourg with me.” Lieutenant Soufflet spoke these words resolutely, as if he had been practising.

  “Eugène is to go to Strasbourg? With you?”

  “Oui.”

  “Now?”

  “Oui, oui.”

  “Surely there has been a mistake!”

  I read the note again. The law. As the father, Alexandre could command his children back to the dangers of Paris, entrust his son on a long and perilous journey in the care of a boy, expose him to the dangers of a garrison town. I put the note in my pocket. I understood: I had no choice.

  Lieutenant Soufflet and I left to fetch Eugène at the joiner’s workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where he has been serving as an apprentice, as required by the Commune. The fragrant smell of wood dust filled the room. Eugène, busy at a table at the back, did not look up.

  I explained to Citoyen Quinette the purpose of my call. He called Eugène over and told him he was dismissed. Eugène looked alarmed. He enjoyed his apprenticeship more than he had ever enjoyed school.

  “I will explain,” I said.

  The large, official coach and the handsome team of horses impressed Eugène, as did the uniform Citoyen Soufflet was wearing, his jaunty hat and long, shiny sword. Eugène brushed the sawdust off his clothes and climbed onto the leather seat.