Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

  “Perhaps if he could just see the report.”

  “That’s classified information.”

  “Paul, you know the rumours,” I said softly. “If the autopsy report states that Lazare died of consumption, then why not make it public? It would help—”

  “I’ll tell you why!” he said, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. “Because there is nothing to hide. I’ve had it with these ignorant, suspicious …” He sputtered, seeking yet another invective.

  February 27.

  The door to chez Hoche was ajar. I pulled the bell rope, waited. I heard the child chattering. A tall white-haired man in a heavy wool coat and ribbed stockings came to the door. Lazare’s father, Père Hoche—it was easy to see from his bushy eyebrows, the set of his jutting jaw, his proud stance. The child peeked out from between his legs. I introduced myself, handing him my card. “Citoyenne Bonaparte.”

  “The wife of General Bonaparte?” Père Hoche asked with respect in his voice.

  “I knew your son, in the Carmes prison.” “Yes, he told me.” With an appraising look. I flushed. “My profound condolences, Citoyen Hoche.” “Hoche is my name,” the child said from between her grandpapa’s legs.

  “Yes, I believe we have been introduced.” I smiled.

  Squealing, she ran back into the depths of the house.

  The old man waved me into the house. “You’re here to see Adélaïde?”

  “She is expecting me, I believe.”

  “She told me she was expecting somebody, but she didn’t tell me it was the wife of that rascal Bonaparte,” he said, lighting a candle enclosed in oiled paper.

  I followed his slow progression up the narrow stairs to the dark sitting room. “Sit. I’ll tell her you’re here.” I waited in the spare little room, feeling Lazare’s eyes staring down at me. A silk flower had been placed under the portrait, next to the blue urn. I heard a door, footsteps. Adélaïde Hoche appeared, dressed entirely in black, a widow’s veil draped around her shoulders. “Père Hoche, please join us. I believe it regards Lazare,” she said over her shoulder. She touched the urn on the mantelpiece, crossed herself and sat down.

  The old man appeared in the door, filling it. “Oh?”

  I glanced from one to the other uneasily. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to obtain the report. I was told that the law prevents making it public and—”

  “The autopsy report?” Père Hoche asked, stepping into the room.

  “But Director Barras assured me himself that the results are clear—your son died of consumption.”

  Père Hoche slammed his fist against the wall. “Don’t you dare speak the name Barras in this house!”

  I started, my heart pounding.

  “Père Hoche, please,” the young widow hissed, but her father-in-law ignored her.

  “Yes, my son had consumption, but that wasn’t what killed him. You don’t get convulsions from consumption. Lazare was poisoned.”

  With the appearance of calm the widow stood, straightened Lazare’s portrait. “It is not a good likeness,” she said.

  * Rue de la Chantereine had been changed to Rue de la Victoire in honour of Napoleon’s victories.

  In which I am accused

  February 28, 1798.

  Bonaparte is in a meeting with Talleyrand again. They closet themselves in the study every afternoon. It has become a bit mysterious, for now Bonaparte has forbidden anyone from entering that room. “Even the servants, Bonaparte?” I asked, perplexed. For the study was in shambles.

  “Even you,” he said, tweaking my ear.

  [Undated]

  Books stacked by Bonaparte’s bedside—Ossian, Plutarch, the Koran.

  [Undated]

  I felt like a thief in my own house. I lit a candle, looked about. Bonaparte’s study was in that familiar state of disarray, that look of volcanic activity. Every surface was covered with papers, journals, scrolls. I picked up a plate with chicken bones on it, to clear it, then put it back exactly where I found it. I held the candle down over the map that was spread out over the carpet—Egypt.

  March 1.

  Minister Schérer has yet to even read the Bodin Company proposal. “Why is he taking so long?” I asked Barras. We were standing in an alcove of his palatial salon, ostensibly to admire a painting that had recently been hung there.

  “Because he spends every minute of every day dealing with your husband’s proposals, that’s why.”

  I glanced toward the people gathered at the far end of the salon. Joseph was hunched over talking to Bonaparte—lecturing him, I gathered, from the expression on Bonaparte’s face. In spite of his retiring nature Joseph took his position as head of the Bonaparte clan seriously. According to Corsican custom his younger siblings were all under his care. Indeed, whatever glory accrued to Bonaparte, Joseph took credit for it; whatever profit, he managed. We’re Corsican, Bonaparte would tell me, as if that explained everything.

  “Does your husband never sleep?” Barras went on. “We receive at least one memo from him a day, and this in addition to all the meetings he keeps calling.”

  “Regarding Egypt?” I asked, my eyes on his, watching to see what his reaction would be.

  Barras made a sputtering sound. “It’s insane, this plan of his,” he hissed, grasping my elbow.

  “People said the Italian campaign was insane,” I said, rising to my husband’s defence. But noting—Barras did not deny an Egyptian plan.

  He waved his arms through the air in the Provençal manner. “Maybe he’s right, who knows? Maybe this is the only way to get at England, to cut her off from Asia, her source of wealth.”

  England: the enemy. For as long as I could remember, it had been thus. We would have peace, were it not for England. We would have prosperity, were it not for England. Almost every man I had ever loved—my hapless father, my dissipated first husband, my honourable Lazare and now even my brilliant and driven second husband—had been consumed by one thought and one thought only: defeating England. “I take it you’re not in support,” I said.

  Barras ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Officially, yes, of course I’m in support. But privately—and I’ve told Bonaparte this myself—I have serious reservations. His proposal is based on three assumptions, three false assumptions, in my view. First, that it is possible to conquer Egypt, which is doubtful. Second, that he would then be able to establish a connection with India, which is unlikely. And third, that India would then join forces with us to conquer England, which is ludicrous.

  “But you know what’s really mad? My fellow Directors might just go along with it. Personally, I think they’d agree to anything if it meant getting your husband out of the country. His popularity is making them uneasy. Have you seen the Bonaparte dolls the vendors are selling down on the quays?”

  “India?” I asked, confused. What did India have to do with it? Barras regarded me for a long moment. “You didn’t know anything about this, did you? You were just guessing.”

  [Undated]

  “You might as well tell me about Egypt,” I told Bonaparte, putting down my glass of watered wine.

  He turned to me with an enigmatic smile.

  March 2.

  Captain Charles did three handsprings in the Bodin Company courtyard. “It’s been approved!” he whooped.

  At last—the Bodin Company is now the official supplier of horses to the Army of Italy.

  “We did it,” Hugo Bodin called out from the top step. He clasped his pudgy fists together and raised them in victory.

  Captain Charles twirled me. I felt light in his hands. He danced me off my feet, singing, “We’re going to be rich, we’re going to be rich, we’re going to be stinking rich!”

  March 5.

  Bonaparte slammed the door behind him. “The Directors gave their consent.” He threw his hat at an armchair; it missed and sent a lantern toppling.

  “To what?” I asked, righting the lantern, checking to see whether any oil had spilled.


  “The invasion of Portugal.” Portugal? He grinned like a schoolboy. “At least, that’s the official story.”

  March 10.

  It was our anniversary yesterday—our second. We’d planned a quiet evening, but at four in the afternoon, Bonaparte informed me that Admiral Bruyes and two aides would be joining us for dinner. “I thought we were dining alone, Bonaparte. It’s our anniversary.” “It is?”

  “We discussed this yesterday.”

  “Do you have any idea what I do in a week?” he exploded, storming out of our bedchamber.

  Later, much later, he returned, repentant. He’d been drinking, which was unusual. “I want to make a baby,” he said, fumbling with the bed spring. Our beds flew together with a crash—a sound that could be heard throughout the house, I knew. A sound that set the servants tittering, no doubt.

  “I am beginning to despair of ever having another child,” I confessed. It had been some time since I’d had the monthly sickness.

  “Sterility in a woman is decided in the first three years of married life.” He sat down, pulling at his boots. “For a woman over the age of twenty-five, the interval is lengthened.”

  “You’ve been studying?” Bonaparte believed anything could be achieved by knowledge—and by will, his will.

  He planted his hand purposely on my breast. “The womb and the breasts are in sympathy. To excite the womb, one need merely excite the breast.”

  “Then I should have been with child long ago,” I said with a smile.

  He tugged at my nightdress, pulling it up over my head. “Queen Anne of Austria brought Louis XIV into the world after twenty-two, years of sterility.”

  Twenty-one years of fidelity was how I understood it. But did not say.

  [Undated]

  From Madame Campan’s book, chapter twenty-six, “Of Sterility”: Sterility is a Want of Conception in a Woman of requisite Age who duly suffers the Approaches of Man.

  I don’t know what to think. I’m of “requisite age” and I certainly “duly suffer” (!) the approach of a man. I don’t understand why I’m not pregnant. For that matter, I don’t understand why I no longer have the flowers, in spite of the bitter rue tea Mimi has persuaded me to try.*

  March 13.

  I am … yes, shattered is the word—betrayed. Bitterness fills my heart. Disbelief. Lisette is gone. Her tears failed to move me. What happened:

  After my morning toilette I took a quick repast in the upstairs drawing room. Lisette, claiming vapours, had gone to her room in the basement. Bonaparte was in the study with Fauvelet, Junot and several other of his aides. Or so I thought.

  It was as I was finishing a cup of coffee that Bonaparte came upstairs, asking after Junot. “I thought he was with you,” I said.

  “I haven’t seen him all morning.” Perplexed. “Perhaps he went riding.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, standing, suddenly uneasy.

  The steep stairs that led down to the servants’ quarters in the basement were dark. At the landing I paused. I thought I heard a man’s voice. Perhaps it was the cook, or my manservant. But I didn’t think so.

  At the bottom I stopped, suddenly unsure. The air was colder than above, but stale and smelling of flat-irons. I could simply open the door to Lisette’s room—was that not how it was done in plays? Instead, I knocked.

  “Tell her I’ll be up in a moment,” I heard Lisette call out with an irritated tone. The door was thin; I could hear quite clearly. I knocked again, harder this time, more insistent.

  “Tell her to hold her horses!” A man’s voice: Junot!

  “I’ll hold your horses,” I heard Lisette say, giggling, and then, “That woman’s going to drive me mad.”

  That woman. I turned the metal latch. The door swung open with a complaining creak. There, nude on a narrow trundle bed under the high dirty window, were Lisette and Junot, Lisette straddling. Both of them turned their faces toward me in a curiously co-ordinated motion.

  “Bonaparte is looking for you, Colonel Junot,” I said, backing out of the room and closing the door behind me. I went back up the stairs, pushing against both walls for support, my legs unsteady beneath me.

  Mimi was in my bedchamber, gathering soiled linen. “I’m fine,” I reassured her. “But I’d like to be alone.” Her look of tender concern would make me weep, I feared. I heard heavy footsteps downstairs, heard a door open, slam shut, the low rumble of men’s voices. I sat down on one of the hard stools by the bed. I’d never seen a man with a woman before, not like that, en flagrante. A man with a girl.

  I was sipping a second glass of hysteric water when I heard the floorboards creak outside my door and then three light raps. I did not answer.

  Three raps again. The latch turned, the door swung open. “Forgive me, Madame,” Lisette said, her hands clasped in front of her, her head bowed.

  I didn’t know what to say. I did not have it in me to forgive her. It was not the deed so much as those words she had spoken: that woman. Was that all I was to her? I had come to believe that we shared an affection, one for the other. We’d been through so much together. But clearly, I’d been mistaken. “Gather your things, Lisette.”

  “Madame, please—!” She pressed her hands to her face.

  Was she crying? I doubted it. She reached out to touch my hand as I passed by her, heading out the door. I was not mistaken. Her eyes were clear.

  “It was just once, Madame. I promise …” I closed the door behind me, short of breath. “You’ll be sorry,” I heard her cry.

  “You dismissed your maid?” Bonaparte asked, pulling on his jacket, preparing to go to the Luxembourg Palace for a meeting with the Directors. “But why?”

  Junot, leaning against the mantel, observed me, his cold blue eyes unflinching.

  “It was a personal matter,” I told my husband evenly, avoiding Junot’s gaze. There was no point telling Bonaparte. Junot was one of his oldest friends.

  “You allowed her too many familiarities. It spoils a maid.” “Yes,” I said.

  “Next time, you’ll know better.” I heard Junot’s knuckles crack.

  March 14, midday.

  “Everyone knew,” Mimi told me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “That’s not my way.”

  “Will you be my lady’s maid?”

  “An upstairs maid?” Mimi paused, considering.

  I touched her hand. “Please, Mimi—I need someone I know I can trust.” I felt like a ship without a rudder. I no longer believed in my own judgement.

  She made a doubtful face. “I’d have to learn manners.” “But you’ll do it?”

  She grinned. “I promised your mother I’d look after you, didn’t I?”

  March 16.

  Bonaparte’s older brother Joseph has taken to dropping in every day for the midday meal. Today he asked for a private consultation with Bonaparte, so I excused myself. They were sequestered for some time. Then Bonaparte’s secretary appeared. “The General and his brother wish to speak with you, Madame,” Fauvelet Bourrienne informed me, his look uneasy.

  Bonaparte had his feet up on his desk and was tapping the desktop with a riding crop. “Leave, Fauvelet,” he told his secretary. “And close the door!”

  Joseph was slouched in the chair by the fire examining his fingernails. He looked up at me and smiled. It was then that I knew I was in trouble.

  “Joseph has just informed me that you have had dealings with a military supply company.” Bonaparte glanced over at his brother, who nodded. “The Bodin Company, to be specific, which was recently awarded a contract to provide horses to the Army of Italy.”

  I glanced from Bonaparte to Joseph and back again. “What are you talking about?” I demanded, my heart pounding.

  “Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” Joseph withdrew a sheet of paper from his waistcoat pocket and read, “Twenty-one Rue Honoré.” He smiled.

  Hugo Bodin lived at one hundred Rue Honoré, not twenty-one. “I’ve never been there.?
??

  “Curious,” Joseph said, still smiling. “You were seen entering at twenty to eleven on fifteen Ventôse and did not emerge until three that afternoon. You were seen there again on the twenty-second, and then again on the twenty-third.”

  “Am I being followed?”

  “Confess, Josephine!” Bonaparte exploded. “Is that not where you go every day—when you tell me that you go to the riding school to watch your son?”

  It was a violent exchange. (I’m trembling still.) “Go ahead, divorce me, if that’s what you want!” I ended up screaming. All the while Joseph Bonaparte smiled.

  March 17, late morning, exhausted.

  A sleepless night. Joseph knew everything—the details about the contracts, the finances! How did he find out? Somebody must be informing him. I suspect it might be Jubié, the banker Hugo Bodin has been dealing with. I’ve dispatched a letter to Captain Charles to warn him, warn Hugo Bodin.

  I feel trapped, enraged. What right has Joseph to interfere in my dealings? What right has he to spy on me? For that matter, what right has Bonaparte to treat me with such contempt! They self-righteously accuse me of crimes of which they themselves are guilty. I’m not married to Bonaparte, I’m married to a Corsican clan—and I despise them.

  11:30 P.M. (can’t sleep).

  Bonaparte sat down on his bed. I was on my own, stretched out stiffly in my dressing gown. “You know I am right in this matter,” he said coldly, as if from on high.

  I did not answer.

  “Answer me!” His hands fists.

  “You are always right, Bonaparte,” I said, turning my betrothal ring on my finger. I could have it melted down, I was thinking, made into earrings.

  “Admit it—you’ve been dabbling in military supplies.”

  Dabbling. The word irked me. Did men “dabble”? The fact was, I’d “dabbled” long before we were married, long before we’d met. And I happened to be good at it. The profits paid my rent, enabled me to send my children to school—enabled me to survive. “Yes, Bonaparte, I dabble. As do your brothers, as does your Uncle Fesch.” As he himself had in Italy. As did virtually all the officers in the army. As did all the bon ton of Paris, for that matter.