“They were!”
“They came out to the school in the middle of the night?” “Yes, and pounded on the door with the pommels of their swords!” Hortense said.
“No—with their muskets.”
“Madame Campan must have been terrified.” Those of us who had survived the Terror knew only too well the horror of that sound—the pounding on a door in the dead of night.
“We all were,” Caroline exclaimed. “It was so romantic!”
The children are thrilled that we will be moving into the Luxembourg Palace.
“I wonder if it’s haunted,” Hortense said.
“Of course it’s haunted,” Bonaparte told her.
We crowded into our little carriage: Bonaparte and I, Caroline, Hortense, Eugène and Fauvelet. “Will we get a bigger carriage?” I asked. Ours was too small for us and inclined to break down—something that worried me on the isolated road to Malmaison. There were rumoured to be bandits in the quarry.
Bonaparte scowled. “The coaches at the palace seem to have disappeared. And the horses.” He glanced at Fauvelet. “Make a note to check the crown jewels.”
“But we’ll have our very own riding arena,” Eugène said.
“Is there a piano?” Hortense asked.
“I’m afraid all we have acquired are debts,” Bonaparte said, drumming his fingers. And a broken country to mend. And a hungry people to feed.
The Gohiers’ suite was very much unchanged. Their bed linens were rumpled, a mug of cold chocolate sat on the windowsill. I felt like an interloper, a thief.
“It will do,” Bonaparte said, looking around. “We’ll live in this suite, I’ll work in the one below.”
The salon was darker than I remembered, sombre and pretentious. Every few years a new director had moved in. The result was a nightmare hodgepodge of styles, all of them pompous. I did not want to live here, but I’d entered a realm in which personal choice was no longer relevant. “Could we redecorate?”
“We won’t be here long,” Bonaparte said.
“No?” I asked, hopeful. Hortense, Caroline and Eugène were racing up and down the marble staircase, yelling to make echoes. I wondered if my children remembered coming to see their father here, during the Terror, when the palace had been used as a prison.
Bonaparte circled the room, his hands clasped behind his back. “As soon as a new constitution is ratified, we’ll move into the Tuileries.”
The Tuileries? My heart sank. The Palace of Kings. The palace of beggars was more accurate. That dank, depressing structure had stood empty for almost a decade, home to vagrants and rats, no doubt—home to restless spirits.
“What about Barras’s suite?” I asked. “Have you looked at it?”
“Haven’t had a chance.”
“Maybe I will,” I said, suddenly anxious.
4:00 P.M.
Bruno leapt to open the door to Barras’s former suite for me. “You’re still here?” I said, shocked to see him.
“Madame, I was born here,” he said with dignity.
I understood. He’d served first the King, then the Revolutionaries, then Director Barras, and now Bonaparte. It didn’t really matter whom. It was the building he was loyal to, the palace itself. “I’m glad to see you, Bruno. I’m going to need your help.”
He opened the wood shutters to let some light in and busied himself building a fire. I sat down in the chair by the window. A red velvet throw had been draped over one side of it, giving off a strong scent of spirit of ambergris. I’d never seen this room so bright, I realized. Barras liked it dark. The afternoon sun sparkled in the tiny crystal beads of the huge candelabra. I bent down to smooth a corner of the carpet. The parrot cage was still there, I noticed, the wire door open. There was a china cup half-filled with cold coffee on the table, beside a stack of journals. A violin case was open on the floor, Barras’s violin laid on the upholstered bench. The music stand had been knocked over. I stood, righted it, put the music sheet back on the stand. Everything seemed familiar, yet strange. I thought I knew Barras so well, but now I wasn’t sure. Was he a Royalist? Was he a murderer? I could not say for sure that he wasn’t. All the rules had been broken. Now, anything seemed possible.
My reflection in the gilded bronze mirror startled me. I saw an elegant woman in a classical gown of fine muslin, her short curls veiled. She pulls her red cashmere shawl around her, for warmth. This was the home of her friend, but he no longer lives here. Her own home sits empty and she lives in the rooms of a stranger.
The fire roared, catching. “There,” Bruno said, pleased, jumping back to admire the blaze.
“Is Barras’s study open?” I asked.
“The office or the cabinet? I have the keys to all the rooms, Madame.”
“The cabinet.” Where Barras worked each morning, where he attended to his private correspondence.
I followed Bruno through two rooms to a small door off Barras’s bedchamber. It resembled the door of a confessional. Bruno knocked before inserting the key. “Habit,” he explained with a sheepish grin. He opened the door, lit a lantern and bounded back into position against the wainscotting, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Entering Barras’s cabinet was like entering a cave: dark and remote from the world. I inhaled the scent of old wood. The furnishings were of plain design—which surprised me, for Barras loved opulence. I took in the shelves of books, the hourglass, the compass next to the marble quill holder on the desk, the globe, the oil portrait of a woman—his mother, I suspected, from the set of her eyes. I straightened it. The safe door hung open, the contents emptied. I ran my finger over the desktop. I wanted to look through the drawers, but I felt uneasy with Bruno watching. “Thank you, Bruno,” I said, emerging. “No, don’t lock it,” I added. I would come back.
After midnight.
I don’t know what I was looking for. I don’t know what I expected to find. I knew Barras would be clever enough to empty the drawers and files of anything incriminating. And I was right, so I knew that the three letters I found had been left there intentionally—for Bonaparte’s eyes. I recognized Lazare’s loopy script right away. The letters were addressed to me. Three letters of love.
Now it is the dead of night. Bonaparte is fast asleep. I’ve read the letters, burned them. (Oh, my heart!) Lazare had written them to me at the end of 1795, when Bonaparte had been courting me—and Barras had been urging me to consider marrying him. I loved Lazare against all reason, and so was blind to Bonaparte. But then Lazare had stopped writing—or so I had thought. Assuming that I’d been forgotten, I gave in to Bonaparte’s attentions.
And now, with a feeling of helpless anger and dismay, I understand. Barras had intentionally withheld Lazare’s letters from me in the hope that I would marry Bonaparte. Bien. I can live with that, for I have come to believe that fate, however convoluted, however indirect, had intended for me to meet and marry Bonaparte.
But what I find truly shattering is the realization of why he’d held onto them. There is only one explanation: as long as Barras had those letters, he had the power to ruin me.
November 21.
Our first evening entertaining at “home”: a long sober game of whist with the Consuls: Bonaparte, Sieyès (dry, taciturn, wrinkled beyond his years) and Ducos (nervously watching Sieyès and Bonaparte, imitating each by turn). After the game, the men took out their snuffboxes and discussed constitutional law. Yawning behind my fan I excused myself and went to the window, “for air.”
It was a beautiful night, clear but cold. It smelled as if it might snow.
“A constitution should be short and obscure,” I heard Bonaparte say.
“Yes, short,” Ducos echoed, clearing his throat.
I heard a duck call outside. On the street side of the metal gates stood a man and three women—Fortunée Hamelin, Minerva and Madame de Crény! The man did a handspring: Captain Charles! I waved, threw them a kiss. Come out, come out, they gestured. I shook my head: I can’t, sorry. (Oh, so sorry!) The
y began to sing an aria from Don Giovanni.
“The rabble are noisy tonight,” Sieyès observed.
I closed the window, the drapes.
November 22.
“I’m sorry, Madame Bonaparte, Madame Tallien is not receiving.”
“Still? Please, I must see her.”
Thérèse’s butler closed the door.
[Undated]
Every morning Bonaparte begins work at eight, whistling tunelessly. He reappears every few hours, kisses me, exchanges pleasantries, an amusing story, has a quick collation, a coffee or a sip of watered wine (usually a coffee), advises me on my toilette and disappears again, singing.
He is full of optimism. “My government will be a government of spirit and of youth.” He says this in the face of the hordes of beggars on the streets, the robber bands everywhere, the nations staggering debt. No detail is overlooked. This morning he ordered bulls imported from Switzerland to give strength to French herds, trees to be planted along all our roads. The Ministers are exhausted trying to keep up with him, for he requires daily reports.
And nightly, when a normal man would be entirely depleted by the events of the day, he attacks with the same zeal “our project.” I’m not married to a man, I’m married to a whirlwind!
November 29.
“I’m sorry, Madame Bonaparte, Madame Tallien is not receiving.”
Not receiving me.
[Undated]
Bonaparte is going mad working out a new constitution with Sieyès, who is both slow and illogical. For a price (a high one) Sieyès has at last agreed to step aside. Now, I pray, things will begin to move.
December 24, Christmas Eve.
There is great celebrating in the streets. The new constitution has been announced. “The Revolution is over!” people cry out, tears streaming.
Over? I want to believe this. I want to believe these words.
December 25, Christmas Day.
A lovely family gathering here this morning: Aunt Désirée, Hortense and Eugène. (It was too chilly for the Marquis to travel.) The children and I enjoyed taking Aunt Désirée on a tour. Aunt Désirée admired the black “Eagle” cooking range with a coal grate in the kitchen, and the elaborate network of bells and cords for summoning servants. The children insisted on showing her the secret passages. (I kept thinking I could hear Barras laughing.) Aunt Désirée left me with careful instructions on the use of Goddard’s powder to polish silver and the proper way to clean walls lined with brocade (brush down and then rub with tissue followed by a soft silk duster).
Now, a quiet moment before preparing for the Bonapartes tonight. Bonaparte is busy drafting a letter to the King of England, proposing peace. Peace! A spirit of optimism has come over us all.
December 31.
Today is the last day of the eighteenth century. It seems that everyone in Paris (except me) is festive, gay, drunk—openly celebrating, for mercifully Bonaparte has allowed the Christian holidays to be observed. Wisely, rather, for it would have been impossible to ignore this significant turning.
January 1, 1800!
This is the first day of a new century. Just imagine! Everything I do, every move I make, has a careful yet excited feeling of beginning anew. This morning Bonaparte and I lingered long in our big feather bed, laughing and whispering, teasing and coquetting, working on “our project” (as he so solemnly puts it). I had a hint of the flowers two weeks ago. I am filled with hope.
Later.
One hundred and fifty-seven hackney cabs lined up outside the Palais Egalité to buy sugared almonds and marrons glacés. “Just like in the days of the Ancien Regime,” Eugène said, chewing a sugared almond, his chin dusted with powdered sugar. “I guess it wasn’t all bad,” he added, licking his lips.
[Undated]
I have been reading to Bonaparte every evening before he drops off to sleep.* This is a quiet time for us, a precious moment. He makes love to me, and then we talk, of our astonishing life, the challenges we each face, the exciting possibilities that lie ahead. And then I read to him, usually from his beloved Ossian. This evening the worn leather volume was not in its usual spot beside the bed. “I’ve burned it,” he said, more in sorrow than in anger.
“Why?” I was shocked. Bonaparte took that book with him everywhere.
“It was a fake,” he said. “I found out they’re looking into it in Scotland.”
“They weren’t the words of Ossian?” I found that impossible to believe.
“No, someone made them up, and then claimed that Ossian had written them. Fooled us all.” Embittered. “It just shows, doesn’t it, that nothing can be trusted.”
“But Bonaparte, the beauty in the words—nothing can take that away. Certain things one can trust absolutely.” I put my hand against his cheek.
January 2.
It’s official now. “We’re moving to the Tuileries,” Bonaparte has informed me.
The palace of the Bourbon kings.
The palace of our dead King.
And Queen.
January 3.
Mimi stood on the dirty cobblestones, looking up at the façade of the Tuileries Palace. Obscene messages, revolutionary emblems and slogans had been painted all over the walls. There were dark stains on the cobblestones—bloodstains, I feared. “What a mess,” Mimi said, frowning.
The doors were stuck; it had been a long time since they’d been opened. Two men together (the architect and a journalist) were unable to loosen the seal. Then Bonaparte threw himself against it and the doors fell open. We laughed to see him fly.
“How easy for you to enter this Palace of Kings, Consul,” the journalist said. “One would think you were expected.”
“Palace of the Government, we’re calling it now,” Bonaparte corrected him.
“Yes, Consul!” He took out a paper, lead pencil.
I peered into the vast depths. The windows were high, dirty, some boarded over. It was cold, too, colder than outside. And musty. It smelled of old air.
“The hard part will not be moving in,” Bonaparte said, brushing off his shoulders. “The hard part will be staying. Antoine, get the torches,” he ordered our coachman. “I’ve a country to run.”
“And the shawls!” I called after him.
“I’ll get them,” Mimi said, sprinting down the steps two at a time.
We were like a medieval procession in that place, some ancient doomsday rite. Antoine, torch held high, bravely took the lead, hitting a stick against the walls to scare off rats.
“Oh,” Mimi said, clasping my hand.
“This must have been the King’s suite,” Bonaparte said, studying a plan. He looked up, around, paced off the room. “This will be my office. I’ll receive in that room there.” The room with the throne.
We descended to a lower level, darker, mustier and colder: the Queen’s rooms.
“This place is gloomy, Consul General,” the journalist said, his deep voice echoing in the empty rooms.
“Gloomy like all grandeur,” Bonaparte said.
“The Committee of General Security met in this room,” the architect said, examining the fireplace façade. “I recognize the detail on the chimney face. The Queen could not bear monotony—everything had to be ornate.”
“Yes,” the journalist said, his voice a whisper. We were in that forbidden realm: the realm of the past.
“Then that room over there, the reception area, must have been where Robespierre—” I put my hand to my eyes and pressed until I saw stars, but the image remained: of the tyrant, wounded, stretched out on top of a table with Blount, his faithful Great Dane, whimpering, licking his hand. Had Robespierre not died that day, I would not be …
It was then that I saw her, the figure of a woman in white, standing by the wardrobe.
They laid me out on the cold floor, my shawl under my head. Mimi fanned me, stirring up dust. I coughed, struggled to sit up. All of them were standing over me with worried expressions. “I’m fine,” I assured them.
&
nbsp; “She’ll be fine,” Bonaparte said, tugging at my hand.
“I’ll get her, General,” Mimi said, her hand supporting my head.
I leaned on Mimi for support. She was steady, not trembling. “Oh Mimi, wasn’t she a fright!” I whispered. The men were examining the windows. I put my hand to my chest. A shakiness had come over me, and a chill; it seemed to come from within me, from inside my very bones.
Mimi frowned. “Who?”
“That woman by the wardrobe.” Breathing in, out, in, out.
She had been mannish, her jaw firmly set, her hair cropped short, ill-covered by a ruffled cap. She’d been wearing a white gown with long sleeves, plain. “You must have seen her. She was standing by the wardrobe door. How could you not have seen her?” She was so clear.
“Oh-oh,” Mimi said, screwing up her face.
Then I remembered where I’d seen that face, the jaw clenched against adversity. At Citoyen David’s studio—his rough pen portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette, on her way to the scaffold.
January 7.
Too busy to write: working day and night getting the Tuileries Palace in condition to live in. It is ten o’clock in the morning and already I have selected fabric for all the drapes, met with my frantic cook about what the Tuileries kitchen will need (everything had been stolen: there’s not even a stockpot) and met with Madame Campan about protocol and staff. (Madame Campan’s experience as lady-in-waiting to the Queen makes her invaluable to me now. It’s so overwhelming: my cook alone will require three assistant chefs in the kitchen. No wonder he’s having fits.)
Tomorrow I’ll attend to my wardrobe.
I’m hearing Barras’s chuckle from somewhere in this palace. We are all of us going mad.
January 17.
Bonaparte came into my drawing room at noon. He sat down, staring into the fire. “Murat just asked for Caroline’s hand.”
“Oh?” Relieved, I confess. A week before I’d discovered Murat and Caroline sprawled on a sofa.
“Murat’s the thirteenth child of an innkeeper; I don’t want to mingle my blood with his. I was thinking more of General Moreau.”