Désirée (13 page)

We now have a government called a "directorate," administered by five directors. However, according to Joseph, only one of our directors has real authority and that is Director Barras. Whatever happens in our country, Barras swims to the top. (Like a piece of garbage in the harbour, I think. But perhaps that's not the proper thing to say about the head of a state—one of the five heads of state.) Barras was a count by birth, but this did him no harm because he became a fanatical Jacobin at the right time. Then, with the help of Tallien and a deputy called Fouché, he brought about the fall of Robespierre and saved the Republic from the "tyrants." He moved into an official apartment in the Palais Luxembourg and is now one of our five directors. These directors receive all important persons; and as Barras is unmarried he has asked Mme Tallien to act as his hostess every afternoon and to receive his guests and those of the French Republic (the same people). One of Etienne's business friends told us that champagne flows like water at Mme Tallien's and that her drawing rooms are crowded with war profiteers and with men speculating in houses. These men buy confiscated aristocratic homes at a low price from the State and sell them at a huge profit to the nouveaux riches. There one can also meet very amusing ladies, friends of Mme Tallien. The two most beautiful women, however, are Mme Tallien herself and Josephine de Beauharnais. Mme de Beauharnais is Barras' mistress and she always wears a narrow red ribbon around her neck to show that she is related to "a victim of the guillotine." It is no longer considered a disgrace, but rather a distinction to claim such a relationship. (This Jose
phine is the widow of the General de Beauharnais who was beheaded, and therefore she is a former countess.) Mama asked Etienne's friend whether there were no virtuous women left in Paris. And Etienne's friend said, "Well, yes, there are but they are very expensive." He laughed and Mama quickly asked me to get her a glass of water from the kitchen.

Napoleone called one afternoon on the ladies Tallien and Beauharnais and introduced himself. They both thought it perfectly horrid of the Minister of War to refuse him a new pair of trousers and the supreme command in Italy. They both promised to get him at least a new pair of trousers. But, they said, he must change his name. Napoleone sat down at once and wrote to Joseph, "I have decided to change my name—it will be legal, shortly—and I advise you to do the same. No one in Paris can pronounce Buonaparte. From now on I call myself Bonaparte—and Napoleon instead of Napoleone. Please address my letters accordingly and inform the whole family of my decision. We are French citizens and I want my name to be French when it is written in the book of history."

Therefore: no longer Buonaparte, but Bonaparte. His trousers are in shreds, his father's watch pawned, but he still and always thinks of making world history. Joseph, this copycat, naturally calls himself Bonaparte, too. And so does Lucien, who has found a post in St. Maximin as manager of a military depot, and who has begun to write political articles. Joseph sometimes drives about the country as Etienne's travelling salesman. He makes good contracts for the business and Etienne says that he does quite well out of the commissions. But Joseph dislikes being called a traveller in silks.

During the last few months I've had very few letters from Napoleon. But he writes to Joseph twice a week. Nevertheless I've finally sent him my portrait for which he asked me shortly before he left. It is a hideous portrait. My nose is certainly not turned up as much as that. But I had to pay the painter in advance, so I accepted the portrait and sent it to Paris. Napoleon did not thank me for it. His letters no longer say anything. As usual they still begin
"mia Carissima,"
and
end by saying that he presses me to his heart. Not a word about when we'll be married. Not a word to show that he knows that in two months I'll be sixteen. Not a word to say that wherever he may be we belong together. But to his brother Joseph he writes pages and pages about the fashionable ladies he meets at Mme Tallien's reception. "I have learned to appreciate the role distinguished women can play in the life of a man," Napoleon assures his brother, enthusiastically, "women with understanding, women of the great world—"

I simply can't describe how sick these letters to Joseph make me.

A week ago Julie decided to accompany Joseph on a long business journey. And as it was the first time that one of her children was to be away from Marseilles for any length of time, Mama wept and wept; and to distract her, Etienne arranged for her to spend a month with her brother, our uncle Somis. Mama packed seven travelling bags and I took her to the coach station. Uncle Somis lives four hours' drive from Marseilles. After the visit, Mama discovered that "her health was impaired" and she gave Etienne no peace until he agreed to take her to a watering place. That is why was unexpectedly alone in the house with Marie.

My decision was made one afternoon when I was sitting in the summer house with Marie. The roses had faded long ago, the twigs and leaves were sharply silhouetted against the glassy blue of the sky. It was one of those early autumn days on which one is deeply conscious that something is about to die. And perhaps that was why not only the outlines of objects but my thoughts, too, seemed particularly sharp and clear. And suddenly I dropped the towel on which I was embroidering a
B.

"I must go to Paris," I said. "I know it's a crazy thing to do and the family would never allow it, but—I must go to Paris."

Marie, who was shelling peas, did not look up. "Well, if you must go to Paris," she said, "then go to Paris."

I mechanically watched a dung beetle moving in a green-gold
glimmer across the table. "It would be quite simple," I said. "After all, we two are alone in the house. I could take the coach to Paris tomorrow."

"You have enough money?" Marie said, pressing open a fat pod between her thumbs. The pea exploded with a tiny bang, but the beetle continued its way undisturbed across the table.

"Yes, probably enough for the journey there. If I don't stay at an inn more than two nights, I can spend the other two nights in the taproom at the coach station. Perhaps there'll be a bench or a sofa in the waiting rooms."

"I thought you'd saved more money than that," Marie said, looking up at me for the first time. "Under your nightgowns —in the chest of drawers."

I shook my head. "No, I—I lent someone quite a lot of money."

"And where will you spend the night in Paris?"

The beetle had reached the edge of the table. I picked it up carefully, turned it around, and watched it begin to walk back across the table.

"In Paris?" I considered. "I haven't really thought about that. Well, that depends, doesn't it?"

"You both promised your mama to postpone your wedding until you were sixteen. And yet you want to go to Paris now?"

"Marie, if I don't go now it may be too late. Then there may not be any wedding." I spoke without thinking. For the first time I put into words what so far I had dared only to think.

Marie's pea pods went on popping. "What is her name?" she inquired.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it's Mme Tallien; but it may be the other one, Barras' mistress. Her name is Josephine, she was once a countess. But I don't know anything definite—and, Marie, you mustn't think horrid things about him. After all, he hasn't seen me for a long time. And when he sees me again . . ."

Yes," Marie said, "you are right. You must go to Paris. My Pierre was called up for military service when he left me—
and he never came back to me; though our little Pierre was born in the meantime, and I wrote to him that the child was with a foster mother, and that I'd been obliged to take service as a wet nurse with the Clarys because I had no money. My Pierre never even answered this letter. I should have tried somehow to go to see him."

I knew Marie's story. She has told it to me so often that I practically grew up with her unhappy love affair. The story about faithless Pierre is as familiar to me as an old song.

"You couldn't go to him, it was too far away," I said. The beetle had again reached the edge of the table. It was crawling about in despair, thinking that it had reached the end of the world.

"You will go to Paris," Marie said. "You can spend the first few nights at my sister's. After that you can decide what to do next."

"Yes, then I shall see," I said and got up. "I'm going in to town to find out what time the coach leaves tomorrow."

I took the beetle off the table and put it down on the grass.

In the evening I packed a travelling bag. As the whole family was away, I found only an old and very shabby bag. I stuffed in the blue silk dress I'd got for Julie's wedding. My most beautiful dress. I'll wear it, I thought, when I go to Mme Tallien's house to see him again.

Next morning Marie took me to the coach station. I walked through the familiar streets as in a dream, a very very lovely dream in which one is sure that one is doing the only right thing. At the last moment Marie handed me a large gold medallion. "I haven't any money. I send all of my wages to little Pierre," she murmured, "so take the medallion. It's real gold and your mama gave it to me the day I stopped feeding you. You can easily sell it, Eugénie."

"Sell it?" I asked astonished. "But why?"

"So that you'll have some money for the return journey," Marie said and turned away abruptly. She did not want to see the coach drive off.

For one day, two, three, four days I was shaken about in the coach along a dusty interminable road. Every three hours
the coach gave a lurch—and I fell either against the bony shoulders of the lady in mourning at my right, or against the fat stomach of the man at my left. Then the horses were changed and we jolted on once more. And I was continuously imagining what it would be like to go to Mme Tallien's house and ask for General Bonaparte. I imagined myself standing in front of him and saying, "Napoleone—" no, of course I must call him Napoleon—"Napoleon, I've come to you because I know you have no money to pay for the journey to come to me. And we belong together!"

Will he be happy when he sees me? There are strange shadows in Marie's sister's kitchen and I can't recognize them because I've never seen the place by daylight. Of course, he'll be happy to see me. He'll take my arm and introduce me right away to his grand new friends. And then we'll leave them, to be by ourselves. We'll take a walk because we have no money to spend in a coffee house. Perhaps he has some friends with whom I can stay until we've written to Mama and get her consent to my marriage. And then we'll be married and . . .

I hear them coming home. M. and Mme Clapain. I hope they have a halfway comfortable sofa on which I can stretch out, and tomorrow—dear Lord, how happy I am about tomorrow!

Paris, twenty-four hours—no, an eternity—later

It is night and I am again sitting in Mme Clapain's kitchen. Perhaps I've not really come back nor ever been away. Perhaps today was only a bad dream—perhaps I'll wake up. But didn't the waters of the Seine close over me? The water was so near; the lights of Paris danced on the ripples-danced and called out to me; and I leaned over the cold stone parapet of the bridge. Perhaps I really did die and was car
ried away by the current across Paris, floating, spinning, feeling nothing any more. I would much rather be dead.

Instead I am seated at a wobbly kitchen table and my thoughts go around in circles. I can hear every word that was said, and the rain beats against the windows. It has rained all day long. I got very wet on my way to Mme Talllien's. I wore the lovely blue silk dress. But walking through the Tuileries Gardens and along the rue Honoré I discovered that for Paris my dress is very unfashionable. Here the ladies wear dresses that look like chemises; they are very close fitting, not tied at the waist, but bound with a silk ribbon under the breast. They don't wear fichus; instead, though It's autumn, they wear transparent shawls around their shoulders. My tight elbow-sleeves, bordered with lace, are quite impossible. No one wears sleeves any more, only shoulder straps. I was embarrassed because I looked like a country bumpkin.

It was not difficult to find "La Chaumière" in the allée Veuves. Mme Clapain had told me exactly how to get there; and though, despite my impatience, I peeked at the shop windows in the Palais Royal, it took me only half an hour to reach my destination. The outside of the house is not particularly striking; it's not much larger than our villa at home and built in country style, with a thatched roof. But brocade curtains shimmer behind the windows. It was still early in the afternoon but I wanted to prepare for my great surprise and to be waiting in one of the drawing rooms when Napoleon arrived. As he calls on Mme Tallien almost every afternoon, her house is the best place to meet him. And he had written to Joseph that anyone can go to "La Chaumière" because Mme Tallien keeps open house.

A number of people were hanging about the entrance, staring critically at the guests entering the house. I looked neither left nor right but walked straight toward the doorway. I lifted the latch, the door opened, and there was a lackey. He wore a red livery with silver buttons and looked exactly like the lackeys of the aristocracy before the Revolution. I had not known that Republican dignitaries are allowed to employ liveried servants. Deputy Tallien, by the way, was himself f
ormerly a valet. The haughty lackey looked me up and down and asked condescendingly, "What do you want, citizeness?"

I had not expected this question. So I stuttered, "I want to go in."