Désirée (73 page)

So Joseph Bonaparte, too, had made a profit on the white cockades! Knowingly or unknowingly, it doesn't matter now—

"Here," said Legrand, and gave me a bundle of banknotes. "This is all we have at the moment."

"It's something," I said, stuffing the money into my bag. And, decisively, "M. Legrand, we must collect the outstanding accounts immediately. Everyone says that the franc will continue to fall. My carriage is outside. Take it, drive from customer to customer, and collect. If anyone refuses to pay, make him return the goods. Will you do it?"

"But I can't leave. The apprentice—we have only one apprentice, the others were called up—I've sent the apprentice to see an old customer who needs new clothes badly. The wife of Marshal Marmont, Your Highness. And I'm expecting the buyer from Le Roy's any moment. They're working day and night at Le Roy's, and the ladies of the new court . . ."

"While you settle the accounts, I'll attend to the customers here." With that I took off my hat and coat.

Legrand stammered, "But—Highness . . ."

"Why are you surprised? As a girl I often helped in the shop in Marseilles. Don't worry, I know how to handle silk. Hurry, monsieur!"

Doubtfully, Legrand made for the door. "Monsieur, a moment." He turned. "Please take off the white cockade when you call on behalf of the firm of Clary."

"Highness, most people are wearing . . ."

"Yes, but not former apprentices of my papa. Au revoir, monsieur."

When I was alone, I sat at the desk and put my head down on my arms. I was very tired. So many nights without enough sleep. My eyes smarted from the silly tears I'd shed. Memories of Marseilles were to blame for that. A naughty child—I was a naughty and a carefree child. My papa had taken my hand and explained to me the Rights of Man. That was long ago. And will never be again.

The bell over the shop door tinkled. I leapt up. A light-blue frock coat with fancy embroidery and a white cockade. The buyer from Le Roy's. I'd always dealt with the manageress, I didn't know the buyer. "You're the buyer from Le Roy's aren't you? I'm spelling M. Legrand. What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to speak to M. Legrand personally. . . ."

I said I was sorry. I pulled down a heavy roll of velvet from a shelf with a note on it:
Ordered by Mme Mère. Returned.
I unrolled a bit to see the right side of the material. Dark green, the Corsican colour. With embroidered gold bees.

"Here," I said. "Dark-green velvet with the Bourbon fleurs-de-lis." I struggled to turn around the heavy roll quickly, so that the bees were upside down. The buyer didn't help me. Just lifted his lorgnon and examined the velvet.

"The lilies look like bees," he objected.

"I can't help that," I snapped.

"The fleurs-de-lis remind me of Napoleonic bees," he insisted. I shrugged. "Besides," he said, "dark green is very unfashionable. People saw too much of it during the Empire. And velvet. Velvet in the spring! Have you any pale lilac muslin?"

I looked along the shelves. Muslin—rose-coloured muslin, yellow muslin, violet muslin— Sure enough, on the top shelf. There must be a ladder somewhere, perhaps . . . Yes, there was the ladder. I leaned it against the shelves, crept shakily up and fished out the violet muslin. "The Empress Josephine has ordered a pale-lilac gown. Pale lilac is a colour of mourning. The Empress needs the gown to receive the Tsar."

I almost fell off the ladder. "She's going to-receive—the Tsar?"

"Naturally. She's looking forward to his visit, so she can discuss her financial situation with him. The financial affairs of the Bonapartes are already being negotiated. Apparently they're being generous and letting these parvenus have pensions. Have you any pale lilac muslin or not?"

I climbed down the ladder with the roll. Peeled off some of the transparent thin material for him to see.

"Too dark," he declared.

"The colour of lilac blooms," I contradicted, "and exactly right at the moment."

He looked at me disdainfully. "Why do you say that?"

"It's becoming, and slightly melancholy. Just right for Josephine. By the way—we're selling now strictly for cash."

"That's out of the question. Our customers don't pay us ' promptly. Naturally, as soon as the situation is clarified, mademoiselle . . ."

"The situation is clarified. The franc is falling. We sell only for cash." I took the roll from the desk and carried it back to the shelves.

"Where is M. Legrand? " Le Roy's buyer grumbled.

"I told you he isn't here."

His eyes roved hungrily over the half-empty shelves. "You've hardly anything left," he remarked.

I nodded. "Yes, we're pretty well sold out. And for cash."

He stared, as though in a trance, at a few rolls of satin. "Marshal Ney's wife," he murmured.

"Light-blue satin?" I suggested. "Mme Ney is quite ruddy and wears light blue well."

He looked at me curiously. "You're well informed, little one, well versed in the silk trade, mademoiselle—?"

"Désirée," I said amiably. "Well, how shall we dress Mme Ney for her presentation to the Bourbons in the Tuileries?"

"You sound so bitter, Mlle Désirée. You're not a secret Bonapartist?"

"Take a light blue for Mme Ney. You can have the satin at the prewar price." From the roll hung a label in Etienne's spidery handwriting. The price was on it. I named the sum

"I'll give you a receipt," he said.

"You will pay cash or leave the satin here, I have other customers."

He counted out the money on the desk.

"And the lilac muslin?" I asked, while I measured out eight metres of satin, and took the large pair of scissors from the window sill. Then, very daringly, I made a tiny incision in
the material, and tore it across firmly—just as I'd seen Etienne and Papa rip off a length of silk.

"The Empress herself never pays cash," he grumbled. I ignored him. "Seven metres of muslin," he sighed.

"Take nine metres. She'll want a shawl to go with the gown," I advised him, and measured off nine metres. In the
meantime he unhappily counted out the money on the desk for Josephine's melancholy dress.

"And ask Legrand to reserve the green velvet with the gold bees for us until this evening," he hurled at me as he left. That I promised him gladly.

I served three more customers, climbing constantly up and down the ladder. Finally Legrand returned. The shop happened to be empty.

"Have you collected all the accounts, monsieur?"

"Not all, but several. Here—" He handed me a leather pouch full of banknotes.

"Write it all down and I'll sign a receipt," I said.

He began to write. How long would we be able to live on this money? One week, two weeks? He shoved the slip of paper to me for my signature. I thought a minute, and wrote,
Désirée, Crown Princess of Sweden, née Clary.
He poured sand on my signature. "From now on, I'll settle regularly with my brother, Etienne," I said. "And, M. Legrand, stock lilac muslin—the newest thing, you'll soon see. And the green velvet Madame Mère returned is reserved for Le Roy. No, I'm not joking, Le Roy really wants it. Au revoir, M. Legrand."

"Highness . . ."

The little bell over the shop door jingled again. My carriage was waiting. As I got in, the coachman wordlessly handed me a newspaper. I told him to drive to the rue d'Anjou. On the way I read the special edition. The carriage rocked, the letters danced . . .

The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and Italy and that there is no personal sacrifice, even of his life, which he is not prepared to make on behalf of France.

And all that in a single sentence. . . . We'll have roast veal for dinner. I must be careful of my handbag, I had
stuffed all the notes into it. The air smelt of spring. But the people in the streets looked disgruntled. People don't understand why they must still go hungry after a war. The women stood, as always, in snaky lines in front of the bakers' shops, and wore white cockades. Copies of the special edition, announcing the abdication, lay discarded in the gutters.

With a jolt, the carriage stopped. A line of gendarmes barred the entrance to the rue d'Anjou. A gendarme shouted something to the coachman. He got down from the box and opened the carriage door. "We can't drive any farther; the rue d'Anjou is cordoned off. The Tsar is expected."

"But I must go to the rue d'Anjou, I live there." The coachman explained this to the gendarme. "Persons who can prove they live in the rue d'Anjou may enter, but only on foot," I was informed. I alighted and paid the coachman.

Gendarmes were lined up on both sides of the road. There wasn't a soul in the street, my footsteps echoed. Almost at my house I was stopped. A mounted police captain trotted toward me. "You may go no farther."

I looked up at him. His face was familiar. I recognized him as the same man who for years had guarded our house on behalf of the Minister of Police. I never found out whether we were supposed to consider the man as a guard of honour or as a spy. Napoleon had the houses of his marshals watched by the police day and night.

The captain was an older man in a very down-at-the-heels uniform. On his shabby three-cornered hat there was a dark spot where, until two days ago, he'd worn a blue-white-red cockade. He had deliberately left the dark spot uncovered. Beside it was attached his white cockade, which he had to wear by decree of the new government.

"Let me through. You know I live in that house." I indicated it with a lift of my chin. In front of the entrance gendarmes were massing.

"In half an hour, His Majesty the Tsar of Russia will call on Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess of Sweden. I have orders to let no one pass the house," he snarled without looking at me.

So the Tsar was coming to see me, the Tsar. . . . "Then let me through quickly, I must change," I stormed.

But the shabby captain still wouldn't look at me. I stamped my foot. "Look at me, you've known me for years. You know perfectly well that I live in that house!"

"I had mistaken Your Highness for the wife of Marshal Bernadotte," he said, looking at me at last. His eyes gleamed wickedly. "I beg your pardon—a mistake. Your Highness must be ready to receive the Tsar!" Then he shouted, "Clear the way for the Crown Princess of Sweden!"

I ran the gauntlet between the rows of gendarmes. My feet
were like lead. But I ran. . . . At home they'd been waiting
for me frantically, the door flew open as I approached. Marie g
rabbed my arm. "Hurry, hurry—in half an hour the Tsar will
be here."

Pierre was balancing on his crutches in the door of the porter's quarters. I tossed my handbag to him. "Here—we're out of the woods. At least for the moment," I said.

I can't remember how I got to my dressing room. Marie ripped off my clothes and flung a dressing gown around me. Yvette began to brush my hair. I closed my eyes, exhausted.

"Drink this, in one gulp." Marie had a glass of brandy in her hand.

"I can't, Marie. I never drink brandy."

"Drink it!"

I took the glass. My hands shook. I loathed brandy, but I drank it. It burned all the way down.

"What are you wearing?" Marie asked.

"I don't know. I haven't anything new. Perhaps the violet velvet I wore at my farewell audience with the Emperor."

Velvet in spring? Violet—becoming and melancholy. I ru
bbed my face with rose water, rubbed off the dust of the s
hop, dabbed silver paint on my eyelids—Yvette held my m
ake-up box. There—and now rouge on my cheeks. The powde
r puff.

"You still have a quarter of an hour, Eugénie," Marie said, as she knelt down and took off my shoes and stockings.

"I'll receive the Tsar in the little salon, the whole family
is sitting in the large one." A headache hammered at my temples.

"I've already got everything ready in the small salon—champagne and sweetmeats, don't worry." Marie put on my silver sandals.

At that instant, I saw Julie in the mirror. She had on one of her purple gowns, and held one of her small crowns in her hand.

"Shall I wear a crown or not, Désirée?"

I turned and looked at her uncomprehendingly. She was so thin that the purple gown, which was so pitifully unbecoming to her, hung in loose folds. "Why on earth should you wear a crown?"

"I thought—I mean—when you present me to the Tsar will surely call me by my old title. . . ."

I turned away and spoke into the mirror. "Do you really want to be presented to the Tsar, Julie?"

She nodded emphatically. "Of course. I'll ask him to protect my interests and the children's. The Tsar of Russia. . . "

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Julie Clary," I whispered. "Napoleon abdicated just a few hours ago. His family shared in his success; you got two crowns from him. Now you must wait to see what's decided about you. Your interests—" I swallowed hard, my mouth was dry. "Julie, you aren't queen any more. You are Julie Bonaparte, née Clary. No more, but also no less."