Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe (15 page)

May 22
—
Mombello.
^**

It’s a lovely spring evening. Fireflies dance outside the open windows. I am writing this by moonlight. How late is it? I’m not sure. Thérèse’s letter disturbed me terribly. I am filled with sorrow, grief. How many lives have been sacrificed for this Revolution of ours, our precious
liberté?
I think of Aimée, all my loved ones who have died. I think of Alexandre.
La liberté ou la mort.
Will their sacrifice be for naught? Will the Royalists be victorious, put a king back on the throne, abolish all that so many have died for?

I kept Lazare’s Saint Michael medal close to my heart today—Saint Michael with his sword, Saint Michael fighting tirelessly against the forces of evil. I think of Bonaparte facing the enemy, over and over again. I think, with admiration and pride, of his astonishing victories. But to what end, I can’t help but wonder, is he chasing the Royalists out of Italy, establishing a democracy here? What would it matter if Paris were to fall to the enemy?

May 30.

It took a moment for Lieutenant Lavalette to catch his breath. He is not a young man. He took off his hat and straightened his wig, which failed to cover his bald spot. “I arrived in Genoa in the early afternoon, General,” he began, standing at attention. “After refreshing myself at my inn, I made straight away for the Assembly and as—”

“Get to the point.” Bonaparte drummed his fingers.

“I was informed that your mother was on a vessel in the harbour, General.”

“And where is she now?”

“In Genoa, General, I—”

“You left her there? Lieutenant, Genoa is on the verge of an uprising!”

“She insisted,” Lavalette stammered. “She said, ‘My son is here, I have nothing to fear.’“ (Bonaparte smiled.) “I ordered a detachment of cavalry to escort her, General. They will be arriving tomorrow.”

“They?”

“Your mother and a man—she didn’t give his name. And a boy—her son, I think she said. Your brother, General?” “Girolamo?” “And two daughters.”

“Mon Dieu, Bonaparte,” I said, standing abruptly. “That’s almost your entire family!”

June 1.

We set out to meet them on the road, Bonaparte and I and the two “youngsters”—Pauline and Louis. South of Milan, a carriage came into view escorted by soldiers on horseback. Bonaparte let down the glass. “It’s them.”

“Put up the glass,” Pauline protested.

“Don’t screech.” Louis covered his ears. He is two years older than Pauline and the two constantly bicker.

“Oh, I feel a fright,” I said to Bonaparte. I was fatigued from the heat and parched with thirst.

Bonaparte ran his fingers through his hair. “Maria-Anna has changed
her name to Elisa and Maria-Anunziata is now Caroline. But Girolamo’s only thirteen. I can still call him Fifi.”

“How should I address your mother?” I felt a sick headache coming on. Why had I not thought to take laudanum?

“As Signora Letizia.” Bonaparte clasped and unclasped his hands, then wiped his palms on his thighs. “She gave birth to thirteen children; eight survived.”

“Remarkable.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“She is famous for her tiny hands and feet,” Pauline said.

“She’s from Corsica’s Sartène district, well known for bandits and blood vendettas.” Bonaparte adjusted his sash. “As a child, I thought my mother was a warrior.”

One of our horses whinnied. Bonaparte pounded on the ceiling. I fell forward as the carriage came to a sudden halt. Bonaparte pushed the door open and jumped to the ground.

“Aspetta un momento,” Pauline yelled, tying her hat strings. “Napoleone, aspetta!”

The footman let down the step and helped Pauline out of the carriage. I heard shrieks: my Corsican family. I pulled my shawl modestly around my shoulders.

“Madame?” Louis held out a white-gloved hand. “May I offer my protection? The Bonapartes are known to be rowdy.”

“How is it you are so gentle, Louis? Are you sure you are a Bonaparte?” I was relieved to see him smile. No more risky remarks, I told myself.

We approached the noisy group. A boy was tumbling in the dust, laughing. Girolamo, no doubt. Bonaparte punched him on the shoulder and the boy punched him back, feigning to box.

“I wonder who that fat man is,” Louis said.

An older man with a pudding face was standing by the coach, his mouth hanging open as he watched the Liberator of Italy clasp his young brother in a headlock, the boy cursing like a sailor. “You don’t know him?”

A plump girl of about fourteen—Bonaparte’s youngest sister Caroline, I expected—was making excited hops in front of Pauline. Regarding everyone with a look of disapproval was a thin, mannish woman with
heavy features: Elisa. And at the centre of the commotion was Signora Letizia, a tiny woman clothed in a black linen gown set off rather incongruously by yellow fluted neck-ruches. “You are killing yourself, Napoleone.” At least, that is what I thought she said, for her heavy Corsican accent made her difficult to understand.

“Ah, there you are.” Bonaparte released his hold on young Girolamo, who went tumbling. He took my arm and turned to face his mother. “Maman, allow me to present my wife, Josephine.”

I made a respectful curtsy. “At last I meet my honoured mother,” I said, kissing her on both cheeks. She was smaller than I’d expected, but a great deal more frightening.

She frowned, looking me over, and said something to Bonaparte in Italian. Then she turned to her eldest daughter. “Get your husband.”

“Now?” Elisa let out a hiccup.

Bonaparte looked from Elisa to the man standing by the coach. “Elisa got married? But I didn’t give permission!”

“You are not the head of this family,” Signora Letizia informed her son.

“Félix!” Elisa yelled. “Get over here.”

“I’m going to get married too!” Pauline displayed her ring.

Bonaparte’s mother fixed a baleful look on me, as if I were to blame. A whirlwind of dust stung my eyes. I squeezed Bonaparte’s arm. “It’s too hot in the sun.”

“He’s an idiot,” Bonaparte fumed in the privacy of our room. “How can Elisa stand him?”

“I don’t believe she cares for him in the least.” Elisa, it would appear, cared for no one.

“She’s not going to get a sou.”

No dowry? I could just imagine the maelstrom such a pronouncement would provoke. With the Bonapartes, I was beginning to understand, even the smallest slight was cause for battle. “Do you think your mother will allow Pauline to marry General Leclerc if you don’t grant Elisa a dowry?”

Bonaparte scowled.

I covered his hand with my own. “I believe you are right, Bonaparte. I believe your mother is a warrior.”

June 3.

Bonaparte’s Uncle Fesch, his brother Joseph and Joseph’s timid wife Julie have arrived, so now all the Bonapartes are here—all but Bonaparte’s brother Lucciano, that is, who I’m told refused to come to Italy because of me. (Or rather, I should say
Lucien,
for apparently he has changed his name as well.)

“His wife miscarried,” Lisette told me, “and he claims it’s your fault.” Lisette has become an invaluable informant.

“How could I have had anything to do with it?”

“It’s because you prevented Pauline from marrying Deputy Fréron.”

“I wasn’t the one to forbid it! And in any case, what would that have to do with Lucien’s wife’s miscarriage?”

“Lucien Bonaparte and Deputy Fréron are friends.”

“They are?”

“And that’s why General Bonaparte got his brother Lucien assigned to the Army of the North—to get him away from Deputy Fréron. Or rather, you got the General to do it.”

“Bonaparte will do something just because I ask him to?” I smiled at the thought.

“And so Lucien Bonaparte and his wife had to move north and then she miscarried—”

“I was so sorry to hear that.”

“And so the mishap was your fault.”

I frowned, puzzled.

“Because of you, they had to move. When they moved, it happened.” Lisette shrugged. “Bonaparte logic.”

June 4 (Pentecost Sunday).

Our first big family dinner. I am chagrined to discover that the preferred subjects of conversation among the Bonapartes at table are infertility and money.

“Why is there no bambino, Napoleone?” Signora Letizia tapped her knife for emphasis. She had taken the position of honour at the head of the table.

Bonaparte ignored his mother’s pointed stare. He was sitting with his arms crossed, glowering. His brother Joseph, as the eldest, had claimed the chair to the right of their mother and it bothered my husband, I knew. (The Bonapartes take any indication of rank very seriously.)

“As the French Ambassador to Rome, I will be making sixty thousand francs a year,” Joseph told Uncle Fesch. “As General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, Napoleone is paid only forty thousand.” He picked up a fork, examined it with interest and passed it to his wife, who likewise examined it, turning it over to read the inscription.

“Magnifico!”
Elisa’s husband Félix said, wiping the perspiration from his brow.

“Joseph, you can get some very good deals on sculptures in Rome,” Uncle Fesch said, leaning back in his chair.

“Lei e troppo vecchia, Napoleone,” Signora Letizia told Bonaparte.

I coughed on a chunk of chipolata sausage in the rice.
Troppo vecchia:
too old. I am too old, she’d told him—too old to have children.

“O primavera, gioventù dell’anno. O gioventù, primavera della vita!”
^*
Pauline sang off-tune.

“Maybe she’s barren,” Elisa said. (Hiccup.)

“Plombières is an excellent health spa for that problem,” Joseph’s wife hissed across the table at me. “It’s expensive, however.” The daughter of a silk merchant, Julie Bonaparte had a straightforward view of the world: profit, loss, supply, demand. Mark-up. And now and again: quality goods.

“What does barren mean?” Girolamo had pressed the bread into dough and formed a moustache with it.

“I’ll explain when you’re older, Girolamo,” Elisa told him.

“I’m thirteen. And I’m changing my name to Jérôme.”

“Liar. You’re only twelve.” Caroline grabbed a chunk of his dough moustache and threw it across the table.

“Maman had thirteen babies, five died,” Pauline said.

“Magnifico!”
Félix said solemnly. “Salute. To Maman!” “Cin-cin!” (Hiccup.)

“Cin-cin, cin-cin.” Uncle Fesch raised his glass, oblivious to the chunk of bread dough in his wine.

“Salute.” I raised my glass to my new family.

[Undated]

Joseph, Elisa, Lucien (not here), Louis, Pauline, Caroline, Jérôme.
Joseph, Elisa, Lucien, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, Jérôme.
I’m getting it.

June 8.

“Forty thousand francs,” Bonaparte announced to Elisa. “Each.”

Bonaparte and Joseph had just returned from a meeting with a notary in Milan to arrange dowries for Elisa and Pauline.

“I’m getting forty thousand?” For a moment I thought Elisa might even smile.

“Well, actually, for you, thirty-five plus three Corsican properties—Vecchia and the two vineyards.” Bonaparte shrugged. “It amounts to the same thing.”

“Vecchia is damp.” Elisa made a face. “What did Pauline get?” “Forty thousand—in gold.” Pauline stuck out her tongue.

5:15
P.M.

“Napoleone!”

Bonaparte looked up. “Was that my mother?”

“Napoleone!”

It sounded as if Signora Letizia was outside the door to our suite. “She wishes to speak to you, I believe.”

Bonaparte went to the door. “Your footman is asleep,” I heard his mother say. “Is l’anziana inside?”

L’anziana:
the old woman. A surge of anger went through me. This morning, Lisette had heard my mother-in-law refer to me as la puttana, Italian for whore! I’d been doing everything in my power to gain my mother-in-law’s favour, but nothing seemed to please her. Indeed, even my acts of kindness were viewed as an affront. I made her look like a peasant, she’d told Bonaparte. When I won at reversi, I made her look stupid. (I’d intentionally only won one game out of four.) I was too trusting of my servants—I should sleep with the silver at the foot of my bed. I shouldn’t be giving the beggars so much. I laughed too much—I should be silent, like Joseph’s wife Julie. And didn’t I realize I was too old to wear flowers in my hair? In short, she was determined to detest me.

Bonaparte stepped outside. I could hear his mother talking to him in Italian. Then he burst back into our room, his mother close behind.
“Zitto! Basta!”
Bonaparte stomped his feet.

Signora Letizia crossed her hands over her chest. “Then I refuse consent. Pauline will not marry.”

Bonaparte sat down on a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. He hit the arm of the chair with his fist. “You’re telling
me
—the man who waged war on the Pope and won!—you’re telling me to arrange a Catholic ceremony for my sisters?”

“Please, Signora Letizia, do sit down.” I pulled out a chair for her. She stood ramrod stiff. I searched for a possible compromise. “Could a religious service be performed without anyone knowing?” I asked Bonaparte.

Bonaparte snorted. “Banns would have to be read …” He made a circling motion with his hand to mean, and on and on.

Signora Letizia moved toward the door.

“Un momento, Signora Letizia. Per piacere.” I turned to Bonaparte. “A dispensation could be granted from having banns read, surely.” For a price. “And the ceremony could be performed here, in the little chapel.” We could air it out, get rid of the bats. “No one need know. And the civic ceremony could come after.”

Silence.

“The civil ceremony must come first,” Bonaparte said finally. “Would that satisfy you, Signora Letizia?” I asked, as gently as I could. Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Elisa too.”

“Elisa’s already married!” “Not by the Church.”

I touched Bonaparte’s arm. What did it matter, one ceremony or two? “They could be at the same time.” I didn’t dare suggest that our own marriage might also be blessed.