The Josephine B. Trilogy (51 page)

“I have given him my word.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “That’s it?”

I turned to the window, took a breath. “I understand congratulations are in order. You are a father, I am told.”

“I am. A girl.” There was pride in his voice.

I turned to him. “I was never unfaithful to you,” I said.

He took my hand. “You’re trembling. Do I frighten you?”

“Don’t make me cry, Lazare.” I pulled my hand away. His touch was gentle. He had always been so very gentle. “Please go.”

At the door he turned. “It is true that I have fallen in love with another woman,” he said. “My wife.”

“You always did love her.”

He bowed and was gone. Shortly after I heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs cantering up the drive.

I sat for a time by the window, looking out at the grey winter day. Agathe asked if there was anything I wanted.

“Nothing,” I said.

Later.

I was digging in the garden when a message was delivered. It was a note from Citoyen Dunnkirk: “Come see me.”

Was it Mother? Immediately I called for my coach, arriving at Emmery’s office shortly before five.

“I am glad you could come so promptly. There is something I think you should know. Your fiancé has been to see me.” It was cold. He was sniffling, as usual.

“General Buonaparte?”

“Yes. This morning.”

“But
why?
”

“He was inquiring into your financial affairs.”

“I have no secrets! He didn’t need to ask you.”

Citoyen Dunnkirk shrugged.

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth.” He blew his nose on a dirty blue kerchief.

“And…?” I didn’t know who I was angrier with: Buonaparte or Citoyen Dunnkirk.

“He thought you were wealthier than you are.”

I sat for a moment in silence.

“I know it is not my place, Citoyenne, but…are you sure this is the man you should marry?”

“I must go.” I stood, in fear of my emotions.

That evening.

“It’s off!” I yelled the moment Buonaparte entered. I had not intended to explode in this way, but the words escaped before I could control myself.

Buonaparte looked behind him. Was I addressing someone other than himself? “Josephine…?”

“And I will
not
be Josephine! I am
Rose.
” I paced the room.

Buonaparte threw his hat onto a chair. “Perhaps you could tell me what this is all about,” he said, “
Josephine.
”

I struck out at him. He caught my wrist, hard. “I warn you never to strike me,” he said.

Lannoy came running to the door. Gontier was behind her. “Madame?”

“Leave us alone,” Buonaparte commanded. He was not as calm as he pretended.

I nodded to them both. “It’s all right.”

After they left there was a moment of silence. Outside, a horse whinnied.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to explain?” Buonaparte jabbed at the embers with an iron.

I sat down, clasped my hands in my lap. “I have decided to call off our engagement.”

“That much I have gathered. Would it inconvenience you to provide a reason?”

“You have been to see my banker.”

“I have.”

“You could have come to
me.
”

He did not respond.

“You have no affection for me, Buonaparte. In marrying me, you seek only promotion.” I would not look at him. “Nothing you can say can persuade me otherwise. Do not try to defend yourself.”

“And
you
—are you so…?” He stood. “So free of self-interest? Can you claim that it is only for
affection
for me that you have consented to marry?”

“So much the more reason to abandon this ill-fated union.”

He left abruptly. There were tears in his eyes. I do not feel relief.

In which we begin again, & yet again

February 23, 1796.

I was still in bed when Agathe informed me that General Buonaparte had arrived.

“I heard the horse,” I said. Agathe brought me my white muslin gown. I tied a red scarf about my head and put rouge on my cheeks.

I wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. “Stay near,” I told Agathe, slipping a shawl around my shoulders, “in case I need you.” I shivered from the cold.

Buonaparte was waiting in the drawing room. He was standing by the window examining the bust of Voltaire. He turned to face me when I entered. I could see from his eyes that he had not slept.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

“Is it?” He was wearing a dark embroidered coat with a high stand-up collar.

I took a seat to the left of the fire, gesturing for him to take the seat to the right. His boots, which he is in the habit of polishing with some obnoxious substance, threw off a strong odour. I asked Agathe to bring us coffee and toast. “And rum.”

Buonaparte and I sat in uncomfortable silence until Agathe returned. She placed the urn and goblets on a serving table and left. “Coffee?” I asked. He refused. I poured myself coffee from the urn, added rum, cream, two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. My spoon made a scraping noise on the bottom of my cup.

“The time has come for truth,” he said. He stood. I braced myself for
recriminations, justifications. “You have accused me of self-interest in proposing marriage to you. I will answer your charges.” He clasped his hands behind his back and then across his chest, and then back behind his back again. “In the beginning, yes, I was attracted by the advantages marriage to you would offer. I saw that you were a woman of influence, a woman who was at ease with men of power and wealth, a woman who bridged both the old world and the new. These qualities would be an asset to me, I knew. And of course there was the plum of the Army of Italy. The Army of Italy! I would have married the most lowly of the market prostitutes to gain command of the Army of Italy.”

“You need not insult me, Buonaparte.”

“
Insult
you!” He fell to his knees before me. “I intend to honour you as no other woman has been honoured!”

“Rise!” I said, alarmed and embarrassed.

“You
must
hear me!” He took the seat beside mine, grabbed my hand. “Don’t you see? I have fallen in
love
with you!”

“Yet you went to see my banker!”

“I will not deny it. It was the act of a coward.” He stood back up again. “I was seeking reasons, cause and effect, premise and proof. I was seeking escape.”

“From
what?
”

“You. From the emotion that has engulfed me.”

I sat back in exasperation. “I dislike riddles,” I said.

“You don’t understand! When I am with you, it is as if a curtain has been opened, and all that has gone before has been merely an overture. Is this not frightening? I have held a dead man in my arms. I have walked to the mouth of a cannon set to fire. I have faced my mother’s fury. Yet
nothing
is as frightening to me as the tenderness that comes over me when I look into your eyes.”

Abruptly I stood, went to the window. Fortuné was by the garden wall, by the rosebushes there, digging at something.

“Will you not marry me?” There was desperation in his voice.

I came back to my seat by the fire. “You know I do not love you,” I said.

“Yes. I know that.”

“You know I am…older than you, that I have loved another.” Love another still. I did not say that.

“I do.”

“Yet even so, you wish to marry me?”

“I wish to worship you.”

“Must you be so drôle, Buonaparte?”

“You think I jest.”

“Surely, you must.” I smiled.

“Forgive me?”

I took his hand. I had never noticed how fine his fingers were, how smooth his skin.

“Join me for a promenade?” he asked.

I stood. We were almost the same height. I felt he was a brother, a companion—“my spirit friend,” Mimi would have said. “I will not give up Chantereine,” I said, opening the doors onto the garden.

“My hôtel on Rue des Capucines is more prestigious,” he said.

“This is my first real home. It is everything to me.”

He looked about. “After I liberate Italy, I will require a larger establishment.”

“And when might that be, General Buonaparte?” Teasing.

He looked at me with an amused expression. “Shortly after we are married, Josephine.”

Wednesday, February 24.

“I announced our betrothal to the Directors,” Buonaparte told me this evening.

“And what was the response?”

“Positive.” He seemed pleased, strutting around. “
Very
positive.” He slapped his hands together.

March 2.

Buonaparte’s footman unloaded a crate of papers into my entryway, Buonaparte coming in after him. “Behold,” he said with a dramatic flourish. “The Commander of the Army of Italy.”

“It’s official now? Were you not expecting it?”

“One can never be entirely sure of such things.” He rummaged through the crate of papers.

“And now?”

Buonaparte flipped through the pages of a report.

“And now?” I touched his arm.

He looked at me with a distracted expression.

“And now?”

“And
now
the work begins.”

March 8.

Buonaparte called for me at noon. I was ready. Together we went to my lawyer’s office on the Rue Saint-Honoré. Buonaparte waited in the entryway while my lawyer went over the marriage contract.

“Are you familiar with this contract?” Raguideau asked when I sat down. His dusty office was cluttered with papers and legal forms. The windows looking out onto the Rue Saint-Honoré were covered with grime.

“I am.”

“Nevertheless, I am required by law to go over it with you.” He is a small man, yet he has an exceptionally deep voice. “Your finances will be kept separate. You will each contribute equally to the costs of maintaining a household. Even the cost of getting married will be shared between you.” He spelled out the terms: “Your husband assumes no responsibility for your debts. Other than paying you a nominal sum of fifteen hundred livres a year, you will receive nothing from this union.”

He put the papers down on the desk, took off his thick spectacles. “Citoyenne Beauharnais, I must be frank. This man brings you nothing but a cloak and sword. I’m afraid I cannot, in good conscience, advise you to sign this contract.”

I felt heat in my cheeks, in spite of the chill. “I have come to sign this contract, Citoyen Raguideau, not to question it.”

“Please understand, it would be a
disaster
for you to marry this man.”

“So be it.” I took up the quill.

Buonaparte was waiting in the hall. He seemed amused. “Only a cloak and sword?”

“You overheard? Are you not offended?” I was angry. Was nothing predictable with him?

“We shall see what a cloak and sword can do!”

Later.

The parish bells had just struck four. I was standing by the window, looking out at the garden, when I was startled by a noise. Behind me was Lannoy with a worn leather valise in one hand.

“Are you going somewhere, Lannoy?” I asked. I did not recall that a leave had been arranged.

A vigorous tip of her head almost dislodged her hat, a modest straw creation overpowered by a white-and-blue-striped bow. “I cannot serve that Jacobin!”

“You are leaving me?
Now?
”

“Farewell!” she wailed, throwing herself into my arms.

March 9.

Barras and Tallien arrived shortly after seven. Tallien had on his black coat and top hat. He was carrying an umbrella instead of a sword. “His funeral ensemble,” Barras said, who was dressed more traditionally in velvet and lace.

I smiled uneasily.

The three of us headed off in Barras’s coach. Agathe and Gontier had attached little bouquets of flowers tied with white ribbons to the horses’ bridles.

It was exactly eight when we entered the township office, a once-elegant white and gold drawing room decorated with frolicking cupids, now headquarters of the second arrondissement and covered with dust. A fire was dying in the marble fireplace. It was dark: a single candle flickered in a bronze sconce. The large gilt mirrors reflected only shadows.

My adviser Jérôme Calmelet was already there, seated in one of the
hard leather chairs. The registrar, Citoyen Leclerq, was going through papers at the desk. A thin lad with a wooden leg sat slumped beside him.

But no sign of Buonaparte. “No doubt he’s been held up,” Barras said, removing his cape.

We waited. After almost an hour, the registrar stood, yawned, put on his cloak. “I leave you in charge, Antoine,” he told the young lad. Citoyen Antoine manoeuvred his wooden leg under the big desk and regarded us with an attempt at authority.

“No doubt he thought he was to be here at nine.” Tallien shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

“It is past nine now.” My little bouquet of flowers had begun to wilt. “I insist that we leave.” I stood. I was angry. I was more than angry; I was humiliated.

“Wait,” Barras commanded.

It was past ten when we heard footsteps on the stairs. “He’s here,” Barras said.

Buonaparte burst into the room followed by a youth in uniform. He went directly up to young Antoine and shook him. “Wake up!”

The lad sat up, blinked.

Buonaparte grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet. “Marry us,” he commanded the lad, pushing a gold band onto my ring finger.

It was over in a few minutes.

We rode back to Chantereine in silence, Buonaparte and I.

“I have decided to change my name. Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s more French. Do you like it?”

I said nothing.

“Is something wrong?”

“If Barras hadn’t insisted, I would have left. I don’t know why I stayed!”

“So, divorce me in the morning.”

“Perhaps I will!”

We didn’t exchange another word all the way to Chantereine. I headed immediately up the stairs. I threw the flowers off my bed, embarrassed by the fuss Agathe and Gontier had made. Fortuné growled when Buonaparte entered the room.