The Josephine B. Trilogy (64 page)
“You jest and speak of holiness at the same time, Captain. You are a daring man.”
“It is all one, I believe: the holy, the beautiful and the bold—with respect to men, in any case. I cannot speak for women, who, in my observation, regard daring with alarm, and certainly not reverence.”
“We all enjoy daring, Captain, men and women alike. Men are driven to be daring on horseback, for example, or on the fields of war. Women, on the other hand, are dealt few wild cards. The few we get we tend to play somewhat innocently, at the dressmaker’s, or at the hatter’s.”
“Or perhaps at…?” He tilted his head in the direction of the gaming room.
“I enjoy games of chance, Captain Charles, but one wouldn’t call my approach daring by any means. I am by nature cautious.”
“Yet you are said to win.”
“I greatly dislike losing,” I confessed.
“In that case, I have a wild card to suggest for you,” he said. “
Speculation.
It is, after all, the most thrilling of the games of chance, but”—he paused, regarding me seriously—“in the right hands, entails little risk. Just the thing for a woman who is, by nature, cautious.”
A portly man dressed in an old-fashioned long velvet coat was heading in my direction. “Excuse me, Captain, but I believe I am about to be accosted.”
“Do you require my protection, Madame? I could be your
cavaliere servente.
”
“And pray, Captain Charles, what might that be?” I was relieved to see that the man in the long velvet coat had been detained by another.
“The cavaliere servente is one of the few charming customs of this country. When a woman’s husband is absent, she requires the attention of a substitute: her cavaliere, who waits upon her hand and foot, who fulfills her every need.”
“Her
every
need?” I gave the captain a teasing look. He was the type of man one could coquet with safely.
“Well, excepting, of course, the marital obligations, to which only the husband has a right. It is due to the rigour of this understanding that jealousy rarely arises between a husband and his wife’s cavaliere servente.”
“Interesting.” Both men were advancing toward me now. “Speaking of husbands, Captain Charles, might you know where General Bonaparte is?”
“I believe he is conferring with his officers in the antechamber, Madame.”
“Would you do me a favour, Captain?” He jackknifed from the waist. “Would you tell him to come here?”
The captain looked aghast. “Moi?”
“Yes, please.”
“You want
me
to tell General Bonaparte what to do?” He mimed a nervous Nellie.
“Yes, my cavaliere servente, I would like you to inform my husband that his wife needs him—
now.
”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,” I told Bonaparte later, in the privacy of our room. There was a cooling breeze coming from the canal, carrying with it the pungent scent of sewage. “What were all your meetings about?” I asked, closing the shutters.
“The Austrians are advancing again.” He took his sword out of its sheath and ran his finger along the edge, examining it. “I think I’ll take your horse with me when I go.”
“You are leaving, Bonaparte?”
Already?
“In a few days.”
My heart sank. Could I manage in Milan without him? “But why are you taking my horse?”
“You will be coming to join me.”
“On campaign? But Bonaparte, won’t that be—?”
“You don’t think I can live without you, do you?” he grinned, tugging my ear.
July 16, early morning.
It seems Bonaparte and I are always parting. The soldiers whistled as we embraced. “For luck,” he said, kissing me. He slipped a ribbon from my hair and put it in the pocket next to his heart. “I’ll send for you,” he said, swinging onto his horse. Then he galloped out the gate, his men scrambling to catch up with him.
Shortly after 5:00
P.M.
—still very hot.
A small afternoon gathering this afternoon. It was impossible! The men stood around the fireplace at one end of the cavernous salon to talk about horses and tell battle stories, while the women sat in the window alcove at the other end of the room discussing fashion, children and dogs. I was relieved when Captain Charles joined in, but shortly a footman came to inform the captain that his horse was ready.
“But you just got here,” I said, dismayed. He was the only bright spark in the conversation, frankly.
“General Leclerc expects me in Verona tonight, Madame.”
I excused myself from my difficult guests and accompanied the captain to the entryway. “I thought you were my cavaliere servente,” I teased him, “and yet already you are abandoning me.”
He bowed, a graceful melting movement that a girl might make. “Will you forgive me?” He took my hand and kissed it, his breath warm. “No doubt you will require proof of my attachment. Perhaps there are other ways I could be of service?”
Oh, but he was a naughty boy, I thought, and oh but I was finding it an amusing charade. “What might my cavaliere suggest?”
He took a coin from out of his pocket; before my eyes it became a handful! “My talent, if one could call it that, is an instinct for increase. I guarantee a return of thirty percent.” He took his cloak from the maid, his hat, and gave her the coins.
“That’s a bold promise, Captain.” Was he serious?
“I am said to be bold,” he replied, examining his hat in the looking glass, creasing the brim.
Bold, indeed. I adjusted his plume so that it stood straight up. “There,” I said, feeling now rather hennish.
“In addition to all the other requirements, I might add,” he said, buckling his sword sheath.
“Such as?” I asked, stepping outside where a groom was waiting, holding his horse.
“Discretion.” Captain Charles took a fistful of mane and leapt gracefully into the saddle. “Ten thousand, Madame, for starters?” His horse tossed its head, pawing at the cobblestones.
I put up two fingers, twenty. Double or nothing: my game.
July 23.
Hidden under an enormous black shawl (like all the women here), I went to church this morning to light a candle for Alexandre. Two years ago today he died.
If I’ve learned one thing, it is that life is precious and fleeting. I weep to be separated from my children. And I dislike being separated from Bonaparte as well. I prayed to Saint Michael that he would be victorious. Already I want to go home.
July 17, Saint-Germain
Chère Maman,
Yesterday General Hoche sent me a letter. Since he makes mention of you, I copy part of it here:
“It is with the greatest pleasure that I grant your request for a leave of absence for your friends. Perhaps they will help you forget the losses you have suffered. I will not leave Paris without seeing my dear Eugène. It would have been preferable if his mother had not taken him away from me; I would have made every effort to fulfill my duty toward an unlucky friend.”
And now, just this afternoon, General Hoche fulfilled his promise and came to see me. Everyone at school was excited, even the teachers! I showed
him my scrapbook, which he liked. Then we fenced. He taught me some excellent new moves. He agreed it was time I had a horse of my own.
I am improving in my studies. The headmaster does not scowl at me quite so much. I’ve been riding every day. I saw Hortense twice this week—she is busy with her projects.
Your loving son, Eugène
H. Q., Castiglione, 4 Thermidor
My brothers Louis and Joseph have arrived and assure me your health is restored. It is terribly hot; my soul is burning for you.—B.P.
July 24.
Suddenly there is such a flurry of activity. I’m to meet Bonaparte in Brescia. From there we will go to Verona together.
In the midst of all the packing and preparations, the hapless Citoyen Hamelin (“the blinker”) came to call. “Please forgive me, Citoyen, for being distracted,” I told him, “but I’m preparing to join my husband in Brescia.” I was trying to decide whether I should take my pug dog with me. And what about my medications? Did I have sufficient laudanum? How long would we be gone? “We’re leaving tonight and we only found out last—”
Hamelin blinked several times before exclaiming, “Brescia! Madame, the road to Brescia is infested with ruffians. I shall come with you. I will be honoured to risk my life in order that the wife of the General should enjoy a safe voyage.” Immediately he headed for the door. “Forgive me, but I must rush off! I must have my muskets cleaned, obtain grease for the carriage wheels. There is nothing more tempting to a rogue than a broken-down vehicle. No, no, Madame—I
insist.
”
Evening—Brescia.
Bonaparte met us on the road. I joined him in his carriage. “You are well? You look well,” he said, regarding me hungrily. “Close the curtains.”
July 29—Peschiera.
The dawn was breaking as our carriages pulled into the courtyard of a villa on the outskirts of Verona.
“Is this where the Pretender lived?” I asked Bonaparte, yawning. I felt exhausted. We’d travelled from Brescia at night, but the road had been jolting and what sleep I’d managed to get had been fitful, disturbed by Bonaparte’s ardent caresses.
“It’s not as grand as I expected it to be,” Bonaparte said, jumping out before our carriage had come to a full stop.
We sat out on the verandah overlooking rolling hills dotted with mulberry trees, drinking coffee and eating fresh figs from a tree in the garden. The air smelled sweetly of cut grass. Bonaparte became animated as he told us stories about the Pretender. “He led a simple life. The people here knew him as Comte de Lille. No one realized he was King Louis XVI’s brother. Only his servants knew he was the Pretender to the throne of France.”
“How do you know all this, Bonaparte?” I had had three cups of strong coffee and was beginning to feel alert.
“I have spies following him. He’s in the north now, in Germany—my men never let him out of their sight. His daily rituals are very regular. He is dressed by eight each morning, a simple ensemble decorated with an insignia, a short sword. Then he sees his chancellor. And then he sits in his study and writes. At midday he stops for a meal—he keeps a frugal table. Then he shuts himself up in his closet and paces back and forth in a state of agitation for a little under one hour. This pattern is repeated every day.”
“To think that he sat in this very chair,” Citoyen Hamelin said, blinking. He wiggled the arm. “It needs fixing.”
“It must be a lonely life,” I said, gazing out over the mountains. I thought I saw movement in a dark crevice. Did they have mountain goats in this country? I wondered. I stood and went to the stone balustrade. “What’s that moving on the mountain?”
But Bonaparte was occupied telling Hamelin about the last report he had had on the Pretender, the book the Pretender had been reading. “And it’s still in the library,” he said, “with a marker on page 231. He was
on page 204 several months ago, so he can’t be a very fast reader.”
“Perhaps he did not read from it every day” Hamelin said, blinking. “Perhaps he only read a few days a week. If so, then one could say that he—”
I turned to Bonaparte. “Austrian soldiers wear white uniforms, do they not?”
He came to my side. “I don’t see anything.”
“Over to the left—see that line of white dots?”
Bonaparte pulled a collapsed glass from out of his pocket, shook it to open it and held it to his eye. “You must leave immediately,” he said, letting the glass drop.
We were hours on the road, Lisette, Hamelin and I in the carriage, four dragoons following on horseback. At the fort in Peschiera a portly general with whiskers like sausages rushed out to meet us. “You can’t stay here—the Austrians are closing in.”
Hamelin and Lisette regarded me with alarm. “My husband instructed us to stay here,” I told the general. The air smelled strongly of fish.
“But Madame, what if…?” Hamelin exclaimed.
“Madame Bonaparte,” General Guillaume stuttered, “I beg you to consider. If anything were to happen to you, I—”
“I appreciate your concern, General, but we will not move unless ordered to do so by my husband,” I repeated, with a firmness that astonished even me. Bonaparte was the only rock I had to hold on to.
I am writing this now in a small stone cell in the basement of the fortress. At least it is cool. An hour ago we had a meal of lake trout washed down with watered Montferrat. We ate in silence. “Leave the horses hitched,” I instructed the groom. Lisette and I will share a room. Our valises packed, we will sleep in our clothes. If we sleep.
A numbing fear has enveloped me. That, and anger I confess. How could Bonaparte have put us into this position! Put
me.
For the sake of his lust, he has endangered my life.
July 31, Sunday—Parma.
I was woken at dawn by a clatter of horses in the courtyard, the sound of metal clanking against stones.
I touched Lisette’s arm. “I think someone has arrived,” I whispered. She moaned and turned back into her pillow. “We might have to leave soon. Best to rise,” I said, releasing the pedal of the chipped washbasin and splashing my face.
I tied a red scarf around my head créole-style and creamed my cheeks with rouge, blind without a glass. I heard a voice. “It’s Junot, I think.”
Lisette opened her eyes. “Colonel Junot?”
“It doesn’t look good,” I overheard Junot saying to General Guillaume as I came down the stone steps into the courtyard. “The Austrians outnumber us three to one.”
“Colonel Junot, what has happened?” I asked anxiously.
“We had quite a battle last night.” His breath smelled of liquor. “General Bonaparte has set up a command post at Castelnuovo. I’m to take you there, but we must leave immediately.”
Hamelin, blinking against the morning sun, appeared at the entrance to the fort, followed by a servant lugging his heavy valise. And then Lisette appeared, carrying a wicker basket.