The Last Great Dance on Earth Page 9

  October 7—Saint-Cloud.

  It is now nine months plus three days since Hortense and Louis married. “I’m saved,” Hortense said, her hands clasped as if in prayer.

  Hortense has always been given to drama, to melodrama—but in truth, we are all relieved.

  October 10.

  Late this morning a horse cantered up the drive and into the courtyard. I headed out to the terrace to see who it might be, but even as I opened the door, Eugène came bounding up the steps, yelling at me to hurry.

  “Is it Hortense?” I cried out, made fearful by his state of alarm.

  “It’s happening, Maman—I was with her when it started! Louis says to come quickly.”

  I didn’t think the drive from Saint-Cloud into the heart of Paris could be made in under two hours: now I know that it can. We left Saint-Cloud at 10:05, and at exactly 11:48 Eugène and I were at the door of Hortense and Louis’s town house, pulling impatiently on the bell rope.

  “Yoo-hoo!” We turned to see a woman dressed in an old-fashioned red gown covered by an apron festooned with ribbons. She was balancing what looked to be a birthing stool on top of her head with one hand and holding a leather portmanteau with the other. “I can’t unlatch the gate.”

  “Madame Frangeau!”

  “The midwife?” Eugène hurried to let her in.

  I greeted the good woman, but just then the front door opened. “Madame Frangeau?” Louis said, his afflicted right hand clawed over his heart. (Awful.) “At last.”

  “Louis, how is Hortense?” And then, from within the house, I heard a cry. Oh no!

  Louis held up the index finger of his good hand to silence me, examining a pocket watch that he clutched with the other, counting off the seconds. “Good,” he said, dropping the watch into his pocket.

  “Dr. Jean-Louis Baudelocque will be here after he finishes his meal, Citoyen,” the midwife informed Louis, untying a kerchief.

  “After?” Louis asked anxiously.

  “Truth is, he just gets in the way,” she hissed in my direction, stepping aside as the hall porter carried the stool and portmanteau up the stairs.

  Louis hurried after the porter, talking over his shoulder to Madame Frangeau. “My wife’s pains are coming often now. I think she’s near.”

  “Someone should let Bonaparte know what’s happening,” I suggested to Eugène, who was standing in the courtyard looking bewildered.

  “I will!” he said, relieved to have a task.

  “He’s working at the palace today,” I called out, but my son was already on his way out the gate.

  The lying-in room smelled strongly of cloves. Madame Frangeau was closing the windows, barking instructions to the two maids.

  “Maman!” Hortense gasped when she saw me. Louis was seated beside her, stroking her hand.

  “How are you, darling?” My sweet, my treasure, my heart! She looked like a girl in the big bed, a girl with golden locks, her big blue eyes peeking out from under the lace frill of her nightcap. A frail slip of a girl with an enormous belly.

  “She’s splendid,” Madame Frangeau said. “Now, Madame Josephine, if you could sit yourself here, out of the way, while I take your daughter’s measures.”

  Obediently I sat down on the opposite side of the bed. Hortense writhed as a wave of pain came over her. “Dear God,” she cried out.

  I swallowed, took a breath as the midwife cheered her on. “That’s the way! The louder the better. Let the neighbours know. Let all of Paris know!”

  Dr. Jean-Louis Baudelocque didn’t arrive until shortly before three. The child—the most perfect I’ve ever seen—was born shortly before nine. Although it was not a long labour—eight hours in all?—it was not an easy one. My daughter suffered!

  I will never forget that beautiful sound—the baby’s first lusty wail. “It’s a boy,” Louis whispered, as if in disbelief at his good fortune.

  A boy. I felt light-headed, blessed.

  “A boy!” I heard a maid yell in the hall.

  “A boy!” I heard someone call outside in the courtyard—the coachman likely. Somewhere in the house a bell was rung. Oh, the excitement! I wanted to run out into the street, ring the bells of Notre-Dame.

  “Good work, Madame Louis. You’ve given your husband a healthy baby boy,” Madame Frangeau said, holding the red and screaming infant up for Hortense to see. (Careful! I wanted to cry out.) “Wash him up, measure and swaddle him,” she told the nursemaid. “He’s perfectly well-made,” she added, as if speaking of an object, “not a flaw that I can see.” Louis followed the nursemaid out of the room in a daze.

  Dr. Baudelocque tapped my daughter’s knee through the covering sheet. “One more push, Madame Louis, and the business will be done.”

  “We don’t want the womb climbing back up!” the midwife said, as if it were a thing alive.

  Hortense winced, but did not cry out. I stroked her damp forehead with a cloth dipped in rosewater. It is early yet, I know, the danger not yet past. Heaven’s gates stay open nine days for a woman in childbed.

  Louis reappeared with a proud look in his eyes. He knelt beside the bed and kissed Hortense’s hand. I was moved to tears—his simple action was so noble.

  “He is well, our son?” my daughter asked.

  “Six pounds, two ounces, and eighteen inches long,” he said, his eyes glistening.

  “That’s an excellent weight,” I said.

  “He looks small to me,” Louis said excitedly, “but the nursemaid told me he’s big—and very well made.”

  The nursemaid appeared with the baby in her arms, tightly swaddled and peaceful now. “Oh, Hortense, he’s an angel,” I said, a lump rising in my throat. Napoleon-Charles he will be named—so it has already been decreed. Little Napoleon.

  “Our Dauphin,” the nursemaid said, putting him into Hortense’s arms.

  “Hold your tongue,” I heard Louis hiss at the nurse.

  “Bonjour, little Napoleon,” Hortense whispered, gazing into the eyes of her son, her cheeks wet with tears.

  In which I have suspicions

  October 13, 1802—Saint-Cloud, a chilly day.

  Hortense is being treated like royalty for having produced the first male Bonaparte grandchild. Even Signora Letizia conferred begrudging congratulations on the mother of “her son’s son.” And now Eugène has been made Colonel of the Guards (quite an honour—he’s only twenty-one), although the title “Uncle” excites him more, in truth.

  Unfortunately, such Beauharnais glory has excited clan jealousy—further aggravated by today’s birth notice in Le Moniteur. Hortense’s name is printed in small capitals. “They don’t do that for any of us,” Caroline said, clutching baby Letizia in petticoats, little Achille sitting beside her sucking his thumb. “Don’t we count?” She is with child again, but it does not seem to calm her. If anything, becoming a mother has turned Caroline into a lioness.

  “Make sure you contact Le Moniteur,” I suggested to Bonaparte’s secretary later. “All family members must be treated exactly the same.”

  October 14—in Paris for a few days with Hortense.

  Madame Frangeau (General Frangeau, Eugène calls her) has ordered Hortense to be wrapped in a feather comforter and the fires in her room kept blazing, “to sweat the poisons out,” she said.

  “Of course,” I agreed, but tactfully suggested that the maids put branches of apple on the fire, for the air in the lying-in chamber has become heavy.

  “I’m drowning in my bodily fluids,” Hortense complained. She maintains her good humour in spite of Madame Frangeau’s insistence that she lie flat for one full week, not moving even to allow the bed to be made, or to change her underclothes.

  “It would be certain death,” Madame Frangeau informed us.

  “Only a few more days,” I comforted my daughter, gazing upon the precious face of the newborn in my arms (falling in love). “It’s wise to be cautious.”

  October 15—still in Paris.

  Nine days. Madame Frang
eau has allowed Hortense to sit up—but she’s not to get out of bed for another five. “If I hear that your feet have so much as touched the floor, there will be hell to pay.”

  October 20—Saint-Cloud.

  “I’ve come to bid you farewell, Madame Josephine.” Bonaparte’s secretary stood forlornly before me.

  “Farewell, Fauvelet?” I asked, pulling off my gloves, my thoughts on Hortense and the baby. Little Napoleon is sleeping better now that his wet-nurse has agreed to abstain from fruit and vegetables.

  “I’ve … I’ve been let go.”

  “Pardon?”

  He repeated what he’d said, but even then I could not comprehend. Let go? Fauvelet Bourrienne was not only an excellent secretary, he was Bonaparte’s oldest friend. “But why?”

  He waggled his fingers. “Oh, I made some investments, and …” He shrugged, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his redingote. “Indiscretions, the First Consul said.”

  “But Fauvelet, everybody plays the Funds.”

  Fauvelet flushed. “I guess I took advantage of my position.”

  “I still don’t understand.” Doesn’t everyone “take advantage”? What about the investments that Bonaparte’s brothers and sisters have made—even his mother? What about those made by Minister Talleyrand, for that matter, who regularly profits from knowledge of international developments, who considers such “income” his due? “Did Bonaparte’s family have anything to do with this?” I demanded. Fauvelet is my ally—something the clan holds against him. He hunched his shoulders. “Well …”

  November 15—still at Saint-Cloud (chilly).

  Little Napoleon was christened this morning. Bonaparte and I, as godparents, held him proudly. He was an angel—not even a whimper. (“Everyone knows that if a baby doesn’t cry at his christening he will die,” Caroline said later. That girl!)

  We returned to Louis and Hortense’s house where Louis, entirely on his own and much to my daughter’s surprise, had arranged a fête in her honour. Hortense’s closest friends were there—her cousin Emilie, the three Auguié sisters and Caroline.

  Soon after, Hortense’s former schoolmistress, Madame Campan, arrived and then all the other members of the Bonaparte clan. Lucien came with his two girls. Elisa appeared in a bizarre ensemble she’d designed herself, a composite of Egyptian, Roman and Greek styles that she expects every woman in Paris to adopt. “Joseph sends regrets,” she announced (but later disclosed that he felt it disrespectful of Louis to celebrate the birth of a son so soon after he himself had suffered such a grievous disappointment in the birth of yet another daughter—a second). And last, jolly Uncle “Bishop” Fesch arrived with Bonaparte’s mother. Signora Letizia stood in the centre of the room refusing all offers until Bonaparte led her to the chair of honour on the right of the hearth.

  It was as Caroline was trying to get little Achille to show everyone how he can wave that Aunt Désirée—dressed in a youthful Grecian style!—made a dramatic entrance with dear old fusty Aunt Fanny, who appeared shrunken but vigorous as ever, her thick face paint smudged. With the bravado of an author who has just received a literary award, she read aloud a rather drawn-out verse she’d written in honour of her goddaughter’s son, “the new Apollo.” I was becoming concerned about the length of Aunt Fanny’s recitation (Bonaparte was starting to twitch), when Eugène arrived in his new uniform as Colonel of the Consul Guards, and all the girls made a fuss, causing him to blush.

  Once all the guests had arrived, and everyone was comfortably settled, and the children were quieted with bribes of comfits, we talked of the excitement in Paris over the coming debut at the Théâtre-Français of Talma’s protégée, an actress of only fifteen. Then we exchanged news of Jérôme and Pauline, both in the Islands. Of young Jérôme, not much could be said—only that he had written for more money (as usual)—but Pauline is reported to like Saint-Domingue after all, “in spite of the snakes and savages.”

  After a collation Louis solemnly presented Hortense with a stunning set of rubies. She was overwhelmed, I believe, for there were tears in her eyes as she thanked him quite sweetly. Then the true jewel of my daughter’s crown, her beautiful baby, was brought in by the nursemaid for everyone to admire. He belched quite splendidly, which made us all cheer. The children squealed and jumped up and down to see his pink little face, as Louis and Hortense and the doting godparents—Bonaparte and I—looked on proudly.

  I can’t remember a gathering when my family and the Bonaparte clan have been so united—if one can call it that. I suspect Aunt Fanny with her careless ways (she sat on the arm of a chair) and Aunt Désirée with her girlish pretensions (flowers in her hair at sixty!) horrified Signora Letizia. Oh, that evil eye! Yet all in all, and in spite of the jealousies, it was a lovely family fête, thanks largely to the children. I induced them to sit quietly near me so that they could stay with the adults. Little Napoleon lay in my arms the entire time.

  “Ah, portrait of a mother,” Caroline said, holding out her thumb and squinting at me as an artist might. “Pity—”

  Fort de France, Martinico

  Chère Yeyette, my beloved niece,

  We promise, we’ll consider your offer and talk it over with Stéphanie. She’s a spirited girl. You’ll be pleased with your goddaughter, should you ever have an opportunity to meet her.

  The house you purchased for your mother in town is magnificent. Now all we have to do is prise her out of her ramshackle abode in Trois-Ilets.

  Your well-meaning uncle, Robert Tascher

  November 17—Saint-Cloud.

  A meeting with Madame Campan this afternoon, regarding the staff required for Saint-Cloud, their duties and functions. “One lady-in-waiting isn’t enough,” she said, looking over my notes.

  I confessed I didn’t know what exactly a lady-in-waiting did.

  “Ladies-in-waiting do just that: wait.”

  “But for what?”

  “For whatever you fancy. To join you for a game of chance, or a walk in the garden. To hold your fan should you care to dance. To call for a servant to bring refreshment, should you suffer a sudden and unexpected thirst. To read to you as you work at your frame. To amuse your guests with intelligent and pleasing conversation. To reflect well upon you, by virtue of their reputation and breeding. In short, to make your life pleasing. I suggest you begin with four.”

  “Won’t that be too many?”

  “At the speed at which your husband’s destiny is unfolding, Madame Bonaparte, I predict that you will soon require five times that number.”

  Just then my dame d’annonce opened one of the double doors and exclaimed, “Citoyen Talma!” so loudly that I let out a little shriek. “Madame Campan, perhaps you could help with the training of the staff,” I suggested under my breath as the great actor entered with an air of regal authority—made somewhat difficult by the sheepskin cap he was wearing and a silly little muff he had hanging from a cord around his neck.

  Slipping off his hat and tucking it under his right arm, Talma looked slowly about the room, his eyes lingering on the bronze chandeliers, the yellow velvet chairs, us. With a fluid motion, he placed his right gloved hand behind his back (without letting the hat slip), the other extended, palm up, and bowed deeply. “Ladies,” he said, his voice resonant. “My pleasure.” Then, with a nervous, almost tragic intensity, he slipped off his gloves and ran his fingers through his unpowdered hair. “How was that?”

  “Excellent!” I said, clapping. “Madame Campan, what do you think? Was that not a perfect entry?”

  “Commanding,” Madame Campan agreed. “But the gloves stay on.”

  I persuaded Talma to join us for a glass of Chablis. We shared the news we’d each gleaned in various salons, reviews of the various spectacles we’d attended, the excitement about his young protégée, Mademoiselle Georges. The volatile actor confessed that he was fraught with concern that she would fail him. “She’s a child, and yet she is to play Clytemnestra! What does she know about maternal feelings?
Grand Dieu! I will never survive this debut.”

  Shortly after Talma was summoned by Bonaparte, Madame Campan took her leave as well. I saw her out through the labyrinth of corridors to her carriage. On return, passing Bonaparte’s cabinet, I heard sounds of violence: a terrifying shriek. The guards came running, their hands on the pommels of their swords, and threw open the cabinet door to reveal two startled men: Bonaparte standing about three feet from Talma, who was holding a plumed quill aloft like a dagger.

  “What is it?” Bonaparte demanded, turning.

  I looked at Talma and then back at my husband. “It sounded as if someone was being murdered!”

  Talma burst into laughter. “I told you that you should consider a career on the stage, First Consul.”

  Sheepishly, Bonaparte showed me the papers in his hand: a play script. “I was helping Talma rehearse a murder scene,” he said.

  November 20—Saint-Cloud.

  I’ve been interviewing applicants for the various staff positions all week. It’s exhausting—and I’ve several more to interview tomorrow.

  A wonderful respite today when Hortense came with the baby. Bonaparte and I turned into silly beings, cooing and talking nonsense, making faces and peering into the face of this perplexed little one—notre petit chou.

  “You see?” Bonaparte said when the baby made a face. “He knows me.” I love being a grandmother.

  November 21, still raining.

  “Madame Rémusat?” I hadn’t seen Claire Rémusat for over a decade—she’d been a girl then. Clari, we’d called her. Although she was a young woman now, I recognized her sharp little nose and lively eyes.