The Last Great Dance on Earth (17 page)
The rest of the ceremony went by as if in a dream. The chorus sang, “May the Emperor live forever.” The heralds proclaimed in full (and wonderfully sonorous) voice, “The most glorious and most august Napoleon, Emperor of the French people, is anointed, crowned and enthroned!”
“Vive l’Empereur!”
“Vive l’Empereur!”
“Vive l’Empereur!”
The thick stone walls of the ancient cathedral shook as hundreds of cannon were fired outside and the great bell of Notre-Dame began to ring. As we emerged into the bright winter sun, fire-rockets flared. Already the dancing had begun.
The Emperor and I dined alone, infused by the glow of glory. (And with relief that it was over.) “Leave it on,” Bonaparte said, as Chastulé was about to remove my crown. “It becomes you.” Over a simple meal of roast chicken with crayfish butter, hashed apples and a vanilla soufflé (which Bonaparte ate first), we talked, chattering like children. He’d not even noticed the stone that had hit his shoulder, and yes, he’d barked at his unruly sisters. “Imagine if I had fallen over backwards!” I said, both of us laughing now that it was over.
After, we joined everyone in the Yellow Salon: family, officials and household staff. Over the booming of cannon and the hiss and cackle of the fire-rockets outside, we shared story after story. My ladies demonstrated how, on the way to the cathedral, they’d had to pick their way through the slush in their silk slippers, shivering in the icy wind. There had been one uncomfortable moment when the crowd near the market had laughed at the Pope’s prelate in his broad-brimmed hat, riding a white mule and carrying a huge cross. Uncle “Cardinal” Fesch, flushed with fine wine, told how his nephew—the Emperor—had poked him in the backside with the Imperial sceptre.
Bonaparte grinned. “It got you moving, didn’t it, Uncle?” (Little Napoleon giggled, half-asleep in my arms.)
“And were those
stones
that fell from the vault?” Hortense asked, taking the baby Petit from his nursemaid.
“It was the birds I worried about.”
“With reason,” Eugène said with a laugh.
“And what happened at the altar, Your Majesty?” Chastulé asked. “It looked as if you were going to fall over. That mantle must be heavy.”
“It
was
heavy,” I said, glancing at the Bonaparte sisters. “Ask the princesses,” I suggested with an innocent air.
“And were you weeping, Your Majesty, when the Emperor put the crown on your head?” Clari asked.
“I couldn’t help it,” I told Isabey, who looked mortified at the damage to his handiwork. “I tried not to.”
And then everyone began to chatter at once:
“Sire, did His Holiness know that you were going to put the crown on yourself?”
“Ah, so it was planned that way.”
*
“It was glorious, just glorious.”
“A day I will never, ever, ever, ever,
ever
forget.”
I sat and listened, taking it all in, caressing my sweet little Napoleon, now asleep in my arms. I caught Bonaparte’s eye and smiled. Our day. Over at last.
December 18, late afternoon—Paris.
Madame Mère (as she is to be called now) has finally arrived back in Paris—none too happy, and certainly not the least bit apologetic about having missed the most important event of her amazing son’s life. She regards the magnificence Bonaparte has bestowed upon the family and the nation with something akin to contempt. “So long as it lasts,” she said sceptically, ferreting coins away.
She was too ill to come to the last family gathering—sick with chagrin, her daughters reported, over having to buy a length of expensive silk for a gown. She has rationed her cooks to one dishcloth, one apron, one towel a day, and refuses to buy more than three half-pound loaves of bread at a time. “We have to bring bread when we dine there,” Caroline complained to Bonaparte.
“You must
spend the
money I give you,” Bonaparte later instructed his
mother. “You must entertain, keep an open house, be generous with your staff. It is the aristocratic way.”
January 6, 1805, morning—Sunday and Kings’ Day (cold).
Fouché, looking uncharacteristically dapper in a fur-lined cloak, sidled up to me at last night’s ball in my honour. “Why are you smiling?” I asked. “It makes me uneasy.”
“I thought you might be interested in two items in the latest police report.” He blinked his eyes slowly. “Concerning members of your family.”
“Perhaps.” Of course I wanted to know!
“One concerns the Emperor’s youngest brother.”
“Jérôme?” The scamp.
“He and his bride are apparently on the frigate
La Didon,
returning to France—to the welcoming arms of his brother the Emperor.”
“Welcoming?” I rolled my eyes. It was doubtful that Bonaparte would agree even to see Jérôme. “And the second item in the report?”
“Concerns your son.”
Eugène?
In a police report! “It doesn’t have anything to do with Adèle Duchâtel, does it?”
“Ah, the devious Madame Duchâtel—that’s another matter altogether. No, the report divulged rumours of a possible marriage between your son and Princess Auguste-Amélie of Bavaria—the most beautiful princess in Europe, it is said.” Fouché studied my reaction. “The Princess’s family is one of the most ancient and distinguished in all of Europe.”
Indeed.
Princess Auguste’s family has ruled Bavaria for eight centuries—the blood of Charlemagne flows in her veins. “The rumours are unfounded. Princess Auguste is betrothed to Prince Charles of the House of Baden.” Unfortunately!
January 18.
Tired, a troubled sleep. Eugène’s ball in his newly renovated town house last night was a success, especially with the young. The revelry went on until dawn—or so I’m told, for Bonaparte and I left early, shortly after
Caroline and Hortense’s duet. (Caroline braying, trying to compete with Hortense, the crowd crying out for an encore from my daughter—painful.)
“Your fête is a big success,” I told Eugène, on taking my leave.
“I suppose,” he said, uncharacteristically morose.
I’ve since learned the reason for my son’s dejection. Caroline had cruelly informed him that the woman he courted had been “taken” by his stepfather.
January 19, Décadi—close to midnight.
A blizzard howls both outside and in—Bonaparte is in a foul temper.
January 21.
Eugène called on me at my morning toilette, his hat damp from melted snow. “Papa has ordered me to leave with my regiment.”
Leave? For where?
“For Milan.”
*
“Now,
Eugène?” The storm was severe. It was difficult to ride across town, much less over the Alps.
“Within twenty-four hours,” Eugène said, handing me the order. “I don’t understand, unless …”
Unless Bonaparte wanted Eugène out of Paris. “Eugène, may I ask you something?” Something I had no business knowing. “Have you done anything that might have angered Bonaparte?” His evasive look gave the answer. “Something to do with Adèle Duchâtel, perhaps?”
And then Eugène confessed: he’d been upset, he said. He’d called Adèle a coquette (and worse, I suspect). “I told her I’d tell her husband about … you know.” He tapped the tip of his riding whip against the toe of his boot.
About Adèle and Bonaparte. What was I to say? It was such a complex web. “And so?”
He hunched his shoulders. “And so she said she would tell the Emperor about
me?
He seemed so much a boy still, all fluster and freckles, hardly equal to this bedchamber duel with his Emperor stepfather. “And what might there be to tell, Eugène?”
“Maman, she’d have to lie,” he said, blushing angrily. “I got nowhere!”
January 22.
This morning my obedient, loyal son headed off into the storm at the head of nine hundred chasseurs and grenadiers. I am struggling with my conscience. I promised Eugène I wouldn’t say anything to Bonaparte.
[Undated]
“Zut,” Bonaparte said under his breath, pacing. “So Adèle lied to me about Eugène. That was devious on her part—devious and manipulative. I’m afraid you’re going to have to let her go.”
“You want
me
to dismiss your mistress, Bonaparte?”
The thought gives me pleasure, I confess.
February 1.
Today Bonaparte made an announcement to the Senate, naming Eugène Prince and Vice-Arch-Chancellor.
February 24
—
noisy: carnival parade starting outside.
I should have guessed that this would happen. An enraged (and hiccupping) Elisa descended upon Bonaparte: “Eugène is a prince now, even Joachim is a prince—so why not Félix? What about
my
husband?”
This
is a problem. Elisa’s husband is lazy and inept and alienates everyone with his haughty rudeness. “I must get them out of Paris,” Bonaparte said, scratching his head.
March 19, Saint Joseph’s Day.
Bonaparte has found a solution to his sister’s complaints: he is awarding Elisa and Félix the little kingdom of Piombino in northern Italy.
“How charming,” Caroline commented with biting sarcasm. “My sister is to rule an army of four soldiers.”
“Better than ruling only one soldier,” Elisa said evenly—meaning Caroline’s husband Joachim.
March 21
—
Saint-Cloud.
I’ve been busy getting everything ready for the baby’s baptism on the weekend—by the Pope no less. (He has wisely decided to linger in Paris, waiting for the passage over the Alps to clear.) Bonaparte insists that Hortense and Louis’s second son be baptized exactly as a Dauphin would have been baptized during the Ancien Régime. Complex! The Holy Father has confided that he’s never performed a baptism before, much less an Imperial one.
March 22.
Caroline has had her baby, another girl. “Bad timing,” Bonaparte said during our evening ride. “She expects the infant to be baptized along with Hortense and Louis’s boy next week.”
“But wouldn’t that mean two entirely different ceremonies?” Caroline’s children are not in the line of succession—the ceremony would not be the same.
“Exactly. I’ll tell her it would take too long,” he said.
[Undated]
Caroline’s in a rage!
March 24, Sunday, 4:00 P.M.
—
Saint-Cloud.
And so it has been done: Hortense and Louis’s baby Petit was baptized by the Pope (with Uncle Fesch prompting): Napoleon-Louis, he has been
named. The five-month-old obliged us by crying the entire time. Bonaparte, the proud godfather, held the squalling child at the font. Madame Mère, as godmother, stood beside Bonaparte, scowling in her expensive new gown. The baby finally quieted, sucking on Bonaparte’s finger.
And now, that behind us, we rush to get ready to leave for Milan in one week—one more coronation to get through. Bonaparte is to be crowned King of Italy—unless he can succeed in persuading one of his brothers to take his place, that is (to avoid alarming the Royalist nations).
March 28.
Monsieur Rémusat left this morning for Italy—escorted by a sizeable guard. He carried with him the Imperial insignia and Crown jewels. Clari is in tears at the thought of her husband having to endure the “wretched Savoy roads and their ignorant postillions.” And the bandits! Bandits just waiting to murder her husband in order to get their hands on his treasure. But most of all she is in a fret over the Mont Cenis pass, “with its steep descents and no wall at all on the outer edge!” In spite of my assurances that I myself have crossed two times over “that fatal” Mont Cenis, she continues to be convinced that her husband will perish. In comforting her, in assuring her that there is no danger, I begin to conquer my own fear. I try to think only of the pleasure of seeing Eugène in Milan, try not to think of the mountains that must be crossed to get to him.
March 30
—
snow!
I’m “in a state of perturbation” (as Clari puts it)—but it’s not only me.
Everyone,
it seems, is in a fluster, getting ready to depart in two days. The servants can’t figure out who to take orders from, whom to give orders
to.
And then excitement beyond measure: the new Imperial travelling coach was delivered and everyone went out in the snow-covered courtyard to gawk at the enormous berline. The outside is plain—intentionally, so as not to attract bandits. The only indication that it is an Imperial coach is a small coat of arms on the
door.
Inside, the coach is remarkable, for it is divided into two compartments. In the one at the front are two deep seats, separated by an armrest. Opposite is a bank of drawers, equipped with toilet articles and a table service, as well as a desk. In the back compartment is a bed that can be made into a sofa.
I let the children of the household climb inside—they scrambled from one compartment to another.
“My
seat,” little Napoleon said, climbing into the leather chair opposite the desk—Bonaparte’s chair.
“He’ll make a fine emperor someday,” I heard a maid say.
“Our Crown Prince.”
Our
heir.
April 1—Fontainebleau.
The coach is remarkably comfortable: the big body swings on wide leather straps attached to heavy springs. “Time to try out that bed,” Bonaparte said meaningfully as soon as we had passed the Paris gate. He pulled the blinds and took my hand. And so our first Imperial expedition is off to an excellent start, the Emperor (
and
Empress) content.
April 22—Palazzo Stupinigi, near Turin.
We crossed the Alps without incident. In fact, the weather was glorious, the vistas stimulating to the imagination, bringing back memories of youth. A decade ago I crossed the Alps into Italy to join my new husband on his first campaign. I remember my fear then, the wonder of a journey into an unknown world. If I had known then what an amazing journey it would, in fact, turn out to be …
Eugène, so bronzed from the sun he looks like a peasant, met us at this regal lodge not far from Turin. He and Bonaparte immediately set off on a hunt. I’ve bathed, changed into an evening toilette. The intoxicating scent of spring is in the air.
April 24
—
still at Palazzo Stupinigi.
We’ve had word that Bonaparte’s young brother Jérôme is in Turin! He’s
sailed from America to Portugal and come on horseback into Italy, seeking his Emperor brother’s favour—and approval of his marriage. Eugène has just left with the unhappy message that Bonaparte refuses to receive his youngest sibling, refuses to recognize “that girl” as his wife.
“Forgive
him?” Bonaparte ranted when Eugène and I pleaded for him to reconcile with Jérôme. “He’s lucky I haven’t court-martialled him for desertion!”