The Last Great Dance on Earth (4 page)

The citizens of this country have hailed us as heroes—you should see the celebrating!

Papa said to tell you he will write soon.

A million kisses,

Your proud son, Eugène

Note—It’s true what they say, Maman: Italian women are very pretty.

June 24.

“I’m told that the people of Milan have gone mad with gratitude, that the women literally throw themselves at the feet of our soldiers,” the artist Isabey said, studying his cards.

“Italian women are
so
hot-blooded,” the actor Talma said.

“All women have a weakness for a conqueror,” the writer Madame de Souza said, artfully using her cards as a fan.

“Oh?” I said, pulling in my winnings. Bonaparte has not been writing.

July 2, or rather July
3,
after 3.00 in the morning (can’t sleep).

Bonaparte returned quietly, before midnight. Within an hour, crowds had gathered in the gardens, men, women and children waving flambeaux: an eerie, ghostly sight.

“We rejoice in you,” I said, wrapping my arms around my husband, holding him. Holding him.

July 4.

Bonaparte is home; he is victorious, all is well. Why, then, do I feel so melancholy—so alone?

July 5—Malmaison for the day.

“How
are you,
darling?” my dear friend Thérèse asked, straightening her wig of infantine blond—her disguise.
^*
I must have sighed heavily, for she spread her bejewelled fingers and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu, that bad?”

“Can’t I hide anything from you, Mama Tallita?” Thérèse and I have been through much together. One might even say she saved my life. Certainly, she enriches it with her wit and wisdom—and abundant heart.

“You know better than to even try,” she said, tapping my knuckles with her painted fan.

I confessed the reason for my depression of spirits: my suspicion that Bonaparte was having an amourette with another woman. “Since his return from Italy, he has been curt with me, impatient without reason.” Thérèse winced. “You’ve heard something?” I asked.

“It’s just a rumour—something about that Italian singer from Milan.”

“La Grassini.” Of course! Young and voluptuous, La Grassini is renowned for her passionate nature, her angelic voice. Two years ago I arranged for her to sing for us in Italy. I remember Bonaparte’s enthusiasm, remember the buxom Italian singer’s caressing eyes. Bonaparte had been oblivious to her all-too-obvious invitation—then.

July 6, 4:15 P.M.
—
Paris.

“Is it true that the prima donna of La Scala has come to Paris?”

“La Grassini?” Fouché withdrew a battered tin snuffbox from his vest pocket. “She arrived in a carriage drawn by eight black horses, rather hard to miss. All the people of Paris saw her.”

“And what else have all the people of Paris seen?”

He gazed at me with his heavy-lidded eyes. “Perhaps you should first tell me what you yourself see.”

“It is natural to become watchful, when suspicions are aroused.” I paused, turning my wedding ring. It had become oblong, rather than round; it fit my finger perfectly. Too perfectly, perhaps. I could no longer remove it. “Do you know what I would dislike? I would hate to be the last person to know if my husband were …” I felt my cheeks becoming heated.

“Exercising the right of kings?”

I nodded. More and more, I was learning about the “right of kings.” I counted silently to three and then looked up at him. “No doubt you would know.”

“It is my business to know.” Fouché spit into a spittoon. “As you suspect,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, “your husband has fallen for La Grassini’s charms.”

“A soldier’s wife understands these things,” I managed to say. “It will blow over, like a squall.”

“You are wise, Madame, the perfect wife.”

[Undated]

The perfect wife is angry! The perfect wife spent a fortune this afternoon, ordering five hats, six pairs of gloves, four pairs of slippers and two pairs of boots, not to mention a number of small linens in fine cambric, embroidered and laced and beribboned. Not to mention a new gown by Leroy, the most celebrated designer in Paris.

July
7,
3:45 P.M.
—
hot!

“A Bastille Day ensemble? A gown for the wife of the victor?” Leroy’s eyes glazed over, as if a vision had come to him, a vision of mystical dimensions. “Mais oui! I see antique ivory gauze,
swirls
of cascading silk with appliquéd gold laurel leaves, a
plush
golden velvet shawl, embroidered in gold and edged with ermine. Laced slippers, long gold gloves with pearl buttons—of course!—a bandeau of laurel leaves made of pearls …”

“Perfect.”
Wife of the victor.

“But Madame Josephine,” Leroy said, tugging on the knot of his starched azure neckcloth, “the First Consul is frugal, and …”

The
frugal
First Consul is spending twenty thousand francs a month on a mistress, I happen to know. “You were saying, Citoyen?”

“Well, it’s only fair to warn you that ermine is … Well, right now I’m afraid it is perhaps a little
dear,
perhaps too …?”

“Spare no expense.”

July 9—Tuileries.

Madame de Souza announced at whist this afternoon that after the age of thirty a woman cannot expect to have first place in her husband’s heart, that she should be content to be second.

“That would be worse than death itself,” I said heatedly (losing the round).

July 10
—
Malmaison (bright moon, dark thoughts).

“I hate to tell you this, darling, but she’s right,” Thérèse said, giving me a vial of Compound Spirit of Lavender—a remedy for women feeling a
great sinking. “If it’s not La Grassini, it’s bound to be some other trollop. Husbands are like that. It’s one of the things a wife must accept. Has he been doing his duty by you?”

I nodded. If anything, Bonaparte’s attentions have been more ardent than before.

“Then what do you have to complain of? Just because he has a mistress doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

Love? Bonaparte had not loved me—he’d
worshipped
me. “You don’t understand!” How could I possibly explain what it was like to be loved by a man such as Bonaparte, to be his muse, his angel, the object of his all-consuming passion? Am I to lie beside him now while he dreams of La Grassini, smell her musky scent on him, hear the joy in his voice as he sings, knowing that it is love for another that inspires him? “Accept it, Thérèse? Never!”

“Do you want your husband’s enduring love?”

“Of course,” I said angrily.

“Then repeat after me: I
accept
—with love, grace and magnanimity.” She laughed. “And no gritting of teeth.”

[Undated]

Three hats, two gowns, seven pairs of slippers, five pairs of silk stockings, two shawls, a necklace of rubies and pearls.

July 14, Bastille Day, almost midnight.

It was almost time to leave for the Bastille Day fête when Eugène arrived from Milan. “You made it!” I threw my arms around my son. He smelled of horses—horses and campfire smoke.

“Oh là là, Maman!”

“Is something wrong?” I asked, alarmed by his outburst.

“No, not at all. It’s
you.
You look … beautiful!”

Eugène and his chasseurs escorted Bonaparte and me to the Invalides. A deafening cheer went up as we pulled through the gates of the Champs-de-Mars, the enormous field a sea of faces.

Inside, the Invalides was packed, the air oppressive. I was moved to tears as Eugène solemnly presented the captured enemy flags. Then Mademoiselle Grassini sang, filling the vault with (I had to admit) heavenly sounds. It pleased me to note that she has developed a double chin and was wearing too much Spanish Red.
^*

July 22, 1800
—
Paris.

At the Théâtre Français tonight, the police apprehended a man aiming at Bonaparte with a peashooter.

Bonaparte laughed when Fouché informed him. “You’re serious—a peashooter? They’re going to have to do better than that.”

August
7.

I can’t sleep. This morning ruffians were caught lurking in the quarry on the high road to Malmaison. Their intention was to attack Bonaparte as we returned to Paris.

August 9—very hot.

Fouché sidled up to me at tonight’s salon. “No, don’t tell me,” I said, my heart jumping in my chest. “I can’t take it!”

“Calm yourself. I merely wish to inform you that La Grassini is discontented with your husband.”

“Oh, thank God! I thought perhaps there had been another attempt on Bonaparte’s life.” In every shadow I saw a man with a knife. The slightest noise confirmed my fears. “What did you say about La Grassini?”

“She complained of the First Consul at the salon of the Minister of Foreign Affairs last night.”

“You
were at Talleyrand’s?” Talleyrand and Fouché are arch-enemies.

“My spies keep me informed. La Grassini confided to those assembled at the whist table that the First Consul’s lovemaking was …
unsatisfying
was how she put it.” He pronounced the word “unsatisfying” with unseemly relish.

“I take no comfort whatsoever in her indiscretion.” How dare she!

October 10
—
Paris, very late.

On returning from the Opéra tonight, Bonaparte and I found Fouché waiting for us in the Yellow Salon, tapping his foot. The Minister of Police was not happy. The commotion we’d heard during the performance had been his men apprehending assassins armed with daggers and pistols—men intent on murdering Bonaparte!

I scooped up my train and sat down on the edge of a stool. “Assassins?” But what shocked me even more was that Bonaparte had known about the plot for weeks, but had not informed Fouché, thinking that he would lure the conspirators out into the open himself. “Bonaparte, you knew those men would be at the Opéra?” I was stunned—and
angry.
How could he be so cavalier? Not only had he put himself at risk, he’d put
me
at risk as well.

“Your husband not only knew the assassins would be there tonight,” Fouché said, “he arranged to provide them with the money they needed in order to carry out their scheme. Have you any idea, First Consul, how close you came to getting murdered?”

I trembled for Fouché. Bonaparte does not take a scolding well, however justified.

“The plan worked, Minister Fouché.” Bonaparte paced under the crystal chandelier. “I’m fed up with Revolutionaries intent on my demise—and so I took action. If this little episode proved anything, it proved that there is a great deal going on in this city that you are entirely unaware of. You don’t know anything!”

“Respectfully, First Consul, I know a very great deal,” Fouché said, his lips thin. “I know, for example, that a man in a greatcoat regularly emerges from the palace, gets into a hired fiacre and goes to 762 Rue Caumartin, an abode which he has leased for the use of a well-applauded
Italian singer. A short time after, the man in the greatcoat reappears and returns to the palace. Within an hour of his departure, a tall young man, a violinist, is seen to enter the home of the energetic Grassini, who—” “Get out!” Bonaparte kicked a burning log.

I followed Fouché into the antechamber. “How could you do that to him!”

“Devotion wears many masks. The First Consul endangers himself by such conduct.”

“You humiliate him in the name of duty?” I turned on my heel, trembling with emotion.

I found Bonaparte in the bedchamber, sitting on our big bed, unlacing his boots himself. “We can pretend I was not witness to that scene,” I said, sitting down at my embroidery frame by the fire.

“Just as you have pretended not to know, Josephine?”

I picked up my embroidery needle, checked the colour of the thread, a shimmering light blue, the colour of a summer sky. My hand was shaking. “Yes.” I put down the needle.
“Please,
Bonaparte, get up and pace the way you usually do. I don’t like it when you are so still.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t angry.”

“I’ve been angry. Now I’m angry at
her.”
La Signorina Grassini had not only seduced my husband—worse, she had made a cuckold of him. “I’ve been a fool.”

I put aside my frame and went to him. “Don’t be angry at Fouché,” I said, taking his hands in mine—his soft, feminine hands of which he is so proud. “He spoke out of devotion for you.”

“Do you know how much I love you, Josephine?” The firelight danced in his grey eyes.

Later, in Bonaparte’s arms, I took advantage of his gratitude to persuade him to take at least a few precautions against attack. And no more trying to ferret out assassins on his own! Reluctantly, he consented. “You love me too much,” he complained.

“We all do!”

October 18
—
Tuileries Palace, Paris.

Early this morning, Fouché was shown into our bedchamber. I sat up, alarmed. It was dark still. “This must be urgent, Citoyen Minister of Police,” Bonaparte said, instantly alert.

“A bomb stuffed with nails and grapeshot exploded behind the Salpêtrière convent a few hours ago. The culprits got away, but I have reason to think they had you in mind, First Consul. I thought you would want to know.”

“Mon Dieu, Bonaparte—a
bomb?”
Would there never be an end to it?

Christmas Eve—Paris.

The worst has happened. At least we are alive, I remind myself.

It is three in the morning now as I write this. I’m in the little sitting room next to our bedchamber. The embers cast a dying light. I’ve given up trying to sleep. Perhaps if I write it out, the memory of this evening will stop haunting me.

Caroline, eight months along now, joined Hortense, Bonaparte and me for dinner. We were looking forward to going to the opening of Haydn’s
La Création
—all of us but Bonaparte, that is, who announced that he’d changed his mind, he had work to do. (Even on Christmas Eve.)

“Please come,” I begged him, knowing how disappointed the public would be not to see him, how unhappy they would be to see only
me.
“You’ve been working so hard lately.” Day and night, his energy was boundless. “It’s going to be splendid.” (Oh, recalling those words! If anything had happened to him, if he had been killed!) “It would please me,” I said finally, knowing he would not refuse.

The coaches were lined up in the courtyard in readiness. A footman jumped to open the door of the first carriage for Bonaparte and his aides. “The ladies will follow with Colonel Rapp,” Bonaparte instructed César, his coachman, who grinned broadly, clearly in his cups. César cracked his whip and the horses charged out the gate.

“We do not need to follow
quite
so quickly,” I instructed our driver as Hortense and Caroline were handed in. I was about to follow them when
Colonel Rapp suggested that my shawl, which is embroidered with an Egyptian motif, would look lovely arranged in the Egyptian manner, tied at the waist. I paused to change it. We owe our lives to this delay!

This next part is painful to recount. As our carriage turned the corner onto Rue Nicaise, we were thrown into the air by an explosion. Colonel Rapp yelled at us to cover our heads. I remember the sound of timbers cracking, the strong smell of gunpowder.

“It’s a plot to murder Bonaparte!” I cried out. (I’m ashamed to admit that I lost my head.) There was rubble all over the street, and what seemed to be a very great number of people, some writhing, some lying still—
bodies,
I realized with a shock. And then, slowly, a chorus of cries filled the air.

Suddenly our coach was flying pell-mell. “Stop!” I heard myself scream. The horses had bolted, taken the bit. “Turn back, they’ve killed him!” The memory of it makes me tremble even now.

Our carriage finally pulled to a stop in the Tuileries courtyard. “You will excuse me, ladies?” Colonel Rapp said, struggling with the carriage door mechanism. He hit it with his fist and jumped out.

It seems a dream to me now—much of it in fog, yet other scenes sharp, the memory painful. “There has been an explosion on the Rue Nicaise,” I heard the coachman say. “Grand Dieu, things were flying!”

I recall someone asking if the First Consul had been injured.

“I don’t think so,” our driver answered. “He went on ahead.”

“Are you all right?” I asked the girls, my voice shaky. Hortense appeared calm, though pale. “Caroline?” What a terrible thing to happen to a young woman in her delicate condition!

“Where’s a footman?” Caroline said, looking out the shattered window. “Why doesn’t someone come to hand us down?”

Hortense pulled a handkerchief out of her reticule. “Imagine what would have happened if we had left a few seconds earlier!”

If I hadn’t stopped to rearrange my shawl, if I hadn’t …

“It was just a house on fire,” Caroline said.

A footman came running. Limping after him was a cavalier with a gash under his chin, leading his horse by the reins. “The First Consul was not injured!” the cavalier said, his voice quavering.

“Thank God,” Hortense whispered.

“Are you sure?” I demanded. “Did you
see
him?”

“He is at the Opéra, Madame Bonaparte—you are to join him there. Another carriage is being prepared for you.”

I was to go to the Opéra? I wasn’t sure I could even walk! “Of course,” I said, pulling my shawl around me, as if this was what one did after a violent explosion: one proceeded to the Opéra. A prick of pain reminded me that there was glass everywhere. “What happened? Do you know?” I asked as he handed me down. I felt tremulous, but I could stand.

“Apparently a barrel of gunpowder exploded.”

“A barrel?” The explosion had lifted our carriage into the air! “Were many people hurt?”
Killed.

“I suggest you take a different route,” the soldier said over his shoulder, giving Caroline a hand.

People were crowding into the courtyard. I saw Mimi making her way through to us, wiping her hands on her apron.

“There’s been an explosion!” Hortense cried out to her.

“Bonaparte’s all right. I’m to join him at the Opéra.”

“You’re
going, Yeyette?” Mimi asked, frowning.

“I’m fine.” I needed to see Bonaparte; I needed to know he was safe.

“I’m coming with you, Maman,” Hortense said, her blue eyes swimming.

“What’s happened to your hand?” There was blood on her left thumb.

“It’s just a little cut, from the glass.”

“It has stopped bleeding,” Mimi said, examining the wound. She withdrew a patch of plaster from her pocket and secured it to Hortense’s hand with a handkerchief. “Stay close to your mother,” I heard her whisper as a carriage pulled up beside us.

“What about me?”

“Caroline, you really must—”

“I’ll look after Madame Caroline,” Mimi assured me, her hand firmly on Caroline’s shoulder.

“Best send for the midwife, just to be sure,” I called out as we pulled away. “Madame …” My mind was in a fog.

“Madame Frangeau,” Hortense called back as our carriage pulled into the roadway, the soldier escort riding alongside, his horse wild-eyed.

Bonaparte was sitting in the theatre box drinking an amber liquor. “Josephine,” he said, standing and removing his hat. And then, with a little bow, “Is something the matter?”

Did he not know? Talleyrand caught my eye, made a gesture with his hand behind Bonaparte’s back: Be quiet, stay calm, the First Consul knows, the audience is watching.

“You’re just in time,” Bonaparte said, turning toward the stage. Madame Barbier-Walbonne’s voice filled the hall—the oratorio had begun.

I wrapped my shawl around me, as if by bundling myself tightly, I might stop the trembling. Hortense put her bandaged hand on my shoulder, to calm. I stroked her fingertips. How close death had come.

Once we were back in the privacy of our suite at the Tuileries, Bonaparte’s calm gave way to fury. “Every time I turn around, someone’s trying to kill me,” he raged at Talleyrand. “Têtes des mules! It’s all these bomb-making Revolutionaries, longing for the days of anarchy and violence, the same fanatics who were responsible for the explosion at the Salpêtrière convent, no doubt.”

“And
the Opéra plot,” Talleyrand observed, propping his gold-tipped walking stick against the arm of the chair. “And likely the snuffbox plot, too, for all we know.”

“This is intolerable.” Bonaparte threw a log on the flaming fire, sending sparks flying.

“Did the Minister of Police ever convict any of these Revolutionaries?” Talleyrand asked. “His friends and colleagues, one might note.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Bonaparte demanded, his fists on his hips.

“It means that Fouché should be arrested and shot, in my opinion.” Shot! Talleyrand’s words shocked me.

“There has been enough bloodshed tonight, Minister Talleyrand,” I was relieved to hear Bonaparte say, passing off Talleyrand’s remark as a joke.

Shortly after Talleyrand left, Fouché himself was announced. “Where have you been?” Bonaparte demanded.

“At the site of the explosion, First Consul,” Fouché said, touching the brim of his battered hat. “Seven killed and over twenty injured.” Mon Dieu!

“I suggest you give your drunken coachman a réward, First Consul,” Fouché continued, tugging at his stained linen cuffs. “Had he not been so reckless, you would be dead. The keg of gunpowder appears to have been set intentionally.”

“Damned Revolutionaries!”

“They would like to murder you, certainly, but they are not guilty of this act.”

“Surely you’re not going to claim that it was the work of the Royalists,” Bonaparte scoffed. “Royalists may intrigue, but they do not stoop to violence.”

“I say it, and what’s more, I will prove it.”

January 2
,
1801
—
Malmaison.

“I’m so relieved you’re all right, darling!” Thérèse exclaimed, removing a leather mask,
^*
a cloak, a hat
and
a wig. “I very nearly died when I read the news-sheets.” She embraced me vigorously, enveloping me in a cloud of neroli oil. “How terrifying it must have been!”