The Last Great Dance on Earth
The Last Great
Dance on Earth
SANDRA GULLAND
For Chet and Carrie,
prince and princess
I will not stand before you as time passes; I will stand before you eternally.
—Oscar Bearinger, “Masks and Shadows”
In which peace seems an impossible dream
In which we have reason to fear
In which I try (but fail) to accept
In which we are very nearly killed
In which my daughter is impossible to please
In which my daughter finally marries
In which we are all of us blessed
In which Bonaparte is deceived
In which once again we have reason to fear
In which a prophecy is fulfilled
In which Bonaparte honours my son
In which my son falls truly in love
In Which we return to the camp of the enemy
In which I entertain the enemy
In which my heart is with my husband
Praise for
The Last Great Dance on Earth
La Bonaparte
I was not born for such grandeur.
—Josephine, in a letter to her daughter Hortense
March 2, 1800—Tuileries Palace, Paris.
“Josephine … Come see the moon.”
I woke with a start. A man was nudging my shoulder, his face illuminated by candlelight. “Bonaparte, it’s
you,”
I said, clasping his hand. I’d been dreaming of home, of my beautiful Martinico, dreaming of the sea. But I was not on a tropical island. I was in the dank, opulent palace, in the bed of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI—the bed of the dead. I pressed Bonaparte’s fingers against my cheek. “What time is it?”
“Almost three. Come outside with me.”
“Now?” I asked, but threw back the covers.
“It’s a little chilly,” he said, draping a cape over my shoulders.
A full moon hung over the river, bathing the gardens in a radiant light. “It reminds me of something you once wrote to me,” I said, taking Bonaparte’s hand. “That we are born, we live and we die—in the midst of the marvelous.”
“I don’t remember writing that,” he said, heading toward the steps that lead down to the flower beds.
The fertile scent of spring was heavy in the air. Bonaparte brushed off a stone bench for us to sit on. I leaned my head on his shoulder, overcome with a feeling of longing. It is the season of renewal, yet I remain barren—in spite of love, in spite of prayers.
“I think best in the open air,” Bonaparte said. “My thoughts are more
expansive.” By moonlight, in profile, he looked like a Roman statue. “See those shacks down by the laundry boats? Every citizen should have a proper home—and clean water. I’m thinking of a canal system to bring it in. And more hospitals—there should never be more than one patient to a bed. And bridges across the river would be beautiful as well as practical. Imagine it! I intend to make Paris the most beautiful city of all time.”
“You will do it,” I said, with confidence. What could stop him? Already so much has changed. Before Bonaparte, everything was chaos, and now prosperity prevails and France is made whole again—
I
am made whole again. Not long ago I was a widow, a survivor of the Terror, a frightened mother of two children. Now I look upon my life with wonder, for everywhere there is abundance—of wealth, certainly, and even glory, but mainly of heart. As Madame Bonaparte—indeed, as
Josephine
—I have felt my spirit blossom. This intense little man I married has inspired me to believe once again in heroes, in destiny, but above all in the miracle of love.
It was at this moment that I found the courage to voice the question I have long been afraid to ask: “Bonaparte, what if …?” What if we can’t have a child?
An owl’s plaintive call pierced the night silence. “We must not give up hope,” Bonaparte said gently. “Destiny has blessed us in so many ways.”
Blessed me, certainly—blessed Hortense and Eugène, my fatherless children.
“You
have blessed us,” I told him truly.
Je le veux,
Bonaparte so often says. I will it!
If only he could will a child into being.
March 6.
Tonight, after a performance at the Opéra, Bonaparte was thrown a bouquet by a girl in a revealing gown, her plaited straw bonnet tied with blue ribbons. “I’ll hold that,” I offered.
Later I discovered a note tucked in it, inviting the First Consul to a rendezvous. I threw it into the fire. Daily, it seems, Bonaparte receives an invitation from some young maiden eager to sacrifice her virtue to “the saviour of France.”
March 7.
I knew from the way Bonaparte pitched his battered tricorne hat across the room that the news was not good. “They refused my offer of an armistice,” he said with a tone of defeat. His hat missed the chair and fell onto the carpet, startling the three pugs sleeping on a cushion by the fire.
“Again?”
“Refused to even consider it.” Bonaparte threw himself into the down-stuffed armchair; two feathers floated free. “Refused to even
discuss
it.” His cheek twitched.
“Pacem nolo quia infida,”
he said, mocking an English accent.
“The English said that?” I rescued Bonaparte’s hat from the pugs.
“No peace with … the infidel?” Hortense translated slowly, looking up from a charcoal sketch she was working on. She pushed a flaxen curl out of her eyes, leaving a smudge of black above her brow.
“And
we’re
the infidel?” I asked (indignant).
Bonaparte got up and began to pace, his hands clenched behind his back. “The British flog their own soldiers and accuse
us
of brutality. They violate international agreements and accuse
us
of lawlessness. They pay every Royalist nation in Europe to wage war against us and accuse
us
of starting conflicts! If they don’t want war, why don’t they try to end it?”
“Papa, you must not give up,” Hortense said with feeling. Peace is something my daughter has never known, I realized sadly. When has France not been at war with England?
“I will never give up,” Bonaparte said with quiet intensity, that spirit his soldiers call
le feu sacré:
the will to be victorious—or die.
March 9—Malmaison, our fourth-year anniversary.
We stayed all morning in bed. Bonaparte’s hopeful enthusiasm for conceiving a child makes me sad. Every time we have marital congress (often!) he names the baby—a boy, of course. This morning it was Géry—Napoleon Géry Bonaparte. Last week it was Baudouin, Gilles, Jean. Tonight, who will it be? Jacques? Benoît? Donatien?
I go along with this game, yet I know I’ll not conceive. I had a hint of a show several months ago, but no longer, in spite of the tincture of senna I take to keep my body open, the endless restoratives and expulsives I
consume—birthwort boiled in beer, syrup of savin, powdered aloe and iron—all bitter to the taste and bitter to the soul.
2:45 P.M.
—
a lovely spring afternoon.
“I have the perfect cure,” Madame Frangeau said, pulling her cap so that the lappets would hang properly. “It has never failed.”
I observed the midwife with astonishment. She was as eccentrically dressed as I’d been told to expect, her shirred gown covered with the fringes and tassels that had been the fashion before the Revolution. “Ergot?” I guessed. The mould was said to be infallible (except in my case).
“No, not ergot, not jalapa, not even scammony. Come with me.”
I followed her out of her modest abode and over the cobblestones to the door of a house on a narrow street. “Madame Frangeau,” I protested, “I don’t think I should—”
“Madame Bonaparte, I am the midwife,” she informed me with authority, pounding on the door.
And indeed, she did have authority, for all the household jumped at her command. I followed her into a bedchamber where she told a woman in bed, “Don’t stir! I have need only of your infant.” She instructed me to sit in the nursery, to slip my gown off my shoulders, whereupon, having cleansed me, she put the swaddled infant to my breast. “I will return in a half hour,” she said, and abandoned me.
I was shaken by the beauty of this week-old baby at my breast—its milky sweet smell, the silken down of its skull—but also by the humiliation I felt being tended in this way.
Dutifully, the exuberant and confident midwife returned, dispatching me with salves and herbs and instructions to “congress” at
least
once a day. “You must drown in your husband’s vital fluid.”
It is my tears I am drowning in! On return I broke down, exhausted by all the “cures” I’ve tried, frustrated by my body’s stubborn refusal to respond.
Evening, not yet 9:00 P.M.
Bonaparte pulled the cord of a little silk sachet, trying to unknot it. “Zut!” he said, slicing it with a meat knife. He shook the contents out over the dinner table. An enormous diamond glittered among the dirty china, the chicken bones, the half-empty plates of peas, plum pudding and cod-liver canapés. “A bauble for our anniversary,” he said, flicking it toward me, as if it were a plaything.
“How many carats is that?” Hortense asked, her eyes wide.
“One hundred and forty,” Bonaparte said. “King Louis XV wore it in his coronation crown. The police finally found it in a pawnshop.”
“So
this
is the Regent diamond,” I said, holding the translucent gem between my fingers, losing myself in its light.
March 10.
Time is a woman’s enemy, it is said. This morning I sat before my toilette mirror, examining my face. I am thirty-six, six years older than my husband. On impulse I sent for “my” diamond. The embroidered blue velvet case was placed reverently before me. Gently, I edged the gem out of its nest.
“Hold it at your ear,” Hortense whispered, as if we were in some sacred place.
I sat back, examining the effect in the glass.
“Pour l’amour du ciel,” the maid said, crossing herself.
By diamond light, I seemed transformed: younger. I glanced uneasily over my shoulder, imagining the spirit of Queen Marie Antoinette looking on. She knew the irresistible lure of a brilliant—and now, alas, so do I.
March 29, 1:15 P.M.
—
Tuileries Palace.
I am writing this by the light of three candles. It is afternoon, yet dark in this room, the curtains drawn against the curious eyes of the men and women in the public gardens outside.
Hortense is to join me soon. We’re going to Citoyen Despréaux’s annual—
Much later, after midnight, everyone asleep (but me).
—Citoyen Despréaux’s annual dance recital, that is.
I was interrupted earlier by Bonaparte, who showed up unexpectedly—as he does so often—humming “la Marseillaise” (badly). “I have an idea for Hortense,” he said, sitting down in his chair beside my toilette table. He picked up a crystal pot of pomade and examined the etched design, the details. “General Moreau,” he said, sniffing the pomade, rubbing some on his fingertips, then putting it back down and picking up a silver hair ornament. (Bonaparte is never still!)
“Ah,” I said, considering. General Moreau
is
a possibility—a popular general, dapper, always in powder, with the manners of a gentleman. “But too old for Hortense, perhaps?” General Moreau is close to forty, a few years older than I am, and a good ten years older than Bonaparte.
“Did I hear my name?” Hortense asked, appearing in the door.
“Your mother was telling me what a charming young lady you’ve become,” Bonaparte said with a fond look at his stepdaughter.
“Indeed! That gown looks lovely on you.” The cut flattered Hortense’s lithe figure. The silver threads shimmered in the candlelight.
“That isn’t English muslin, is it?” Bonaparte asked, frowning.
“Of course not, Papa.” Hortense made a neat pirouette.
“Bravo!” we cheered.
“But I’m having trouble with the minuet,” she said. “In the first figure, when passing, I’m to do a temps de courante
and
a demi-jeté.” “Instead of a pas de menuet?”
“Only on the first pass, Maman. Otherwise, it looks affected—or so the dance master says. And
this
pas de menuet has two demi-coupés and two pas marchés en pointe.”
“Bah,” Bonaparte said.
“Why don’t you show us,” I suggested.
“Papa, I need you to be my partner,” she said, tugging on Bonaparte’s hand.
“I’ll play one of Handel’s minuets.” I took a seat at the harpsichord.
Reluctantly, Bonaparte stood. He placed his feet in a ninety-degree turnout and stuck out his hand. “Well?” he said to me over his shoulder.
“First Consul?” Bonaparte’s secretary interrupted from the door. “Citoyen Cadoudal is here to see you.” Fauvelet Bourrienne’s chin
quivered in an attempt not to smile at the sight of Bonaparte attempting a plié. “I suggest we not keep him waiting—he’s an ox of a man, and spitting everywhere.”
“Cadoudal, the
Royalist
agent?” I asked, confused—and not a little alarmed. Cadoudal is the leader of the rebel faction—the faction intent on putting a Bourbon king back on the throne. The faction intent on deposing Bonaparte.
“He’s early,” Bonaparte said, putting on his three-cornered hat and heading out the door—relieved, no doubt, to escape the minuet.
Bonaparte’s young sister Caroline was standing outside the recital hall when Hortense and I arrived. She was dressed in a short-sleeved ball gown more suited to an evening fête; only a thin froth of organdy ruffles served for a sleeve. “Joachim will be here in five minutes,” she said, chewing on a thumbnail. “I made him practise cabrioles for a half-hour this morning.”
“Why cabrioles?” Hortense asked. “I thought you were to demonstrate a gavotte.”
“Le Maudit! We are?” Caroline took a snuffbox out of a gaudy bead reticule.
The dance master opened the door. “Ah, Madame Bonaparte—mother of my
best
pupil! How kind of you to honour us with your presence.” Citoyen Despréaux patted his brow with a neatly folded lavender handkerchief.
“My husband will be here any moment,” Caroline informed him, taking a pinch of snuff. “General Murat,” she added, in answer to the dance master’s puzzled expression.
“Of course!” Citoyen Despréaux exclaimed, casting a concerned look at Caroline’s exposed arms. “You are to perform the gavotte. Mademoiselle Hortense, if you would be so kind? I’d like to consult with you regarding the layout of the room.” With a studied balletic motion, Citoyen Despréaux gestured my daughter in.
“I’ll see you after, sweetheart,” I told Hortense, blowing her a kiss. “Is your mother inside?” I asked Caroline, lingering. She seemed forlorn, all alone.
“She’s not coming,” Caroline said, snapping the snuffbox shut. “She’s visiting Pauline today.” This with a hint of chagrin. Of Bonaparte’s three sisters, beautiful (and spoiled) Pauline is clearly the favourite. Elisa, although plain, is lauded as “literary” … and young Caroline? Poor Caroline is illiterate and, although not plain, with her common extremities, thick neck, muscular build and what Bonaparte calls a “warrior spirit,” she is certainly not what one would ever call
engaging.
“Ah, there’s your husband,” I said. It was all I could do not to smile watching Joachim Murat swagger toward us, a big, muscular soldier dressed entirely in bright pink: a pink velvet coat with tails, pink satin knee breeches, even a flat pink hat embellished with pink-and-black striped feathers.