The Second Empress Read online

  “Thank you.” I bend to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be back tonight,” I promise. “And when I come, I’ll return your soldier.” But it breaks my heart to think of him in here, trapped in this room like an animal.

  “We should go,” Hortense presses, but I can’t leave him like this.

  “How much time does he have to play?” I ask.

  Monsieur Laurent frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “On his wooden horse. Or with his soldiers. When does he play?”

  “That’s what the evening is for, Your Majesty. The day is for work.”

  “At sixteen months old?”

  “These are the emperor’s instructions.” He grows flustered. “I don’t understand—”

  But I do. “There will be new instructions tomorrow.”

  As we leave the nursery, Franz follows me to the door.

  WE REACH THE Council Chamber. I take my seat to Napoleon’s right and look out at the grandeur. If I live for another fifty years in the Tuileries Palace, I will never cease to be amazed by its beauty. Gilded panels of laurel and flower motifs soar toward the ceiling, where angels take flight across the painted dome. Napoleon passes me a look, and when I nod, he shouts into the room for silence.

  “As you know,” he begins, “our war with Russia is at its start. Tomorrow, on the twenty-fourth of June, the imperial army will march toward Moscow to defeat our enemy.”

  This is when I should beg him not to go, when I should risk his displeasure to be the voice of reason and warn him against this. But the thought of his anger is too uncomfortable, and the pleasure of his leaving too great. His advisers breathe furiously, and the only sound in the room is the creaking of leather chairs.

  “In mere weeks,” he continues jubilantly, “our empire will touch borders it’s never seen.” He looks around the chamber. But if he’s expecting applause, he’s disappointed. “In my absence,” he goes on, “and in all further absences of mine in France, I am leaving the regency in capable hands.”

  The men shift in their seats, and I notice Pauline look to her sister Caroline.

  “Empress Marie-Louise, my wife and the mother to the king of Rome, shall be governing in my place.”

  There’s a gasp in the chamber so loud that it echoes from the walls. Then everyone begins shouting at once. I hear murmurs of, “Twenty-one years old … she’s only twenty-one!” Then the noise grows deafening.

  “Silence!” Napoleon shouts, but even the ministers are ignoring him. “THERE WILL BE SILENCE!”

  The room goes quiet, and all eyes focus on me.

  “The commands my wife gives are my commands. The laws my wife enacts are my laws. No one shall disobey her, or they disobey me.”

  The regency of France has fallen to me. That the emperor should choose his young Austrian bride over all his siblings and ministers speaks loudly to the entire Bonaparte clan.

  “There will be letters from me daily. If anyone”—and his gaze falls to his sisters—“should think to challenge the empress, she will remove them from France.”

  I don’t remember what is spoken after this. Napoleon talks about weapons and twenty short days. But it is only when we have returned to our apartments and Hortense is holding out lemon water for me that I realize the magnitude of what has happened. I am the emperor of France. And the world is going back to war. It is as my father said. “So long as there is Napoleon,” he warned, “there will never be peace.”

  BUT THE NEXT morning, as I make my way to the nursery, I execute my first command. “Good morning, Monsieur Laurent.”

  He bows. “Your Majesty.”

  “From now on,” I instruct him, “my son will enjoy more playtime. Half of the morning, and at least one hour in the afternoon. These are the emperor’s new instructions.”

  CHAPTER 23

  PAULINE BORGHESE

  Hautecombe Abbey, Savoy, France September 1812

  I STEP CLOSE TO THE WINDOW OF THE LIGHTHOUSE AND let the autumn wind blow in my hair. The last rays of light are fading beneath the lake of Hautecombe Abbey, and the water looks like a stretch of liquid gold. I came to this monastery after my son, Dermide, was taken by the fever. I found peace and solitude then in these walls. I hope I can find it again.

  I touch the cool stones and close my eyes. My brother should be in Moscow by now. Nearly seven hundred thousand men left with him to defeat the arrogant Russian czar, but for over three months, the cowardly Russians have refused to give battle. In Moscow, however, there will be no retreat. The Russians will be forced to fight or lose the most precious jewel in their crown. So this is where I’ll stay until my brother comes home.

  Steps echo in the stairwell, and I know it is Paul coming to bring me my medicine. He believes the Russians have the advantage, since they know their own land and can survive the severe weather. If winter comes before this war is finished, he says, our soldiers will die of cold before anything else. Dear God, be with my brother right now, and extend Your protection to de Canouville, who is carrying my silver locket and has not returned since Spain. If they have ever sinned against you, I pray for forgiveness on their behalves.

  “Your Highness, it’s time.”

  Time. The Egyptians understood that we aren’t given much time on this earth. From the moment they were old enough to earn, they began collecting precious items for their tombs: linens, bowls, jars for makeup, religious scrolls. Those who could afford it added expensive sandals and heavy jewels. You must greet the afterlife prepared. After all, none of us know how much time we are given. Seven months ago I promised Paul we would return to Haiti. Yet look at us now—praying like monks in Hautecombe Abbey. Of course, Paul understands that we can’t possibly leave my brother like this. When we return to Haiti, it must be as conquerors. He as its king, and me as his consort.

  Paul offers me his arm, and we cross the fields to the abbey together. “Any news?” I ask him. The setting sun has turned his skin deep bronze, and his eyes are almost black in the fading light.

  “None. The messengers say we shouldn’t expect anything for at least three days.”

  “Three days?” I repeat. That’s impossible! “What will we do?”

  “Wait,” he says simply.

  But I can’t accept it. “There has to be someone who knows what’s happening in Moscow.”

  “Yes, and they’re going to the Tuileries to report to the empress.”

  I think of Marie-Louise in Napoleon’s chair, seated like the Queen of the World in his Council Chamber, and a fire burns in my stomach. There is no one more loyal to Napoleon than me. The moment I heard he was making that child—an Austrian, no less—the regent of France, I packed my bags and was gone the next morning. The rest of my family can do as they please, but at least there will be one female Bonaparte with some pride. Did he really think we would all sit in that chamber while Her Majesty issues her commands? When he might have made me regent?

  We reach the abbey, and I exhale.

  “Tired?” Paul asks.

  “A little.”

  He glances behind us, and I know what he’s thinking. It’s a short walk from here to the lighthouse. “Perhaps we should sit by the fire and read.”

  Inside, I follow him into the library, with its warm, plush carpets and crackling fire. I seat myself on the widest divan, and he takes a stool, opening Cinna to the page where we left off. My brother has seen this tragedy performed twelve times, and I have gone to at least half a dozen. It is a story of mercy and gratitude, of ruling prudently and watching your enemies. He who forgives readily only invites offense. It is the greatest line from Pierre Corneille’s play, in my opinion. Yet my brother prefers Ambition displeases when it has been sated … having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.

  I hope it is not descending now.

  CHAPTER 24

  PAUL MOREAU

  Saint-Cloud, outside Paris October 1812

  I LOOK AT THE COURTIER, IN HIS MUDDIED BOOTS AND rain-drenched coat, and I wonder if it was her brother
who sent him, or some kind-hearted general who discovered the silver locket with her picture inside. “I’m sorry, monsieur, but I cannot be the one to tell her.”

  The young man loses some of his coloring, but I will not be the one to deliver this news. “Should I …” He looks past my shoulder into the hall. “Do I—”

  “I can take you to her. She’s in the salon.” He follows me down the candlelit hall, and the sound of our boots echoes against the stones.

  “Does she come here often?” he asks.

  He’s wondering if the princess makes a habit of living in such gloomy places. “Only when she’s truly ill.”

  I open the door to the salon, and the princess is curled up on the chaise near the fire. She’s been in the same position all day, suffering from her stomach pains and nausea. But as soon as she sees the soldier, she rises.

  “Napoleon?”

  The young man lowers his eyes. “Your Highness,” he begins. “The honorable Captain Armand-Jules-Élisabeth de Canouville has died.”

  She screams, and I grab her hands before she can reach for his eyes. “You’re lying. He’s lying! He isn’t dead. Show me the proof. I want proof!”

  The courtier reaches a trembling hand into his vest and produces the locket. “He was wearing this when he died, Your Highness. I’m sorry.”

  She grabs the locket from his hand and forces it open. Inside is a portrait of Pauline, beautiful and vivid. “It isn’t happening.” She begins to shake. I take the locket from her hands and guide her to the chaise, wondering about the other man she condemned to death. Will his fiancée be given anything to remember him by, or will he die a nameless death like so many soldiers do? I look to the courtier and nod for him to go.

  “No! Tell me what’s happening on the fronts!”

  The courtier looks down, and Pauline clutches her stomach.

  He doesn’t know how to tell her that France’s Grande Armée, which arrived in Russia nearly seven hundred thousand strong, is now a little more than a hundred thousand men. Three months, and half a million men are either captured or dead. Another hundred thousand have fled for their lives. When I heard this from a soldier outside the abbey, I hadn’t believed it, either.

  “Your Highness,” he starts bravely, “Moscow has been won—”

  She looks from me to the courtier, then back again. “So why—”

  “The city has been burned by the Russians, and what remains of your brother’s army is waiting for word from the czar.”

  “Why do you say ‘what remains’?” she whispers.

  The courtier hesitates. “Only a seventh of his army remains.” He reaches into his coat and pulls out a letter. “From a Württemberg cavalry officer,” he says. His voice is shaking, but he reads aloud. “ ‘From Lieutenant Heinrich August Vossler,’ ” he begins.

  The ravages of cold are equaled only by those of hunger. No food is so rotten or disgusting as to not find someone to relish it. No fallen horse or cattle remains uneaten. No dog, no cat, no carrion, nor, indeed, the corpses of those that died of cold or hunger, go untouched. It is not unknown for men to gnaw at their own famished bodies. But it’s not only men’s bodies which are suffering unspeakably. Their minds, too, have become deeply affected by the combined assault of extreme cold and hunger. All human compassion seems to have vanished; we care only for ourselves and our comrades be damned. I have actually watched men lie down and die with complete indifference, and I’ve witnessed other men sit on the corpses of the fallen so they won’t have to touch the snow near the fireside. Dull despair or raving madness has taken possession of many, and they die muttering, with their last breath, the most horrible imprecations against God and man.

  There is no consoling her. She collapses to the floor.

  CHAPTER 25

  MARIE-LOUISE

  Tuileries Palace, Paris December 1812

  THERE IS SNOW IN PARIS. I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW OF THE Council Chamber, and everything is white: the benches, the fountains, even the trees. My son is outside with Sigi, so his tutor can explain the origin of ice. In three months, Franz will be two years old. Monsieur Laurent tells me that he already has a few hundred words, including garden and paint.

  Behind me, the Duc de Feltre clears his throat. “Is Your Majesty ready?”

  The daily meeting of the Regency Council is set to begin, and the men at the table are waiting on me. I glance one last time at the winter gardens. “Yes, I am ready.”

  I follow my husband’s Minister of War to the long council table and take my place in the emperor’s seat. In this chair, with its soft velvet arms and padded back, I learned of the deaths of nearly half a million men. Some died of the war plague, others of starvation, but most of them were blown to pieces in battle. And when all of it was done, and Moscow was burned to the ground, the wreckage belonged to my husband.

  He waited five weeks to hear from the czar. Thirty-five days in disease-infested encampments, while winter crept like the specter of death all around. And when no word came, he instructed his soldiers to begin the trek home.

  Reports from the march have been too chilling to comprehend. Sick soldiers abandoned on the sides of the roads, left for the Russians to mutilate and torture. Men crying for their mothers as they expire from hunger, delirious. They tell us it’s twenty below zero in Moscow, and that when a soldier speaks, his breath freezes in the air. This is what my husband conjured with his lust for war. This is what I did nothing to prevent. I look around the chamber. None of these men wanted a fight with Russia. My husband took no one’s counsel but his own.

  “There is news, Your Majesty,” the duc informs me. But there is always news, and it is always dismal. “The emperor of France is returning home.” The Minister of War looks sheepish. “He is coming ahead of his men by sleigh.”

  I rise from the table. “He’s abandoning our army?” My father would sooner die than flee from his own decimated army.

  The duc raises his hands. “Never, Your Majesty.”

  I picture the scene. Napoleon, creeping in the dead of night toward a sleigh hitched to a dozen dogs. The coward. The arrogant, selfish coward … “He sent five hundred thousand men to their deaths—”

  “Not quite five hundred thousand.”

  “I have seen the lists!” I shout. “Every day. The missing, the casualties, the wounded.” He is traveling across the ice by sleigh. The emperor of France! The image is ludicrous. “What will you tell him when he arrives?”

  The duc clears his throat. “That if he hopes to keep his crown, he will act swiftly. There is talk of a coup in Paris.”

  “A revolution?” My aunt’s greatest error was in not believing the meaning of this word.

  “I wouldn’t say revolution … yet.”

  “And what do the people want?”

  The duc lowers his gaze. “Their sons and husbands back.”

  No one speaks. I am sickened by the heartache that will be felt by the mothers and wives whose tables will be empty come Christmas. Conscription was for men from sixteen to sixty, which means there will be women in France who have lost both their husbands and their sons in Russia. It’s a blood tax no house should ever have to pay. I think of my own son and could weep.

  I should have done more. When Napoleon left, I should have begged him to make peace with the czar. But I was selfish, and all I could think about was the many ways my life would be better without him in France.

  The duc hands me a paper. “We will release the Twenty-ninth Bulletin today.” It looks the same as the Twenty-eighth. “If Your Majesty would care to read it …”

  It begins with a description of Napoleon’s losses. Then it details all the hardships of Russia: the muddy roads, the frozen rivers, but most distressingly, the weather. According to the 29th Bulletin, it is the snow that is to blame for Napoleon’s defeat. Not ambition or greed, but the bitter cold. And then it ends: “The health of His Majesty has never been better.”

  I look at the solemn faces in the Regency Council and tel
l them plainly, “He has lost his mind.”

  No one contradicts me.

  SEVEN DAYS PASS, and there is no word of the emperor. I sit in my son’s nursery with Hortense, and we guess what might happen when he arrives. “He will rebuild his army,” she says.

  “There are always boys willing to fight for land and glory.” She looks at Franz on his wooden horse, and tears well in her eyes. “My husband says Napoleon is all my sons talk about,” she admits. “They want to dress like soldiers and play mock battles.”

  “They’re young,” I tell her. “They haven’t seen bloodshed. It’s different when your gun is real and it has to take a man’s life.” This is what my father replied when I wrote to him about Franz’s love of swords. Now that I’m regent, his letters come to me once a week.

  “Even your son will wish to go to war someday. It’s what little boys grow up to do.”

  “Not mine.”

  But she looks at me pityingly. “We warned him,” Hortense says quietly. She is dressed in a heavy blue gown, and the white fur at her collar was a gift from Napoleon. For all his greed, he has never been miserly. “Even my mother told him that building an empire was reaching too high. Why not be satisfied with France? Why did he have to try for Egypt and Russia?”

  Or Austria and Poland? “What does your mother say now?”

  She searches my face, and when she’s sure that I’m not angry that Joséphine is communicating with my husband, she tells me, “She fears for him. She thinks Britain will smell blood and come to France for the kill. He has always hated Britain. Napoleon doesn’t feel that George III is worthy to rule it.”

  “I’ve read the papers,” I tell her. “They said it before my marriage, and now they’re saying it again: that your mother was his talisman. That she was his lucky star, and that by casting her away, he also cast off her glow.”