Читать книгу The Last Love - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 30

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The days passed rapidly. Napoleon spent interminable hours in the war offices, perfecting his plan of campaign and settling the most important points of supply and equipment. It had been agreed that he could take his own staff of aides and he had already selected a group including Junot, Murat, Marmont, Desaix—thus introducing for the first time names which will resound as long as the Napoleonic saga is remembered.

Each day he managed somehow to have a few minutes with Josephine, and each day he proposed to her again. Her answer was always the same, No, No, No!

“But, ma foi!” he would protest. “You cannot mean it. I love you so much. It is inconceivable that I can lose you.”

“Marriage, my brave general,” Josephine would respond, “is a matter of mutual consent. The determination of one is not enough. Tiens! M’sieur Vendemiaire, am I not to have a say in this?”

“You do not love me, then?”

This question would inevitably lead to much discussion. She loved him, yes, she would say. But did she love him enough? She was disposed to think not.

Napoleon was aware there was a story all over Paris that he had been given his appointment for taking Josephine off the hands of Barras. The latter was planning to move into the Luxembourg Palace from his relatively small house in the Rue Basse-Pierre and would then begin to entertain on a lavish scale. As titular head of the nation, he could no longer permit the widow Beauharnais to serve as his official hostess. And so, ran the rumor, he was providing a husband for her.

This did not shake Napoleon’s resolution. In the first place, he knew the story to be untrue. There had been no “deal.” At the same time he realized that a less suitable match could not have been found for either of them. His only income was the enhanced salary he would receive in his new post, and so, in all common sense, he should marry a woman of property. It had not taken him long to discover that the Fair Creole was living in desperate though genteel poverty. Her lease on the house in the Rue Chantereine had more than a year to run and would be taken care of by Barras. Her two children were at fashionable schools which meant a heavy drain on a purse as frail as its owner’s morals. Hortense, her daughter, was actually at Madame Cambon’s, perhaps the most exclusive and expensive on the continent. The money to send them, however, was provided by Josephine’s mother who still lived in some degree of comfort in Martinique.

The household on the Rue Chantereine resembled nothing so much as a slack-wire walker keeping half a dozen balls in the air at once. Josephine did not hesitate to borrow from her servants and they seemed happy to comply. Gonthier, the butler, was a diplomat of rare parts. Each morning he took a basket to the markets, where he argued, bullied, beseeched, and cajoled what he needed from the grumbling merchants. There were never any bills at the butcher’s because her friends sent in large baskets of food to her every week. Josephine’s only source of income came through her influence at the offices of the Customs. She was allowed to bring in duty-free large quantities of silk stockings and fine lingerie, which she sold to friends.

Napoleon was fully aware that she was running up bills with a charming prodigality which inevitably would lead to a resounding crash.

Finally, he knew that she was thirty-two years old to his twenty-six. A most unsuitable match indeed!

For her part Josephine was giving some consideration to the possibility of accepting this persistent young man. The time had come when she must find a husband to assume the burden of her butterfly existence. But almost without exception her friends protested that Napoleon was the least suitable of the many suitors who had presented themselves. This Corsican nullité! If he lost his first battle—and it was generally anticipated that he would—he would be demoted at once. Her children were shrill in their opposition. “That one, that skin-and-bones!” stormed Hortense. “Maman, he will never do!” Both Hortense and Eugene, the son, contrasted the sallow Napoleon with General Hoche who was handsome in a Herculean way.

Still, her stock was dwindling on the matrimonial exchange. Perhaps this determined young officer would be a great success and be able to keep her in luxury. A point in his favor was that none of the other men who desired her had ever spoken in terms of love. Every sentence he spoke, every note he sent her, was filled with burning words of devotion. Surely his love for her was such that she would be able to keep him in subjection by the twiddling of a finger.

One morning Napoleon rose early, shaved with great care, and left his headquarters in the Rue Neuve-des-Capucines, humming to himself (off key as always) a recent popular song:

When you always know how to please

You are never more than twenty.

He knew that Josephine would still be in bed and entertaining callers, a curious custom which had persisted throughout the century. This proved to be the case. When Gonthier admitted him, he heard many voices and much restrained laughter from the direction of the bedroom. There were several canes and male hats in the vestibule as well as expensive feminine cloaks, lined or trimmed with fur. This was to be expected, for outside a brisk March wind was blowing and enough snow had fallen to conceal the early flowers.

When Gonthier announced him, the company grouped about the bed went suddenly silent. He heard a male voice mutter, “That one!” in a disgusted tone.

“An unexpected honor, m’sieur le général,” said Josephine, with a welcoming smile.

Despite the earliness of the hour, it was evident that she had not neglected the long rites with which she began her days. She had been in the hands of her maids for a full hour, undergoing the faire sa tête. This consisted first of the massaging of her face and neck and shoulders and the skillful application of rouge to conceal the ravages of time. The chemise she had worn while sleeping had been replaced by a camisole of the most delicate percale with trimmings of Valenciennes at the neck and sleeves. Her nightcap had given way to a fresh one of embroidered muslin, delicately trimmed with lace. It was apparent that her coiffure had been completed, for her thick and slightly auburn hair (which remained thick and became increasingly auburn all the years of her life) was in perfect order. A cup containing the remains of an infusion, her inevitable first meal of the day, stood on a chair at her right hand.

“I regret this interruption,” said Napoleon. “But it happens I have something for your ears which I feel should not be delayed in the telling.”

Josephine waved a white hand in the direction of her dressing room. “Do you mind?” she asked the half dozen visitors who sat about the room or lounged on the foot of her bed. “I am sure it is a matter of urgency or m’sieur le général would not have come at so early an hour.”

The other visitors quickly dissolved from view. Napoleon removed the half-emptied cup from the chair and sat down himself.

“Sweet and incomparable Josephine,” he said, using a phrase which often appeared in his letters to her, “I received my final orders this morning. I must leave for the front in three days. Do you appreciate what this means, my fair one?”

“It means,” said Josephine, with her warmest smile, “that I shall be deprived of your company much sooner than I had expected. It is a great misfortune, my dear general.”

The smile which Napoleon had worn into the room left his face and was replaced by an expression of stern determination. “It means much more, mio dolce amor. It means that for us it is a case of now or never. And permit me to point out that now means today.”

“Napoleoni!” exclaimed the slender occupant of the bed, using for the first time a name he had often begged her to employ. “Today? Truly, that is nonsense. It is impossible. Even if I had decided to marry you, which I have not done—No, no, my Napoleoni, I have not indeed—it would be out of the question to make the necessary arrangements. Today? Every minute of the time is filled with engagements!”

“Break them!” commanded Napoleon. “They cannot be of sufficient consequence to delay our union, dearest Josephine. I shall leave here at once to make the necessary arrangements for the ceremony. It is a simple one, as you know.” He stooped to pick up a gown which had fallen by the side of the bed, a trifling thing of India mousseline de soie. “Is this what you were planning to wear today? It will do perfectly for the ceremony. Dismiss your friends and begin to pack what you must take.”

“But, my impetuous one!” cried Josephine, “you cannot compel me to do what you wish!”

At this juncture Gonthier rapped discreetly and then entered the room. “Madame,” he said, “M. Raguideau is here. He says he has an appointment with you.”

Josephine grasped at this opportune interruption. She said to the butler: “Have him wait five minutes. Then show him in.” To Napoleon she explained in a whisper: “I had forgotten he was coming. But truly it is a matter of great importance. He is my man of affairs, my lawyer. Please go now and come back later.”

“I know who he is and I’ve heard him well spoken of.” Napoleon was frowning still more ominously. “I will go. As far as that window. He won’t see me, this excellent man of affairs, but I will see him. And I will hear what he has to say.”

There was no time for expostulation. Josephine bit her lips as Napoleon stepped to the window embrasure and concealed himself behind the curtains. The notary, a middle-aged man with a heavy beard, bowed himself as far into the room as the foot of the bed, behind which he paused.

“Good morning, madame,” he said. “It is a beautiful morning.”

“Is it, m’sieur?” Josephine’s voice had taken on a plaintive note. “I have been hoping it would prove a day of heavy rain with perhaps thunder and some quaking of the earth. The kind of weather which would prevent me from leaving the house under any circumstances.”

The notary looked much surprised. “Indeed, madame? I am surprised in view of the matters I have come to discuss with you.”

The lady glanced apprehensively in the direction of the curtains behind which Napoleon had placed himself. “You have brought the papers I asked for? Particularly the statement of my financial standing?”

The whiskers of M. Raguideau seemed to curl with a sense of amusement. “You are well aware, of course, of the far from substantial nature of what we might call your estate?”

“Quite, m’sieur. I am quite aware that I have no assets. And that in addition I am much in debt.”

The notary nodded his head. “Yes, dear madame, you are much in debt. But you have assets. True they are in the nature of intangibles. The affection of your many friends. The—the ties which exist. The possibilities which the future may hold for you.”

“If I were to marry now,” pursued Josephine, deciding to let the eavesdropper learn everything about her affairs, “I would have little to contribute to the union.”

M. Raguideau drew down the corners of his mouth and gestured with both hands. “Nothing. Your beauty, madame, your great charms, the esteem of people in high places. But nothing else!”

“Have you any advice then to give me as to the suitability of a certain soldier who must go unnamed?”

There was a moment of silence. The man of business then raised his hands in another gesture, this time to denote uncertainty. “This is what I must say to you. Inasmuch as you have no property of your own, the young man in question, who is also penniless, is utterly unsuitable. He may be destined for great things. But that is a matter of the future. At the moment he has only his cloak and sword.”

“You feel, then, it would be a mistake to marry him?”

“A mistake? Madame, a catastrophe! What you need, with your beautiful children, is a husband of substance. A man with investments in the funds, land, fine estates. A banker, perhaps. Or an industrialist.”

“Thank you, M. Raguideau. You have been very honest.”

“But wait, madame la vicomtesse! I owe it to myself to speak as I have done. But I owe it to you to add something. This young general is a man of strange caliber. It is conceivable that he may become in time a very great man indeed. Perhaps the gamble is one which after all should be taken. As your notary, I advise against the match. As one who sincerely desires the best for you, I am not as sure you should say no to him.”

The curtains parted and Napoleon stepped out from the embrasure. He was wearing a pleased and confident smile. “I have heard this discussion,” he declared. “You have spoken like a man of honor, m’sieur le notary. I thank you. Madame de Beauharnais and I had made up our minds to be married today. I will consider it an honor if you will personally draw up the marriage papers. At once, for we must take the vows tonight. May I add that I am certain we can put our trust in you and that I desire you to continue as our adviser. It may be that some day it will be of very considerable importance.” He raised Josephine’s hand to his lips. “I must leave you now, my precious one. But I shall keep in constant contact with you during the day. Junot, one of my aides, will be assigned to post back and forth between us. Even”—with a side smile for the benefit of the man of affairs—“if we have torrential rains and earthquakes.”

Josephine had not missed the byplay and there was a hint of petulance in her voice when she addressed the notary. “Are you deserting me, M. Raguideau? You must see that we are facing a man of great determination. What am I to do?”

“Marry him, madame. That is the best thing for you to do.”