Desiree by Annemarie Selinko
The roar of the crowd redoubled as Lafayette made room for me. Remembering Josephine’s advice, I had asked for a footstool so as not to be too small for a Crown Princess, and I mounted it now. With both hands I held the sword out of the window into the torch-lit darkness below. A few words were being shouted over and over again; in the end I caught them – ‘Notre-Dame de la Paix! Notre-Dame de la Paix!’
‘Our Lady of Peace,’ they were calling me, ‘Our Lady of Peace!’ I wept – I could not but weep.
Lafayette pushed Count Rosen towards the window, seized a candelabrum, and let its light fall on Rosen’s Swedish uniform and blue and yellow sash. ‘Sweden, long live Sweden!’ was shouted up from the street, and again, ‘Notre-Dame de la Paix!’
The window was closed as I went back into the room, feeling suddenly strange and forlorn among the excited groups of Deputies. Unfortunately they showed no sign of leaving. I put the sword on the table under the portrait of the First Consul, and decided that I must offer the Deputies something to eat and drink. But all I had apart from wine were the cherries we had meant to bottle. So Marie and I gave them to the representatives of the nation, who fairly fell on them. I remembered the people outside in the street who had had to form queues for every bit of food in recent days, and I told Marie and the chef to let them have all the flour we had stored away in the cellar.
Talleyrand was the first to notice that something was wrong with my knee. ‘Is Your Highness hurt?’ he asked as I limped toward the door.
‘No, only – a bit tired.’
He raised his lorgnette to his eyes. ‘Our Republican friend the Marquis de Lafayette seems to be an old favourite of Your Highness!’
The tone in which he said it made me furious. ‘He’s the only man with clean hands in this room,’ I said.
‘Naturally, Your Highness! He has spent all these years planting cabbages in the country and so has kept his hands clean!’
‘Philosophers,’ I said, ‘in quiet backwaters—’
‘—Are always a dictator’s best subjects!’
He listened to the noise of the flour distribution outside.
Lafayette came. ‘How kind you are, my child! First you secure peace, and now food!’
‘How kind, and how clever!’ said Talleyrand, and smiled, taking at the same time a glass of wine from a servant. ‘The small country of the North and its great future: to secure peace – and food! To Sweden, Your Highness!’
Just then I saw that Fouché was about to take the sword. ‘Oh no,’ I called out, and limped quickly towards him.
‘But the French Government—’ he urged.
For the first time I noticed the greedy glint in his eyes. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘the sword has been handed to the allies and not to the French Government. I shall keep it till General Blücher and Wellington decide what to do with it.’ I took it from him and, as my knee hurt badly, went up with it to my bedroom, leaving the Deputies to argue together for I don’t know how long.
Marie undressed me. She shook her head at my blue and swollen knee.
The street outside had become quiet, and I started writing my diary. And over the writing of it morning has dawned.
Papa, Lafayette has grown old. And your pamphlet with the declaration of the Rights of Man is probably in Sweden now.
Only ninety days – no, about a hundred, have passed since Napoleon’s return from Elba, a hundred days like so many eternities.
In the Battle of Leipzig my old Jean-Baptiste died, and young Désirée breathed her last in the maze at Malmaison. How shall these twain ever come together again?
Papa, I don’t think I shall ever again write in my diary.
*Translator’s note: This is a play on the German meaning of the French name La Flotte, ‘the navy’.
PART 4
Queen of Sweden
Paris. February 1818
I was at the piano, trying to play a new piece Oscar has composed, when the Swedish Ambassador was announced. I was pleased at his visit, for this dark, rainy afternoon was just right for a cup of tea in company.
But on entering he closed the door and remained standing there, with the whole room between us. As he didn’t stir from the door I got up to go to meet him. Then he bowed very low, very ceremoniously, and I noticed the black band round his arm.
‘Your Majesty!’
He straightened up slowly. ‘Your Majesty, I have come with sad news. King Charles died on February the 5th.’
I stood paralysed. I hardly knew the small shaky King. But his death meant—
‘His Majesty has commissioned me to inform Your Majesty of the circumstances of the King’s death and to hand to you this letter.’
I made no move. The Ambassador came up to me and held out a sealed letter.
Hesitantly I took the letter. ‘Sit down, Baron,’ I said, and sank into the nearest chair. My hands trembled as I opened the letter. It was a big sheet on which Jean-Baptiste had scribbled in haste: ‘Dearest, You are now the Queen of Sweden. Please conduct yourself accordingly. In haste – Your J.-B.
‘PS. Don’t forget to destroy this letter at once.’
I dropped the sheet and smiled – and remembered that the Ambassador was watching me. Quickly I tried to put on a face full of sad dignity. ‘My husband writes that I am now the Queen of Sweden and Norway,’ I said gravely. The Ambassador smiled, I should have liked to know why.
‘His Majesty,’ said the Ambassador, ‘was proclaimed King Charles John XIV of Sweden and Norway by the heralds on February 6th, and his wife Her Majesty Queen Desideria.’
‘Jean-Baptiste ought never to have allowed me to be called Desideria. How did His Majesty die?’
‘His Majesty had a very easy death. He had a stroke on the first of February 1st. Two days later it was known that the end was near. His Majesty and His Highness the Crown Prince kept vigil in the sick-room.’
I tried to visualise the scene: the castle in Stockholm, the crowded sick-room, Jean-Baptiste, Oscar – Crown Prince Oscar! – the Queen, Princess Sofia Albertina – and who else? The Ambassador told me who else had been there and in the adjoining room, and he also told me how the King never took his eyes from Jean-Baptiste and how gradually his breath grew slower and fainter, till it was all over.
The Ambassador went on to tell me of Jean-Baptiste’s first acts as the new ruler! He told me that the coronation was to take place on May 11th.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘May 11th?’
‘Did His Majesty have a special reason for the choice of that particular day?’ asked the Ambassador.
‘On May 11th it will be exactly twenty-five years since Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was promoted Sergeant in the French Army. It was a great day in my husband’s life.’
‘Yes, quite, Your Majesty!’
I rang for tea, which we took with Marceline, who, of course, knew nothing. When she learned the news she was so startled that she dropped her teacup.
The Ambassador left. Marceline, since dropping her cup, had stared steadily at me in awe. ‘Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden and Norway!’ she said slowly, and continued to stare at me.
‘I’ll have to get some mourning dresses to-morrow,’ I said, and went back to the piano. Once more I looked at the music composed by Oscar, Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, once more I touched the keys, and then I closed the lid.
‘I shall never play the piano again, Marceline,’ I said.
‘Why not, Aunt?’
‘Because I play too badly for a Queen.’
‘Now we shall not be able to go and see Aunt Julie. You will have to go to Stockholm, I suppose. Aunt Julie was looking forward so much to your visit.’
‘She can still count on it,’ I said, and went to my bedroom to lie down.
‘Julie Bonaparte,’ I thought, ‘away in Brussels, exiled like all those who bear the name of Bonaparte.’ Ever since the Hundred Days I had been writing to ask Louis XVIII to grant Julie permission to return, and again and again I had received a very courteous refusal. And aft
er every refusal I had gone to Brussels to console my inconsolable Julie. Joseph? He went to America under the name of Count Survillier, bought a farm near New York, and wrote contented letters in which he fondly imagined that Julie would soon be well enough to follow him. In her state of health, how could she?
And Hortense? Accompanied by Count Flahault she had managed to escape to Switzerland, darkly hinting at her departure that one of them would come back and be the Third. And when I asked who and as what, she said, ‘One of my sons, Madame, Napoleon – the Third!’
Not all had been lucky enough to escape like Hortense. Marshal Ney was caught, sentenced to death and executed. Many others who were on the lists of proscribed Republicans and Bonapartists suffered exile at the hands of Louis XVIII, or prison, or death. And the man who had handed the lists of proscriptions to King Louis, Fouché, what had happened to him? The King made him his Minister of Police in recognition of his services as a traitor. But when the lists of the proscribed had come to an end King Louis thought it time to exile his Minister of Police. And the rest of the Bonapartes? They lived in Italy.
But I was still here, and now I might even have to endure a visit of condolence from King Louis.
Marie came in and lit the candles. ‘She’ll grumble at me,’ I thought, ‘for lying on my bed with my shoes on.’ But she only held up the light to see my face – and she looked at me in much the same way as Marceline had done.
‘Don’t be annoyed,’ I said, ‘I’ll take my shoes off.’
‘Your niece has told me everything. You might have told me yourself.’
‘I know what you are thinking,’ I said. ‘You think that Papa wouldn’t have liked it. I know that myself, without your telling me.’
She undressed me.
‘If you have to be a Queen, be at least a good one. When are we leaving for Stockholm?’
I took the letter. Scribbled in such haste, I noticed, full of fear that I might be unworthy of him. I held it to the candle and burned it.
‘Well, when are we leaving, Eugenie?’
‘In three days. That means I shan’t have any time left to receive King Louis. By the way, we’re going to Brussels. Julie needs me and in Stockholm I’m quite superfluous.’
‘But they can’t have a coronation without us!’
I looked for my book, and for the first time for years I started writing my diary again.
It really has happened to me: I am Queen of Sweden!
Paris. June 1821
Among the letters on my breakfast table to-day was one with a dark-green seal that showed clearly a coat-of-arms forbidden the world over – the Emperor’s coat-of-arms. It was addressed to Her Majesty Queen Desideria of Sweden and Norway. At last I opened it, and read:
Madame, I have been informed that my son, the Emperor of the French, died on the 5th of May this year on the Island of St Helena. He was buried with the military honours due to a General. The British Government forbade the inscription ‘Napoleon’ on the tombstone, and would only allow ‘General N. Bonaparte’. I therefore gave instructions that the grave should remain without any inscription whatever.
I am dictating this letter to my son Lucien, who often comes to see me in Rome now. I am blind now.
Lucien has begun to read me my son’s memoirs, which Napoleone dictated to Count de Montholon on St Helena. In the memoirs this sentence occurs: ‘Désirée Clary was Napoleon’s first love.’ You will see from that my son never ceased to remember his first love.
I am told that the manuscript will soon be published, and I ask you to let us know if you wish this sentence to be left out. We realise that you in your position will have to be particularly careful, and we shall be glad to do whatever you wish.
My son Lucien wishes to be remembered to you.
I remain
Yours always—
The blind old woman had signed the letter herself. Her signature, in Italian and barely legible, ran:
Letitia, madre di Napoleone
(Letitia, mother of Napoleon.)
During the day I asked my nephew Marius, whom I had made my Lord Chamberlain, how the letter with the forbidden seal arrived here.
‘An attaché brought it from the Swedish Embassy, where it had been sent from the Swedish Chargé d’Affaires in Rome. Why, was it an important letter?’
‘It was the last letter with the Emperor’s coat-of-arms on it. I should like to ask you to send some money to the British Ambassador and ask him to use it for a wreath to be laid on my behalf on the grave in St Helena. On the grave without a name, you will have to say.’
‘I am afraid, Aunt, it cannot be done. There are no flowers on St Helena. The dreadful climate of the island kills all flowers.’
‘Do you think, Auntie,’ said Marceline, ‘that Marie-Louise will now marry that Count Neipperg, by whom she has three children already, or so they say?’
‘She married him a long time ago. Talleyrand told me so. The Pope probably declared her first marriage invalid.’
‘And what about the King of Rome?’ said Marius hotly. ‘After the Emperor’s second abdication he was called Napoleon II officially for a few days.’
‘His name is now Francis Joseph Charles, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Marie-Louise, Duchess of Parma. His father isn’t even mentioned in his ducal patent. Anyone would suppose that the father was – unknown!’
‘If Napoleon had had any idea of what was to happen to him!’ began Marceline.
‘He had,’ I said, as I went to my writing desk.
‘An island without flowers,’ I thought. The pictures of our garden in Marseilles, the field, and the flowering hedge came into my mind as I began writing to Madame Letitia.
‘Aunt Julie once said something about you, or perhaps him,’ said Marceline hesitantly, some time later.
‘You’ll read all that in his memoirs,’ I said, as I sealed the letter. ‘Nothing will be left out of them.’
Aachen. June 1822
This morning, sitting at my dressing-table in the hotel, getting ready, I thought how strange it is that at forty-two I should be experiencing once more all the sweetness, the anxiety, the impatience of a first rendezvous.
‘And when am I to see him?’ I asked for the twentieth time.
‘At half-past twelve, Auntie, in your drawing-room,’ Marceline answered patiently.
‘But he’ll be here early in the morning, won’t he?’
‘It was difficult to give the exact time of his arrival. That’s why the visit was fixed for half-past twelve.’
‘And then he’ll have a meal with me?’
‘Yes, together with his lord-in-waiting, Charles Gustavus Löwenhjelm.’
He is the uncle of my Gustavus Löwenhjelm whom they sent me a short time ago to take the place of Count Rosen, who went home. My Löwenhjelm is so pompous and formal that I hardly dare speak to him.
‘The only others will be Marius and myself, Auntie, so that you can talk to him freely.’
Two Löwenhjelms, Marius and Marceline? No, I said to myself, no! I sent for Löwenhjelm and told him to instruct his uncle to withdraw immediately he saw me. I felt sure that after his arrival at his hotel Oscar would go straight to the Cathedral like any other tourist. I decided to meet him there.
Of course, my Löwenhjelm was terribly upset. ‘The advantage of ceremonial preparations lies in the avoidance of surprises,’ he explained to me. But I didn’t give in and in the end he agreed.
I put on my hat and a veil that covered my face, and went out by myself to the Cathedral. ‘This is the last great surprise of my life,’ I thought on the way; ‘the first meeting with a man can mean everything or nothing. In half an hour we should know.’
I went into the Cathedral and sat down in a choir stall. Instinctively I folded my hands.
Eleven years is a long time, I reflected. Perhaps meanwhile, without noticing it, I’ve turned into a middle-aged lady. He, at all events, had grown up into a young man who was being sent round the European courts to loo
k for a wife.
This morning innumerable tourists visited the Cathedral and crowded round the stone slab over the alleged tomb of Charlemagne. I looked at every single one of them. Was it that one? Or that other one? Or the little flat-footed fellow over there?
I don’t know what a mother feels when she sees her son growing up, and notices the first faint growth of beard and the signs of his first falling in love. All that I have never known. I was waiting for a man who was to be like the one I had dreamt of all my life and had never met, my stranger son!
I recognised him at once, not because of Löwenhjelm, who had hardly changed since my Stockholm days, but because of his bearing, his walk, the movements of his head. He wore dark civilian clothes and seemed almost as tall as his father, only much thinner.
I left my seat and went towards him, without thinking how to address him. He was standing over the slab of Charlemagne’s alleged tomb and bending down to read the inscription. I touched Löwenhjelm’s arm. He looked up and, seeing me, withdrew without a word.
‘Is that Charlemagne’s tomb?’ I asked in French. It was the most stupid question possible because the inscription said quite plainly that it was.
‘As you see, Madame,’ he said, without turning round.
‘I know that my conduct is very unseemly, but I – I should like to make the acquaintance of Your Highness.’
This time he looked up. ‘So you know who I am, Madame?’ I saw the dark, forceful eyes of long ago and the thick curls, my curls! But he had a small ridiculously waxed moustache.
‘Your Highness is the Crown Prince of Sweden,’ I said. ‘And I am a compatriot of yours. My husband lives in Stockholm, you see.’
I stopped. He was looking steadily at me.
‘I wanted to ask Your Highness a favour, but – but it will take a little time.’
‘I see,’ he said. Looking round for his escort he murmured, ‘I don’t know where my companion has gone. But I have an hour to spare. If you will permit me, Madame, I should like to accompany you.’ Smiling, he added: ‘Is it permitted?’
‘Our Lady of Peace,’ they were calling me, ‘Our Lady of Peace!’ I wept – I could not but weep.
Lafayette pushed Count Rosen towards the window, seized a candelabrum, and let its light fall on Rosen’s Swedish uniform and blue and yellow sash. ‘Sweden, long live Sweden!’ was shouted up from the street, and again, ‘Notre-Dame de la Paix!’
The window was closed as I went back into the room, feeling suddenly strange and forlorn among the excited groups of Deputies. Unfortunately they showed no sign of leaving. I put the sword on the table under the portrait of the First Consul, and decided that I must offer the Deputies something to eat and drink. But all I had apart from wine were the cherries we had meant to bottle. So Marie and I gave them to the representatives of the nation, who fairly fell on them. I remembered the people outside in the street who had had to form queues for every bit of food in recent days, and I told Marie and the chef to let them have all the flour we had stored away in the cellar.
Talleyrand was the first to notice that something was wrong with my knee. ‘Is Your Highness hurt?’ he asked as I limped toward the door.
‘No, only – a bit tired.’
He raised his lorgnette to his eyes. ‘Our Republican friend the Marquis de Lafayette seems to be an old favourite of Your Highness!’
The tone in which he said it made me furious. ‘He’s the only man with clean hands in this room,’ I said.
‘Naturally, Your Highness! He has spent all these years planting cabbages in the country and so has kept his hands clean!’
‘Philosophers,’ I said, ‘in quiet backwaters—’
‘—Are always a dictator’s best subjects!’
He listened to the noise of the flour distribution outside.
Lafayette came. ‘How kind you are, my child! First you secure peace, and now food!’
‘How kind, and how clever!’ said Talleyrand, and smiled, taking at the same time a glass of wine from a servant. ‘The small country of the North and its great future: to secure peace – and food! To Sweden, Your Highness!’
Just then I saw that Fouché was about to take the sword. ‘Oh no,’ I called out, and limped quickly towards him.
‘But the French Government—’ he urged.
For the first time I noticed the greedy glint in his eyes. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘the sword has been handed to the allies and not to the French Government. I shall keep it till General Blücher and Wellington decide what to do with it.’ I took it from him and, as my knee hurt badly, went up with it to my bedroom, leaving the Deputies to argue together for I don’t know how long.
Marie undressed me. She shook her head at my blue and swollen knee.
The street outside had become quiet, and I started writing my diary. And over the writing of it morning has dawned.
Papa, Lafayette has grown old. And your pamphlet with the declaration of the Rights of Man is probably in Sweden now.
Only ninety days – no, about a hundred, have passed since Napoleon’s return from Elba, a hundred days like so many eternities.
In the Battle of Leipzig my old Jean-Baptiste died, and young Désirée breathed her last in the maze at Malmaison. How shall these twain ever come together again?
Papa, I don’t think I shall ever again write in my diary.
*Translator’s note: This is a play on the German meaning of the French name La Flotte, ‘the navy’.
PART 4
Queen of Sweden
Paris. February 1818
I was at the piano, trying to play a new piece Oscar has composed, when the Swedish Ambassador was announced. I was pleased at his visit, for this dark, rainy afternoon was just right for a cup of tea in company.
But on entering he closed the door and remained standing there, with the whole room between us. As he didn’t stir from the door I got up to go to meet him. Then he bowed very low, very ceremoniously, and I noticed the black band round his arm.
‘Your Majesty!’
He straightened up slowly. ‘Your Majesty, I have come with sad news. King Charles died on February the 5th.’
I stood paralysed. I hardly knew the small shaky King. But his death meant—
‘His Majesty has commissioned me to inform Your Majesty of the circumstances of the King’s death and to hand to you this letter.’
I made no move. The Ambassador came up to me and held out a sealed letter.
Hesitantly I took the letter. ‘Sit down, Baron,’ I said, and sank into the nearest chair. My hands trembled as I opened the letter. It was a big sheet on which Jean-Baptiste had scribbled in haste: ‘Dearest, You are now the Queen of Sweden. Please conduct yourself accordingly. In haste – Your J.-B.
‘PS. Don’t forget to destroy this letter at once.’
I dropped the sheet and smiled – and remembered that the Ambassador was watching me. Quickly I tried to put on a face full of sad dignity. ‘My husband writes that I am now the Queen of Sweden and Norway,’ I said gravely. The Ambassador smiled, I should have liked to know why.
‘His Majesty,’ said the Ambassador, ‘was proclaimed King Charles John XIV of Sweden and Norway by the heralds on February 6th, and his wife Her Majesty Queen Desideria.’
‘Jean-Baptiste ought never to have allowed me to be called Desideria. How did His Majesty die?’
‘His Majesty had a very easy death. He had a stroke on the first of February 1st. Two days later it was known that the end was near. His Majesty and His Highness the Crown Prince kept vigil in the sick-room.’
I tried to visualise the scene: the castle in Stockholm, the crowded sick-room, Jean-Baptiste, Oscar – Crown Prince Oscar! – the Queen, Princess Sofia Albertina – and who else? The Ambassador told me who else had been there and in the adjoining room, and he also told me how the King never took his eyes from Jean-Baptiste and how gradually his breath grew slower and fainter, till it was all over.
The Ambassador went on to tell me of Jean-Baptiste’s first acts as the new ruler! He told me that the coronation was to take place on May 11th.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘May 11th?’
‘Did His Majesty have a special reason for the choice of that particular day?’ asked the Ambassador.
‘On May 11th it will be exactly twenty-five years since Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was promoted Sergeant in the French Army. It was a great day in my husband’s life.’
‘Yes, quite, Your Majesty!’
I rang for tea, which we took with Marceline, who, of course, knew nothing. When she learned the news she was so startled that she dropped her teacup.
The Ambassador left. Marceline, since dropping her cup, had stared steadily at me in awe. ‘Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden and Norway!’ she said slowly, and continued to stare at me.
‘I’ll have to get some mourning dresses to-morrow,’ I said, and went back to the piano. Once more I looked at the music composed by Oscar, Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, once more I touched the keys, and then I closed the lid.
‘I shall never play the piano again, Marceline,’ I said.
‘Why not, Aunt?’
‘Because I play too badly for a Queen.’
‘Now we shall not be able to go and see Aunt Julie. You will have to go to Stockholm, I suppose. Aunt Julie was looking forward so much to your visit.’
‘She can still count on it,’ I said, and went to my bedroom to lie down.
‘Julie Bonaparte,’ I thought, ‘away in Brussels, exiled like all those who bear the name of Bonaparte.’ Ever since the Hundred Days I had been writing to ask Louis XVIII to grant Julie permission to return, and again and again I had received a very courteous refusal. And aft
And Hortense? Accompanied by Count Flahault she had managed to escape to Switzerland, darkly hinting at her departure that one of them would come back and be the Third. And when I asked who and as what, she said, ‘One of my sons, Madame, Napoleon – the Third!’
Not all had been lucky enough to escape like Hortense. Marshal Ney was caught, sentenced to death and executed. Many others who were on the lists of proscribed Republicans and Bonapartists suffered exile at the hands of Louis XVIII, or prison, or death. And the man who had handed the lists of proscriptions to King Louis, Fouché, what had happened to him? The King made him his Minister of Police in recognition of his services as a traitor. But when the lists of the proscribed had come to an end King Louis thought it time to exile his Minister of Police. And the rest of the Bonapartes? They lived in Italy.
But I was still here, and now I might even have to endure a visit of condolence from King Louis.
Marie came in and lit the candles. ‘She’ll grumble at me,’ I thought, ‘for lying on my bed with my shoes on.’ But she only held up the light to see my face – and she looked at me in much the same way as Marceline had done.
‘Don’t be annoyed,’ I said, ‘I’ll take my shoes off.’
‘Your niece has told me everything. You might have told me yourself.’
‘I know what you are thinking,’ I said. ‘You think that Papa wouldn’t have liked it. I know that myself, without your telling me.’
She undressed me.
‘If you have to be a Queen, be at least a good one. When are we leaving for Stockholm?’
I took the letter. Scribbled in such haste, I noticed, full of fear that I might be unworthy of him. I held it to the candle and burned it.
‘Well, when are we leaving, Eugenie?’
‘In three days. That means I shan’t have any time left to receive King Louis. By the way, we’re going to Brussels. Julie needs me and in Stockholm I’m quite superfluous.’
‘But they can’t have a coronation without us!’
I looked for my book, and for the first time for years I started writing my diary again.
It really has happened to me: I am Queen of Sweden!
Paris. June 1821
Among the letters on my breakfast table to-day was one with a dark-green seal that showed clearly a coat-of-arms forbidden the world over – the Emperor’s coat-of-arms. It was addressed to Her Majesty Queen Desideria of Sweden and Norway. At last I opened it, and read:
Madame, I have been informed that my son, the Emperor of the French, died on the 5th of May this year on the Island of St Helena. He was buried with the military honours due to a General. The British Government forbade the inscription ‘Napoleon’ on the tombstone, and would only allow ‘General N. Bonaparte’. I therefore gave instructions that the grave should remain without any inscription whatever.
I am dictating this letter to my son Lucien, who often comes to see me in Rome now. I am blind now.
Lucien has begun to read me my son’s memoirs, which Napoleone dictated to Count de Montholon on St Helena. In the memoirs this sentence occurs: ‘Désirée Clary was Napoleon’s first love.’ You will see from that my son never ceased to remember his first love.
I am told that the manuscript will soon be published, and I ask you to let us know if you wish this sentence to be left out. We realise that you in your position will have to be particularly careful, and we shall be glad to do whatever you wish.
My son Lucien wishes to be remembered to you.
I remain
Yours always—
The blind old woman had signed the letter herself. Her signature, in Italian and barely legible, ran:
Letitia, madre di Napoleone
(Letitia, mother of Napoleon.)
During the day I asked my nephew Marius, whom I had made my Lord Chamberlain, how the letter with the forbidden seal arrived here.
‘An attaché brought it from the Swedish Embassy, where it had been sent from the Swedish Chargé d’Affaires in Rome. Why, was it an important letter?’
‘It was the last letter with the Emperor’s coat-of-arms on it. I should like to ask you to send some money to the British Ambassador and ask him to use it for a wreath to be laid on my behalf on the grave in St Helena. On the grave without a name, you will have to say.’
‘I am afraid, Aunt, it cannot be done. There are no flowers on St Helena. The dreadful climate of the island kills all flowers.’
‘Do you think, Auntie,’ said Marceline, ‘that Marie-Louise will now marry that Count Neipperg, by whom she has three children already, or so they say?’
‘She married him a long time ago. Talleyrand told me so. The Pope probably declared her first marriage invalid.’
‘And what about the King of Rome?’ said Marius hotly. ‘After the Emperor’s second abdication he was called Napoleon II officially for a few days.’
‘His name is now Francis Joseph Charles, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Marie-Louise, Duchess of Parma. His father isn’t even mentioned in his ducal patent. Anyone would suppose that the father was – unknown!’
‘If Napoleon had had any idea of what was to happen to him!’ began Marceline.
‘He had,’ I said, as I went to my writing desk.
‘An island without flowers,’ I thought. The pictures of our garden in Marseilles, the field, and the flowering hedge came into my mind as I began writing to Madame Letitia.
‘Aunt Julie once said something about you, or perhaps him,’ said Marceline hesitantly, some time later.
‘You’ll read all that in his memoirs,’ I said, as I sealed the letter. ‘Nothing will be left out of them.’
Aachen. June 1822
This morning, sitting at my dressing-table in the hotel, getting ready, I thought how strange it is that at forty-two I should be experiencing once more all the sweetness, the anxiety, the impatience of a first rendezvous.
‘And when am I to see him?’ I asked for the twentieth time.
‘At half-past twelve, Auntie, in your drawing-room,’ Marceline answered patiently.
‘But he’ll be here early in the morning, won’t he?’
‘It was difficult to give the exact time of his arrival. That’s why the visit was fixed for half-past twelve.’
‘And then he’ll have a meal with me?’
‘Yes, together with his lord-in-waiting, Charles Gustavus Löwenhjelm.’
He is the uncle of my Gustavus Löwenhjelm whom they sent me a short time ago to take the place of Count Rosen, who went home. My Löwenhjelm is so pompous and formal that I hardly dare speak to him.
‘The only others will be Marius and myself, Auntie, so that you can talk to him freely.’
Two Löwenhjelms, Marius and Marceline? No, I said to myself, no! I sent for Löwenhjelm and told him to instruct his uncle to withdraw immediately he saw me. I felt sure that after his arrival at his hotel Oscar would go straight to the Cathedral like any other tourist. I decided to meet him there.
Of course, my Löwenhjelm was terribly upset. ‘The advantage of ceremonial preparations lies in the avoidance of surprises,’ he explained to me. But I didn’t give in and in the end he agreed.
I put on my hat and a veil that covered my face, and went out by myself to the Cathedral. ‘This is the last great surprise of my life,’ I thought on the way; ‘the first meeting with a man can mean everything or nothing. In half an hour we should know.’
I went into the Cathedral and sat down in a choir stall. Instinctively I folded my hands.
Eleven years is a long time, I reflected. Perhaps meanwhile, without noticing it, I’ve turned into a middle-aged lady. He, at all events, had grown up into a young man who was being sent round the European courts to loo
This morning innumerable tourists visited the Cathedral and crowded round the stone slab over the alleged tomb of Charlemagne. I looked at every single one of them. Was it that one? Or that other one? Or the little flat-footed fellow over there?
I don’t know what a mother feels when she sees her son growing up, and notices the first faint growth of beard and the signs of his first falling in love. All that I have never known. I was waiting for a man who was to be like the one I had dreamt of all my life and had never met, my stranger son!
I recognised him at once, not because of Löwenhjelm, who had hardly changed since my Stockholm days, but because of his bearing, his walk, the movements of his head. He wore dark civilian clothes and seemed almost as tall as his father, only much thinner.
I left my seat and went towards him, without thinking how to address him. He was standing over the slab of Charlemagne’s alleged tomb and bending down to read the inscription. I touched Löwenhjelm’s arm. He looked up and, seeing me, withdrew without a word.
‘Is that Charlemagne’s tomb?’ I asked in French. It was the most stupid question possible because the inscription said quite plainly that it was.
‘As you see, Madame,’ he said, without turning round.
‘I know that my conduct is very unseemly, but I – I should like to make the acquaintance of Your Highness.’
This time he looked up. ‘So you know who I am, Madame?’ I saw the dark, forceful eyes of long ago and the thick curls, my curls! But he had a small ridiculously waxed moustache.
‘Your Highness is the Crown Prince of Sweden,’ I said. ‘And I am a compatriot of yours. My husband lives in Stockholm, you see.’
I stopped. He was looking steadily at me.
‘I wanted to ask Your Highness a favour, but – but it will take a little time.’
‘I see,’ he said. Looking round for his escort he murmured, ‘I don’t know where my companion has gone. But I have an hour to spare. If you will permit me, Madame, I should like to accompany you.’ Smiling, he added: ‘Is it permitted?’