August 6, 1795.
Everywhere there is talk of divining, cartomancers, fortunetellers, soothsayers … that mystical realm so much the passion now.
“Rose is always told she will be Queen of France,” Thérèse announced at Minerva’s this afternoon. She was stretched out on the chaise longue wearing an ivory silk robe and a green wig—the effect was bizarre, startling. (“Les merveilleuses,” they call us, the amazing ones.)
“Why—that’s horrible,” Minerva said, adjusting her white gauze petticoats.
“Only once,” I protested, “as a girl in Martinico. The other time, in the Carmes, I was simply told that I would marry a man who would astonish the world.” I shrugged. “But what does it mean? My fortunes are extraordinary, yet my life is mundane.”
At that moment Barras was introduced. With him was a curious-looking man with short legs and a big head. Minerva stood to greet them.
“Who is that man with Deputy Barras?” Fortunée Hamelin asked, watching the two approach. “Another protégé?” She made a face.
“I may have seen him at the Feydeau,” tiny Madame de Crény said.
“If you had, you would surely remember,” Thérèse said.
The man was remarkable, it was true, but for all the wrong reasons. His long, limp hair hung down around his ears in a sorry attempt at fashion. His skin was sallow and his figure so thin his threadbare breeches seemed to hang.
“Whatever can Barras have in mind?” Thérèse whispered.
We were silenced for the purpose of introductions. “Citoyen Buonaparte, la veuve Beauharnais …”
“You are a widow,” the stranger said. His accent was rough—unpleasant. Italian? I could not be sure.
“The Republican general, Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, was this lady’s husband,” Barras said.
Citoyen Buonaparte clasped my hand. His eyes were large, grey in colour, striking. His teeth were good. But there was an intensity in his expression that forbade levity. I was relieved when he was introduced to the others in our group, who seemed to respond to him as silently as I. He took a seat and said no more.
“Well!” Minerva exclaimed, “perhaps we should play charades?”
It seemed that nothing would leaven the mood. The presence of the man in the corner had a sobering effect on us all.
“That Barras!” Thérèse exclaimed in the privacy of Minerva’s boudoir. “He has taken his projects too far.”
“Deputy Barras pressed me to introduce Citoyen Buonaparte into our circle,” Minerva told us. “He is new to Paris and in need of social contacts—”
“He is in need of social manners,” Thérèse said. “What is he—Corsican or something?”
“Napoleone Buonaparte …? Why is the name familiar?” I asked.
“He was the general who saved Toulon,” Minerva said. “Remember?”
Toulon?
“Two years ago—when the English invaded?”
I remembered. The festivities, the dancing, the toasts throughout the night. “So that’s how Barras knows him,” I said. “Wasn’t Barras in charge at Toulon?”
“It is impossible for me to believe that that man could be a general, much less a hero,” Thérèse said, dusting her face with rice powder.
“My dear citoyennes, is it possible you are blinded by this man’spoverty, his lack of breeding?” Minerva asked. “Stand as my witnesses: I predict he will have a great future. I see it in the shape of his chin.”
Future or not, Thérèse and I did not stay long—we left on excuse that her baby was ill.
“What a miserable evening,” Thérèse groaned, settling into her carriage. “I hope Barras knows better than to drag that Corsican with him everywhere. Next thing you know, he’ll be insisting I introduce him at La Chaumière.”
August 9.
It is just as Thérèse feared—Barras is intent on making a project of the Corsican. He and the strange little man showed up at La Chaumière and now Citoyen Buonaparte comes on his own. Thérèse, ever the soft heart, has offered to help him obtain fabric for a new uniform. “If he’s going to be coming here, he should at least have proper clothes,” she told me.
“Take care, Tallita—I think he is in love with you,” I whispered to her.
“It would seem that Citoyen Buonaparte falls in love easily,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s engaged to marry a girl in Marseille, he talks endlessly about a girl in Châtillon, and now Barras informs me he intends to propose to La Montansier.”
“The lady Barras rents his town house from?” “Lady? Rose, you are too kind.”
La Montansier was proud of the fact that she had started her career as a prostitute. The loges in the theatres she manages are furnished with extra-wide divans. “But she’s over sixty—” I protested.
“And with three million livres hidden under her well-used mattress.” Thérèse raised her eyebrows. “In Corsica, apparently, they make no pretense of such matters.”
Tuesday, August 11.
Last night, close to midnight at La Chaumière, Thérèse came to my side. “Meet me in my boudoir,” she whispered.
I extracted myself from my group. When we got to the privacy of herroom, she fell onto her bed clutching her sides. “Buonaparte …!” She burst into laughter again.
“The Corsican?”
“He’s made a proposal of marriage!”
“To you?” I stared at her. I smiled imagining it: Thérèse was so much taller than the Corsican. “Just now? In the parlour?”
Thérèse nodded, making a great effort to control herself. “I was with Fortunée, Madame de Crény and Minerva. He came up to us and said, ‘Citoyenne Tallien, may I speak with you … in private?’ So I retired with him to the entryway. And it was there he said, ‘Now that you are free, I would like you to consider me.’ At first I did not understand. He became a bit impatient. ‘I am making you an offer of marriage,’ he finally burst out. Then he said, ‘Together we could have a great future, for Fortune smiles on me.’”
“He said that? That Fortune smiles on him? What a curious thing to say.”
“Especially for a man who is in such dire need. If Fortune smiles on him, she should rather start paying attention.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him he should consider you instead,” Thérèse said, adjusting the pearl ornaments in her hair in the looking glass.
“No!” She was teasing—surely. “Tallita?”
She never did say. But now the Corsican watches me.
August 12.
It has been hectic at Barras’s. He complains he has no time for the gaming tables, the hunt. “Democracy!” he cursed. “It’s so time-consuming! All these tedious meetings.”
I pushed a guest list toward him. For two days, I had been trying to get his approval.
“Citoyen Buonaparte? Is he not included?” he asked, looking it over. “The ladies have wearied of my Corsican protégé? You do not perceive his brilliance for his long and, I admit, distasteful hair, his smelly boots. I assure you, he is an ambitious man—he will go far.”
“I perceive his ambition,” I said, “his ambition to woo every womanof standing in Paris. He shows no moderation in his passion … for women of wealth, that is.”
“Moderation be damned. Moderation belongs to the past. Napoleone is in need of a wife. Perhaps you should oblige him.”
With that he was gone. I sighed and added the Corsican’s name to the list. I will hear more on this matter, I fear.
August 14.
Barras came to my salon last night in the company of the Corsican.
“Do Corsicans never laugh?” Thérèse complained. “He is so serious.”
Toward the end of the evening I found myself sitting beside Citoyen Napoleone (an impossible name to pronounce). In an attempt to make conversation, I complimented him on his valour at Toulon. “It is said you are a genius,” I told him. “Yes,” he said.
“You have a large family in Marseille? I am told one of your sisters is particularly charming.”
“Who told you that?”
“Deputy Fréron,” I said.*
Then abruptly he stood and left the room!
“Is he angry?” I asked Barras. Had I said something to offend him?
“He’s a little strange sometimes.” Barras took my arm, drew me into the entryway. “I’d like you to befriend him. Get to know him,” he whispered.
“He is not an easy man to talk to,” I protested. “I don’t know if I—”
“If anyone can, Rose, you can,” Barras said. He took several coins out of his pocket, slipped them into my hand.
“What’s this for?” The three gold louis were worth over seventy livres.
“I can count on you?” he asked.
August 15.
“Napoleone has become a regular member of your Tuesday night salon, I see.”
Barras and I were enjoying a private lunch in his garden.
“I am getting to know him,” I said. “A little.” Napoleone Buonaparte was a complex person; one evening, he talked openly, and the next, he did not say a word. “It is difficult to know where one stands with him.”
“And how would one like to stand?”
“Why do you ask?”
Barras ordered his butler to bring the dessert. “Do you ever discuss politics with him?”
“He supports the Republic,” I said, “if that’s what you want to know.”
“But with who running it?”
“I believe him to be more of a leader than a follower—at least in his own mind.”
Barras laughed as he filled my glass. “And that’s why we must keep our eye on him, my dear.”
* Louis-Marie-Stanislas Fréron had met Buonaparte’s thirteen-year-old sister Maria-Paola in Marseille two years before. They wanted to marry, but met resistance from Madame Buonaparte. Although an educated aristocrat, turned violent revolutionary, Fréron was over thirty, inclined to drink and had had three children by an actress.