Chapter 21

Paris

November 1799

NAPOLEON SAT ACROSS FROM ME, his intense eyes belying the friendly smile that he’d affixed to his features. “I finally had the chance to meet your son, though you were not there for the occasion,” he said. Bernadotte was at my side on the silk settee, and Josephine sat beside Napoleon. She wore the red kerchief in her hair, and even though it was the afternoon, it looked as though our visit had roused her from bed. She was barefoot, her legs crossed and tilted toward her husband. “Try as I might, I could not find the two of you,” Napoleon added.

We sat with our hosts in a large salon on the ground floor of their new home, the palace they’d taken for themselves on the night of the coup. They now occupied the largest apartments of Paris’s Luxembourg Palace, the sprawling building that had once served as the château of Queen Marie de Medici before turning into government offices during the Revolution. “Coffee? Or wine?” Josephine asked, her harpist’s fingers languidly stroking her husband’s bare hand.

“No, thank you,” I answered.

Napoleon kept his attention fixed on my husband, sitting quietly for a moment before he asked: “Did you have a nice sojourn in the woods?”

My husband stiffened beside me—I could feel it. He weighed his words before leaning forward, speaking in a calm tone. “Come, Napoleon, we are old friends. You know where I stood. It was nothing personal.”

Napoleon’s face was an inscrutable mask. He looked from my husband to me before speaking, his lips tight as he said only, “Indeed.”

“But I serve France before all else,” Bernadotte said. “And France has declared you to be its new leader. And so I shall serve you. With my life, if necessary.”

Napoleon did not answer. I could hear the ormolu clock where it ticked on the marble mantel, but otherwise the room swelled with silence. Outside on the street, someone shouted, “Vive Napoleon!”

“It is noisy from dawn ’til midnight,” Napoleon said, smiling now. “But what do you think of our new accommodations?” he asked, raising a hand as he looked around the massive, high-ceilinged room.

“Beautiful parks and gardens surrounding the place. Marie de Medici certainly took to the Bourbon way of luxury,” Napoleon said. “And if you look out that window, you see Rue de Vaugirard.” Napoleon pointed toward one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows. “And just up the street stands Les Carmes.”

Josephine shuddered, and he put a protective hand on her thigh. “The prison where my little Creole was held during the Terror. Before her scheduled trip to the guillotine.”

I swallowed, my eyes turning instinctively toward Josephine. Her amber eyes, rimmed in dark kohl, were fixed downward toward the ornate Aubusson carpet.

Napoleon arched an eyebrow, tilting his head as he glanced toward my husband. “I believe I heard, Bernadotte, that you predicted I’d end up at the guillotine, if I remember correctly. You said that my coup would lead to it. Did you not?”

“I…I misjudged…the will and desires of the people.” I could feel the blood roiling in my husband’s veins, but I resisted the urge to put a calming hand on his. Napoleon would notice such a gesture, I was sure of it. Instead, Bernadotte remained calm of his own accord; he knew the importance of this meeting. Of smoothing over relations with Napoleon once more.

“Ah.” Napoleon considered my husband’s defense for a moment, eventually nodding. “A dangerous thing to do—misjudging the will of the people.”

“I see that now,” Bernadotte said.

“It’s something I’m certain never to do.” Napoleon leaned to his side and wrapped his hand around Josephine’s waist, whispering something in her ear—prompting her low, throaty laugh—before turning back toward us.

“You hurt my feelings, Bernadotte. I’ll admit, when all my friends came to my side, offering their loyalty and support…and you weren’t there, I was cross with you. Quite cross. I told Joseph as much. But he…and then there’s my godson…” Napoleon’s words trailed off, but my heart clenched. “Well.” Napoleon looked directly at me now, and the sharpness of his features seemed to soften, ever so slightly. “Desiree is an old friend. And my little Creole here told me that she’s grown quite fond of your wife. You’ve been kind to her, Desiree. Even when my own flesh and blood were not. And she has seen it.”

Napoleon held me with his intense gaze, even as my eyes slid toward Josephine. She nodded her agreement, shifting her lithe frame on the sofa as she continued to stroke her husband’s hand. A soothing gesture, slow and rhythmic.

My husband uncrossed and then recrossed his legs beside me; I could hear the groaning of his leather boots.

“You idealize our Revolution, Bernadotte,” Napoleon said. “But have you so quickly forgotten the fear? The chaos? The anarchy?”

My husband made to answer, but before he could, Napoleon cut him off with a wave of his hand, declaring: “The Revolution was worthy in that it ended the inefficacy of the Bourbons. It allowed the people to rise up and choose for themselves a new leader. To choose a leader who is one of them, a leader who shall serve for them. And choose they have. But now they want order. They want peace. They want prosperity. The Revolution is over. I am the Revolution.”