Kitabı oku: «The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon», sayfa 7

X Two Young Women Put Their Heads Together

AS THE TWO COMPANIONS AT ARMS were sitting down at their table, Madame la Comtesse and Mademoiselle Claire de Sourdis were announced to Madame Bonaparte.

The women embraced and, gracefully grouping themselves, they inquired after each other’s health and spoke of the weather, as was the mode of aristocratic society. Madame Bonaparte then had Madame de Sourdis sit beside her on a chaise longue, while Hortense took it upon herself to show Claire around the palace, as she was visiting for the first time.

The two girls, though about the same age, made a charming contrast. Hortense was blonde, fresh as a daisy, velvety as a peach. Her golden hair fell down to her knees, and her arms and hands were somewhat thin, for she still awaited Nature’s last touch to turn her into a woman. In her graceful appearance she combined both French vivaciousness and Creole sweetness. And, to complete the charming picture, her blue eyes shone with infinite gentleness.

Her companion had no cause for jealousy in regard to grace and beauty. Both girls were Creoles, but Claire was taller than her friend, and she had the dark complexion that Nature reserves for the southern beauties she seems to favor. Claire had sapphire blue eyes, ebony hair, a waist so slender two hands could span it, and hands and feet as tiny as a child’s.

Both had received excellent educations. Hortense’s education, interrupted by her forced apprenticeship until her mother got out of prison, had been organized so intelligently and assiduously that you would not imagine it had ever been interrupted at all. She could draw very nicely, was an excellent musician, indeed composed music, and wrote romantic poetry, some of which has been passed down to us, not simply because of the author’s elevated position but rather because of its intrinsic value. In fact, both girls were painters, both were musicians, and both spoke two or three foreign languages.

Hortense showed Claire her study, her sketches, her music room, and her aviary. Near the aviary, they sat down in a little boudoir that had been painted by Redouté. There they spoke about society parties, now beginning to reappear more brilliant than ever; about balls, which were vigorously starting up again; and about handsome, accomplished dancers. They talked about Monsieur de Trénis, Monsieur Laffitte, Monsieur d’Alvimar, and both Coulaincourts. They complained about the necessity, at every ball, to dance at least one gavotte and one minuet. And two questions arose quite naturally.

Hortense asked, “Do you know Citizen Duroc, my stepfather’s aide-de-camp?”

And Claire wondered, “Have you had the opportunity to meet Citizen Hector de Sainte-Hermine?”

Claire did not know Duroc.

Hortense did not know Hector.

Hortense more than nearly dared admit that she loved Duroc, for her stepfather, who himself greatly admired Duroc, had given his blessing. Indeed, Duroc was one of those young generals for whom the Tuileries was such a proving ground in those days. He was not yet twenty-eight, his manners were quite distinguished, and he had large but not deeply set eyes. He was taller than average, slender and elegant.

A shadow hovered over their love, however. For while Bonaparte supported it, Josephine did not. She wanted Hortense to marry Louis, one of Napoleon’s younger brothers.

Josephine had two declared enemies within Napoleon’s family, Joseph and Lucien, who had very nearly obtained Bonaparte’s agreement, on his return from Egypt, that he would never see Josephine again. Since his marriage to Josephine, Bonaparte’s brothers were constantly pressing him to divorce, on the pretext that a male child was necessary to realize his ambitious plans. It was an easy argument for them to make, since it appeared they were working against their own interests.

Joseph and Lucien were both married, Joseph perfectly and appropriately. He had married the daughter of Monsieur Clary, a rich merchant from Marseille, and was thus Bernadotte’s brother-in-law. Clary had a third daughter, perhaps more charming than her sisters, and Bonaparte asked for her hand in marriage. “Heavens, no,” the father answered. “One Bonaparte in my family is enough.” If he had agreed, the honorable merchant from Marseille would one day have found himself father-in-law to an emperor and two kings.

As for Lucien, he had made what society calls an unequal marriage. In 1794 or 1795, when Bonaparte was still known only for having taken Toulon, Lucien accepted the position of quartermaster in the little village of Saint-Maximin. A Republican who changed his name to Brutus, Lucien would not permit saints’ names of any kind in his village. So he had rebaptized Saint-Maximin; the village became Marathon. Citizen Brutus, from Marathon. That had a nice ring to it, he thought.

Lucien-Brutus was living in the only hotel in Saint-Maximin-Marathon. The hotelkeeper was a man who had given no thought to changing his name, Constant Boyer, or that of his daughter, an adorable creature named Christine: Sometimes such flowers grow in manure, such pearls in mud.

Saint-Maximin-Marathon offered Lucien-Brutus no society life and no distractions, but he soon discovered he needed neither, because he had found Christine Boyer. Only Christine Boyer was as wise as she was beautiful, and Lucien realized there was no way he could make her his mistress. So, in a moment of love and boredom, Lucien made her his wife. Christine Boyer became not Christine Brutus, but Christine Bonaparte.

The general of the 13th Vendémiaire, who was beginning to see his fortune clearly, grew furious. He swore he would never forgive the husband, never receive the wife, and he sent both of them to a little job in Germany. Later he softened; he did see the woman, and he was not displeased to see his brother Lucien Brutus become Lucien Antoine before the 18th Brumaire.

Lucien and Joseph both became the terror of Madame Bonaparte. By marrying Bonaparte’s nephew Louis to her daughter, Josephine hoped to interest him in her own fortune and to strengthen her protection against the two brothers.

Hortense resisted with all her might. At that time, Louis was quite a handsome young man, if barely twenty years old, with nice eyes and a kind smile—he looked rather like his sister Caroline, who had just married Murat. While he was not at all in love with Hortense, although he did not find her unattractive, he was too passive to resist the forces at play. Nor did Hortense hate Louis. But she was in love with Duroc.

Her little secret gave Claire de Sourdis confidence. She too ended up admitting something, precious little though it was to admit.

She too was in love, if we can call it love. It would be more appropriate to say that she was in thrall to an image, a mystery in the shape of a handsome young man.

He was twenty-three or twenty-four, with blond hair and dark eyes. His features seemed almost too regular for a man, and his hands were as elegant as a woman’s. He was put together so precisely, each part of him so completely in harmony with the whole, that one could readily see that the outward form of the man, however fragile in appearance, hid Herculean strength. Even before the time of Chateaubriand and Byron, who created darkly romantic heroes like René and Manfred, he bore a troubled brow whose pallor bespoke a strange destiny. For terrible legends were attached to his family name—legends known only imperfectly, but they came stained with blood. Yet nobody had ever seen him parade an air of exaggerated mourning, like so many who had lost so much during the Republic, and never had he made show of his pain at dances and salons and social gatherings. In fact, when he did appear in society, he had no need of any such affectations to try to attract attention. People just naturally looked at him. Usually, though, he eschewed the pastimes of his hunting and travel companions, who had never yet managed to drag him to one of those youthful parties which even the most rigid agree to attend sooner or later. And nobody remembered ever having seen him laugh aloud and openly the way most young people do, or even having seen him smile.

There had long been alliances between the Sainte-Hermine and the Sourdis families, and, as is customary in such noble houses, the memory of those alliances remained important. So when by chance young Sainte-Hermine had come to Paris, he had never failed, since Madame de Sourdis had come back from the colonies, to visit her, for he observed the demands of protocol, and never had his visits been other than formal.

The two young people had had occasion to meet, in society, over the past several months. Besides the polite greetings they exchanged, however, words had been spoken sparingly, especially by the young man. But their eyes had spoken eloquently. Hector apparently did not hold the same control over his eyes as he did over his words, and each time he encountered Claire, his gaze made known how lovely he found her and how perfectly she matched all his heart’s desires.

At their first meetings Claire had been moved by his expressive eyes, and since Sainte-Hermine seemed to her an accomplished gentleman in every way, she had permitted herself to look at him too less guardedly. She had also hoped that he would invite her to dance so that a whispered word or the pressure of his hand might affirm the meaning she’d read in his gaze. But, strangely for the time, Sainte-Hermine, the gentleman who took fencing lessons with Saint-Georges and who could shoot a pistol as well as Junot or Fournier, did not dance.

During the balls he attended, Sainte-Hermine would stand coldly and impassibly at some bay window or in a corner of the room. In that, he became an object of bewilderment for all the gay young women who wondered what secret vow might be depriving them of such an elegant dance partner—for he always dressed with such taste in the latest style.

Claire had wondered, too, at Sainte-Hermine’s reserve in her presence, especially since her mother seemed to admire the young man greatly. She spoke as highly about his family, decimated by the Revolution, as she did of him, and she knew that money could not be an obstacle to their union. The substantial fortunes of the two families were roughly equal.

One can understand the impression the mysterious young Sainte-Hermine might make on a young girl’s heart, especially on a young Creole girl’s heart, with the combination of his physical features and moral qualities, his elegance and strength. Claire’s image of him occupied her mind while biding its time to take over her heart.

Hortense made her hopes and desires clear to Claire: She wanted to marry Duroc, whom she loved, rather than Louis Bonaparte, whom she did not—that essentially was the secret she whispered to her friend. But it was not the same, for Claire’s storybook passion made it difficult for her to speak quite so plainly. At the same time that she described Hector’s features in great detail to her friend, she tried also to understand as best she could the shadows surrounding him.

Finally, after Claire’s mother had called twice, after she had stood up and embraced Hortense, as if the idea had just come to mind—as Madame de Sévigné observes, the most important part of a letter is in the postscript—she said: “By the way, dear Hortense, I am forgetting to ask you something.”

“What is that?”

“I understand that Madame de Permon is giving a great ball.”

“Yes. Loulou came to see my mother and me and invited us herself.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My dear Hortense,” Claire said in her most endearing voice, “I would like to ask a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes. Get an invitation for my mother and me. Is that possible?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Claire leaped with a joy. “Oh, thank you!” she said. “How will you go about it?”

“Well, I could ask Loulou for an invitation. But I prefer having Eugene do it. Eugene is close to Madame de Permon’s son, and Eugene will ask him for what you desire.”

“And I shall go to Madame de Permon’s ball?” cried Claire joyously.

“Yes,” Hortense answered. Then, looking her young friend in the eye, she asked, “Will he be there?”

Claire turned as red as a beet and dropped her eyes. “I think so.”

“You will point him out to me, won’t you?”

“Oh! You’ll recognize him without me doing that, my dear Hortense. Have I not told you that he can be picked out from among a thousand?”

“How sorry I am that he is not a dancer!” said Hortense.

“How do you think I feel?”

The two girls kissed each other and parted, Claire reminding Hortense not to forget the invitation.

Three days later Claire de Sourdis received her invitation by mail.

XI Madame de Permon’s Ball

THE BALL FOR WHICH Mademoiselle Hortense de Beauharnais’s young friend had requested an invitation was the social event of the season for all of fashionable Paris. Madame de Permon would have needed a mansion four times the size of her own to welcome all those eager to attend, and she had refused to issue further invitations to more than one hundred men and more than fifty women despite their ardent requests. But, because she had been born in Corsica and linked from childhood to the Bonaparte family, she agreed immediately when Eugene Beauharnais made his request, and Mademoiselle de Sourdis and her mother both received their admission cards.

Madame de Permon, whose invitations were in such demand even though her name sounded a bit like the name of a commoner, was one of the grandest women of the times. Indeed, she was a descendant of the Comnène family, which had given six emperors to Constantinople, one to Heraclea, and ten to Trebizond. Her ancestor Constantin Comnène, fleeing the Muslims, had found refuge first in the Taygetus mountains and later on the island of Corsica. Along with three thousand of his compatriots who followed him as their chief, he settled there after buying from the Genoa senate the lands of Paomia, Salogna, and Revinda.

In spite of her imperial origins, Mademoiselle de Comnène fell in love with and married a handsome commoner whom people called Monsieur de Permon. Monsieur de Permon had died two years earlier, leaving his widow with a son of twenty-eight, a daughter of fourteen, and an annuity of twenty-five thousand pounds.

Madame de Permon’s high birth and her common marriage were reflected in her salon, which she opened to prominent figures in both the old aristocracy and the young democracy. Among officers in the new military and notables in the arts and sciences were names that would soon rival the most illustrious of those in the old monarchy. So it was that in her salon you could meet Monsieur de Mouchy and Monsieur de Montcalm, the Prince de Chalais, the two De Laigle brothers, Charles and Just de Noailles, the Montaigus, the three Rastignacs, the Count of Coulaincourt and his two sons Armand and August, the Albert d’Orsay family, the Montbretons. Sainte-Aulaire and the Talleyrands mingled with the Hoches, the Rapps, the Durocs, the Trénis, the Laffittes, the Dupaty family, the Junots, the Anissons, and the Labordes.

Madame de Permon’s high birth and her common marriage were reflected in her salon, which she opened to prominent figures in both the old aristocracy and the young democracy. Among officers in the new military and notables in the arts and sciences were names that would soon rival the most illustrious of those in the old monarchy. So it was that in her salon you could meet Monsieur de Mouchy and Monsieur de Montcalm, the Prince de Chalais, the two De Laigle brothers, Charles and Just de Noailles, the Montaigus, the three Rastignacs, the Count of Coulaincourt and his two sons Armand and August, the Albert d’Orsay family, the Montbretons. Sainte-Aulaire and the Talleyrands mingled with the Hoches, the Rapps, the Durocs, the Trénis, the Laffittes, the Dupaty family, the Junots, the Anissons, and the Labordes.

With her twenty-five-thousand-pound annuity Madame de Permon maintained one of Paris’s most elegant and best appointed mansions. She especially enjoyed the splendor of her flowers and plants, and her home had become a veritable greenhouse. The vestibule was so filled with potted trees and flowers that you could no longer see the walls, yet it was so skillfully illuminated with colored glass that you would have thought you were entering a fairy palace.

In those days, balls began early. By nine o’clock, Madame de Permon’s rooms were open and brightly lit, and she, her daughter Laura, and her son Albert were awaiting their guests in the salon.

Madame de Permon, still a beautiful woman, was wearing a white crepe dress, decorated with bunches of double daffodils and cut in the Greek style, with cloth draped over her breasts and held at her shoulders with two diamond clips. She had commissioned Leroy on the Rue des Petits-Champs, who was all the rage for his dresses and hats, to make her a puffy hat with white crepe and large bunches of daffodils like the ones on her dress. She wore daffodils in her jet black hair as well as in the folds of the hat, and she was holding an enormous bouquet of daffodils and violets from Madame Roux, the best florist in Paris. In each ear sparkled a diamond worth fifteen thousand francs, her only jewelry.

Mademoiselle Laura de Permon’s dress was quite simple. Her mother thought that since she was only sixteen, she should glow with her own natural beauty and not try to outshine anyone with her clothes. She was wearing a pink taffeta dress of a style similar to her mother’s, with white narcissus in a crown on her head and at the hem of her dress, along with pearl clips and earrings.

But the woman whose beauty was supposed to reign over the ball, which was being given in honor of the Bonaparte family and which the First Consul had promised to attend, was Madame Leclerc, the favorite of Madame Laetitia and her brother Bonaparte as well, so people said. To ensure her triumph, she had asked that Madame Permon allow her to dress at the mansion. She had had Madame Germon make her dress and she had arranged for Charbonnier to do her hair (he had done Madame de Permon’s as well). She woud make her entrance at the precise moment when the rooms were filling up but not yet full. That was the best moment if you wished to create a sensation and make sure you’d be seen by everyone there.

Some of the most beautiful women—Madame Méchin, Madame de Périgord, Madame Récamier—were already there when at nine thirty Madame Bonaparte, her daughter, and her son were announced. Madame de Permon rose and walked to the center of the dining room, a courtesy she had offered nobody else.

Josephine was wearing a crown of poppies and golden wheat, which also embellished her white crepe dress. Hortense too was dressed in white, her only accent being fresh violets.

At about the same time, the Comtesse de Sourdis arrived with her daughter. The countess was wearing a buttercup-yellow tunic adorned with pansies. Her daughter, whose hair was arranged in the Greek style, wore a white taffeta tunic embroidered with gold and purple. She was ravishing. Bands of gold and purple perfectly highlighted her dark hair, while a gold and purple cord accented her tiny waist.

At a signal from his sister, Eugene de Beauharnais hurried over to the new arrivals. Taking the countess’s hand, he escorted her to Madame de Permon.

Madame de Permon rose to greet the countess, then had her sit to her left; Josephine was seated on the hostess’s right. Hortense offered her arm to Claire, and they seated themselves nearby.

“Well?” Hortense asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“He is here,” said Claire, all atremble.

“Where?” asked Hortense eagerly.

“Well,” said Claire, “do you see where I am looking? In that group there, the man wearing the garnet-colored velvet suit, tight suede pants, and shoes with small diamond buckles. And there’s a much larger diamond buckle around the braid on his hat.”

Hortense’s eyes followed Claire’s. “Ah, you were right,” she said. “He is as handsome as Antinous. But he doesn’t look so melancholic at all. Your dark, mysterious hero is smiling at us very pleasantly.”

And indeed, the face of the Comte de Sainte-Hermine, who had not taken his eyes off Mademoiselle de Sourdis since she had entered the room, radiated inner peace and joy. When he saw Claire and her friend looking at him, he walked timidly but gracefully over to them.

“Would you be so kind, mademoiselle,” he said to Claire, “as to grant me the first quadrille or the first waltz you will be dancing?”

“The first quadrille, yes, monsieur,” Claire stammered. She had turned deathly pale when she saw the count walking toward her, and now she could feel blood rushing to her cheeks.

“As for Mademoiselle de Beauharnais,” the count, Hector, continued, bowing to Hortense, “I await the order from her lips to confirm my rank among her numerous admirers.”

“The first gavotte, monsieur, if you please,” Hortense answered, for she knew that Duroc did not dance the gavotte.

After a bow of thanks, Count Hector moved nonchalantly toward the crowd surrounding Madame de Contades, who had just arrived. Her beauty had attracted all eyes, but just then another murmur of admiration rippled through the crowd. Some new pretender to beauty’s throne had arrived. The beauty competition was now open; the dancing itself would not begin until the First Consul appeared.

It was Pauline Bonaparte—Madame Leclerc—who now approached. Those who knew her called her Paulette. She had married General Leclerc on the 18th Brumaire, the day that had given her brother Bonaparte’s career such a fortunate nudge forward.

Entering from the room where she had just dressed, with perfectly studied coquetry she was just beginning to pull on her gloves: a gesture that called attention to her lovely, plump white arms adorned with gold cameo bracelets. Her hair was done up in small bands of fine leather that looked like leopard skin, and attached to them were bunches of gold grapes; it faithfully copied the coif of a bacchante on a cameo that might have come from ancient Greece. Her dress was made of the finest Indian muslin, like woven air, as Juvenal said. Its hem was embroidered with a garland in gold leaf two or three inches wide. A tunic in pure Greek style hung down over her lovely waist and was attached at her shoulders by costly cameos. The very short sleeves, slightly pleated, ended in tiny cuffs, which were also held in place by cameos. Just below her breasts she wore a belt of burnished gold, its buckle a lovely engraved stone. The ensemble was so harmonious, and her beauty so delicious, that when she appeared, no other woman graced the room.

“Incessu patuit dea,” said Dupaty as she passed.

“Do you insult me in a language I do not understand, Citizen Poet?” asked Madame Leclerc with a smile.

“What?” answered Dupaty. “You are from Rome, madame, and you don’t understand Latin?”

“I’ve forgotten all my Latin.”

“That is one of Virgil’s hemistiches, Madame, when Venus appeared to Aeneas. Abbé Delille translated it like this: ‘She walks by, and her steps reveal a goddess.’”

“Give me your arm, flatterer, and dance the first quadrille with me. That will be your punishment.”

Dupaty didn’t need to be asked twice. He held out his arm, straightened his legs, and allowed himself to be led by Madame Leclerc into a boudoir, where she stopped on the pretext that it was cooler than the larger rooms. In reality, though, it was because the boudoir offered an immense sofa that enabled the divine coquette to display her couture and her beauty to best effect.

As she passed Madame de Contades, the most beautiful woman in the room only so long as Madame Leclerc had not been present, the grand coquette cast a defiant glance. And she had the satisfaction of seeing all her rival’s admirers abandon Madame de Contades in her armchair and gather now around the sofa.

Madame de Contades bit her lips until they bled. But in the quiver of revenge that every woman wears at her side, she found one of those poisoned arrows that can mortally wound, and she called to Monsieur de Noailles. “Charles,” she said, “lend me your arm so I can go see up close that marvel of beauty and clothing that has just attracted all of our butterflies.”

“Ah,” said the young man, “and you are going to make her realize that among these butterflies there is a bee. Sting, sting, Countess,” Monsieur de Noailles added. “These low-born Bonapartes have been nobles for too short a time. They need to be reminded that they are making a mistake in trying to mix with the old aristocracy. If you look carefully at that parvenu, you will find, I am sure, the stigmata of her plebian origins.”

With a laugh, the young man allowed himself to be led by Madame de Contades, who, nostrils flared, seemed to be blazing a trail. Once she’d reached the crowd of flatterers surrounding the lovely Madame Leclerc, she elbowed her way up to the front row.

Madame Leclerc afforded her rival a smile, for no doubt Madame de Contades felt obligated to pay her homage.

And indeed, Madame de Contades proceeded with a politesse that in no way disabused Madame Leclerc of her impression. Madame de Contades added her voice to the hymns of praise and admiration being offered up to the divinity on the sofa. Then, suddenly, as if she had just made a horrible discovery, she cried out, “Oh, my God! How terrible! Why does such a horrible deformity have to spoil one of nature’s masterpieces!” she exclaimed. “Must it be said that nothing in this world is perfect? My God, how sad!”

At this strange lamentation, everybody looked first at Madame de Contades, then at Madame Leclerc, then at Madame de Contades again. They were obviously waiting for her to explain her outburst, but Madame de Contades continued only to lament this sad case of human imperfection.

“Come now,” her escort finally said. “What do you see? Tell us what you see!”

“What do you mean? Tell you what I see? Can you not see those two enormous ears stuck on both sides of such a charming head? If I had ears like that, I would have them trimmed back a little. And since they have not been hemmed, that shouldn’t be difficult.”

Barely had Madame de Contades finished when all eyes turned toward Madame Leclerc’s head—not to admire it, but rather to remark her ears. For until then no one had even noticed them.

And indeed, Paulette, as her friends called her, did have unusual ears. The white cartilage looked signally like an oyster shell, and, as Madame de Contades had pointed out, it was cartilage that nature had neglected to hem.

Madame Leclerc did not even try to defend herself against such an impertinent attack. Instead, she availed herself of that resource any woman wronged might use: She uttered a cry and collapsed.

At the same moment, her erstwhile admirers heard a carriage rolling up to the Permon mansion, and a horse galloping, then a voice calling out “The First Consul!”—all of which distracted everyone’s attention from the bizarre scene that had just transpired.

Except that, while Madame Leclerc was rushing from the boudoir in tears and the First Consul was striding in through one of the ballroom doors, Madame de Contades, her attack triumphant but too brutal perhaps, was stealing out through another.