Free The Last Great Dance on Earth by Sandra Gulland

Madame.”
    Wept! “Why? What did she say?”
    Fauvelet shrugged his thin shoulders. “She didn’t.”
    “Well—what did you tell her?”
    “That she owed it to her country.”
    Mon Dieu.
    “And that the First Consul and you had decided.”
    “Didn’t you point out Louis’s good qualities?”
    Fauvelet looked at me quizzically. “Louis has good qualities?”
    “Didn’t you point out how gentle and sensitive and intelligent he is?Didn’t you tell her that Louis loves her?” As I had instructed him to say!
    “I started to, Madame, but I don’t know if she heard me.” He pursed his lips. “She was crying awfully hard. Don’t worry!” He held up his hands, as if surrendering to an enemy. “She
assured
me she would never do anything to displease you.”
    Hortense has asked for eight days to consider. Now, alone at my escritoire, I am full of remorse. How difficult this is. Are we doing the right thing?
    September 15
—
Malmaison.
    I observe my daughter’s sad look and have to turn away. “She must decide herself,” Bonaparte told me, taking me in his arms.
    September 16.
    Madame Campan is with Hortense now. I can hear the low murmur of their voices, the muffled sound of Hortense weeping. I can’t bear it.
    Later.
    I walked Madame Campan to her carriage. “She will be fine,” she said. “You must be patient.”
    “What is Hortense’s objection?” Why is my daughter so miserable? We are not asking her to marry a repugnant old man. Certainly
that
sort of thing happens all the time. “Does she dislike Louis? Bonaparte and I were under the impression that she cares for him.”
    Madame Campan leaned toward me. “I think she expects to feel
rapture,”
she said. I frowned. “Exactly!” she exclaimed. “Of course she cares for Louis. He’s just not her
ideal.
Hortense has always been very … theatrical, one could say, but in the best sense! Sensitive, certainly. Romantic, I’m afraid. She’ll come round—you’ll see.”
    September 17.
    Bonaparte has issued an ultimatum to England: unless a peace treaty isconcluded, negotiations will be broken off. “And as for your daughter he said, pressing for resolution.
    Four more days.
    September 21, early afternoon—Tuileries Palace.
    Fauvelet poked his head in the door. “Madame Josephine?”
    I looked up from my fancy-work.
    “She has agreed. She said she would not stand in the way of your happiness.”
    I scrambled for my handkerchief, my chin quivering.
    *
Hortense and her cousin Emilie composed the following letter about the journey: “Never has there been a more agonizing journey to Plombières. Bonaparte
mère
showed courage. Madame Josephine trembled in fear. Mademoiselle Hortense and Madame Lavalette argued over a bottle of eau de Cologne. Colonel Rapp made us stop frequently in order to ease his bile. He slept while we forgot our troubles in the wine of Champagne.
    “The second day was easier, but the good Colonel Rapp was suffering still. We encouraged him to have a good meal, but our hopes crumbled when, arriving in Toul, we found only a miserable auberge which offered nothing but a little spinach in lamp oil and red asparagus simmered in sour milk. (We would have loved to see the gourmets of our household seated at this disgusting meal!) We left Toul in order to eat at Nancy because we’d been starved for two days.
    “We were joyfully welcomed when we arrived in Plombières. The illuminated village, the booming cannon, all the pretty women standing in the windows helped us not to feel sorry about being away from Malmaison.
    “This is the exact story of our trip, certified to be true.”
    *
Josephine began menopause in her early thirties, likely due to the trauma of her imprisonment during the Terror.

In which my daughter finally marries
    September 22, 1801, almost 10:00 P.M.
—
a rainy day in Paris.

Louis looked terrified. “You wish to speak to me, Napoleon?”
    “Yes, sit,” Bonaparte said, throwing a crumpled paper into the