Desiree

  ‘I don’t want to give you a shock, Eugenie,’ he said, tenderly. ‘I can understand your getting frightened – of my great destiny.’

  We were silent again for a while. Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Well, I too shall make world history, Napoleone!’

  He looked at me in astonishment. But I persisted, trying to express my thought. ‘World history consists, after all, of the destinies of all people, doesn’t it? Not only men who sign death warrants or know just where to place cannon and which way to fire them. I am thinking of other people. I mean those who are beheaded or shot at, and in fact all men and women who live and hope and love and die.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Quite right, my Eugenie. But I shall influence all those millions of destinies of which you speak. Do you believe in me, Eugenie? Do you believe in me, whatever happens?’

  His face was quite close to mine, so close that I trembled and involuntarily closed my eyes. Then I felt his lips pressed tightly on mine …

  Annemarie Selinko was born in Vienna in 1914. Daughter of a Viennese industrialist, she read history at the University of Vienna and later became a political writer and the Viennese correspondent for the French L’Intransigeant. It was on an assignment to Geneva to cover the League of Nations that she met Erling Kristiansen, a Danish student preparing for a diplomatic career. She married him in 1938, and from 1938 to 1943 they lived in Denmark. When the Second World War broke out, Denmark was occupied and Annemarie joined the Danish underground movement. She and her husband escaped the Gestapo by sailing to Sweden in a fishing boat. It was in Sweden – where she worked as a translator with the Red Cross (which was under the patronage of Folke Bernadette, the nephew of Gustav V) – that the idea came to her to write about the adventurous beginnings of the family which today reigns in that country. She began collecting material and continued her research, after the war, in London and Paris where her husband was serving diplomatic missions. After five years of research and two years of writing, her bestseller, Désirée, was published in 1953. It was translated into twenty-five languages and sold ten million copies. It was also made into a successful film, with Jean Simmons in the title role and Marlon Brando as Napoleon. For many years, Annemarie Selinko lived in London where her husband served as Danish Ambassador. She died in Copenhagen in 1986.

  DÉSIREÉ

  Annemarie Selinko

  Translated by Arnold Bender and E. W. Dickes

  A WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 1953 by William Heinemann.

  This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books.

  Copyright © Annemarie Selinko 1953

  The rights of Annemarie Selinko to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 0 2978 6488 2

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  Orion Books

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper St Martin’s Lane

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  To the Memory of my Sister

  Liselotte

  Her joyous spirit

  Her greatness of heart

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Part 1: The Daughter of a Silk Merchant of Marseilles

  Chapter 1

  Part 2: The Wife of Marshal Bernadotte

  Chapter 2

  Part 3: Notre-Dame de la Paix

  Chapter 3

  Part 4: Queen of Sweden

  Chapter 4

  PART I

  The Daughter of a Silk

  Merchant of Marseilles

  Marseilles, at the beginning of Germinal, Year II. (The end of March 1794 by Mama’s old fashioned reckoning)

  I think a woman can get her way better with a man if she has a well-rounded figure. So I’ve decided to stuff four handkerchiefs into the front of my dress to-morrow; then I shall look really grown up. Actually I am grown up already, but nobody else knows that, and I don’t altogether look it.

  Last November I was fourteen, and Papa gave me this lovely diary for my birthday. It’s a shame really to spoil these beautiful white pages with writing. There’s a little lock at the side of the diary, and I can lock it up. Even my sister Julie won’t know what I put in it. It was my last present from dear Papa. My father was the silk merchant François Clary, of Marseilles; he died two months ago, of inflammation of the lungs.

  ‘What shall I write in that book?’ I asked in perplexity when I saw it on the table among my presents. Papa smiled and kissed me on the forehead: ‘The story of Citizeness Bernadine Eugenie Désirée Clary,’ he said, and then a troubled look came into his face.

  I am starting my future history to-night, because I’m so excited I can’t get to sleep. So I slid softly out of bed, and I only hope Julie, over there, won’t be awakened by the flickering of the candle. She would make a terrible to-do.

  I’m excited because to-morrow I’m going with my sister-in-law Suzanne to see Deputy Albitte and ask him to help Etienne. Etienne is my brother, and his life is in danger. Two days ago the police suddenly came to arrest him. Such things do happen in these days; it’s only five years since the great Revolution, and people say it’s not over yet. There are many guillotined every day in the Town Hall square, and it’s not safe to be related to aristocrats. Thank goodness, we haven’t any fine folk among our relatives. Papa made his own way, and he built up Grandpa’s little business into one of the biggest silk firms in Marseilles. Papa was very glad about the Revolution, though just before it he had been appointed a Purveyor to the Court and had sent some blue silk velvet to the Queen. Etienne says the velvet was never paid for. Papa almost cried when he read to us the first broadsheet proclaiming the Rights of Man.

  Etienne had been managing the business since Papa died. When Etienne was arrested, Marie, our cook, who used to be my nurse, said quietly to me: ‘Eugenie, I hear that Albitte is coming to town. Your sister-in-law must go to him and try to get Citizen Etienne Clary set free.’ Marie always knows what’s going on in town.

  At supper we were all very dismal. Two places at the table were empty – Papa’s chair next to Mama and Etienne’s next to Suzanne. Mama won’t let anyone use Papa’s chair. I kept thinking of Albitte and crumbling my bread into little balls. That annoyed Julie. She is only four years older than me, but she wants to mother me all the time, and it makes me furious.

  ‘Eugenie,’ she said, ‘it’s bad manners to crumble your bread.’

  I stopped making bread balls and said:

  ‘Albitte is in town.’

  The others took no notice. They never do when I say anything. So I said it again:

  ‘Albitte is in town.’

  At that Mama said: ‘Who is Albitte, Eugenie?’

  Suzanne was not listening: she was sobbing into her soup.

  ‘Albitte,’ I said, proud of my knowledge, ‘is the Jacobin Deputy for Marseilles. He is staying a week and will be in the Maison Commune every day
. And to-morrow Suzanne must go to him: she must ask him why Etienne has been arrested, and insist that it must be a misunderstanding.’

  ‘But,’ Suzanne sobbed, looking at me, ‘he wouldn’t receive me!’

  ‘I think – I think it might be better,’ said Mama doubtfully, ‘for Suzanne to ask our lawyer to see Albitte.’

  Sometimes my family disgust me. Mama won’t have a jar of marmalade made at home unless she can give it a stir, and yet she will leave a matter of life and death to our silly old lawyer. I suppose many grown-ups are like that.

  ‘We must see Albitte ourselves,’ I said, ‘and Suzanne, as Etienne’s wife, is the one who should go. If you’re afraid, Suzanne, I’ll go, and I’ll ask Albitte to release my big brother.’

  ‘Don’t you dare go to the Maison Commune!’ said Mama at once. Then she went on with her soup.

  ‘Mama, I think …’

  ‘No, I will not hear of it,’ said Mama, and Suzanne began sobbing into her soup again.

  After dinner I went upstairs to see whether Persson had got back. You see, in the evening, I give Persson French lessons. He has the sweetest horse’s face imaginable. He’s terribly tall and thin, and he’s the only fair-haired man I know. That’s because he is a Swede. Heaven only knows where Sweden is – somewhere up by the North Pole, I think. Persson showed me once on the map, but I forget where. Persson’s papa has a silk business in Stockholm, and the business is somehow connected with ours here. So Persson came to Marseilles for a year to get experience in Papa’s business. Everyone says you can only learn the silk trade in Marseilles. So one day Persson arrived at our house. At first we couldn’t make out a word he said. He declared that he was talking French, but it didn’t sound like French at all. Mama got a room ready for him in the attic; in these unsettled times, she said, it was better for Persson to live with us.

  I found Persson had come in – really he is such a respectable young man – and we sat down in the parlour. Usually he reads to me from the newspapers, and I correct his pronunciation. And once more, as so often, I got out the old broadsheet about the Rights of Man that Papa had brought home, and then Persson and I listened to each other reciting it, because we wanted to learn it all by heart. Persson’s equine face grew quite solemn, and he said he envied me because I belonged to the nation that had presented these great thoughts to the world.

  ‘Liberty, Equality, and the Sovereignty of the People,’ he declaimed. Then he said: ‘Much blood has been shed to establish these new laws, so much innocent blood. And it must not be allowed to have been shed in vain, Mademoiselle.’

  Of course, Persson is a foreigner, and he always calls Mama ‘Madame Clary’, and me ‘Mademoiselle Eugenie’, in the family though that is forbidden; we are both just Citoyenne Clary.

  Suddenly Julie came into the room. ‘Would you come for a moment, Eugenie,’ she said, and took me to Suzanne’s room.

  Suzanne was sitting huddled up on the sofa, sipping port-wine. Port-wine is supposed to be strengthening, but I am never given a glass, because young maidens do not need strengthening, Mama says. Mama was sitting next to Suzanne, and I could see that she was trying to look energetic. When she does that, she looks more frail and helpless than ever; she hunches up her narrow shoulders, and her face seems very small under the little widow’s cap she has worn for two months. My poor Mama looks much more like an orphan child than a widow.

  ‘We have decided,’ said Mama, ‘that to-morrow Suzanne shall try to see Deputy Albitte. And,’ Mama added, clearing her throat, ‘you are to go with her, Eugenie!’

  ‘I am afraid to go alone, among all the crowds of people,’ Suzanne murmured. I could see that the port-wine had not strengthened her, only made her drowsy. And I wondered why I was to go with her, and not Julie.

  ‘Suzanne has made this decision for Etienne’s sake,’ said Mama, ‘and it will be a comfort to her, my dear child, to know that you are with her.’

  ‘Of course you must keep your mouth shut,’Julie hastened to add, ‘and let Suzanne do the talking.’ I was glad that Suzanne was going to see Albitte. That was the best thing to do, the only thing, in my opinion. But since they were treating me like a child, as usual, I said nothing.

  ‘To-morrow will be a very trying day for us all,’ said Mama, getting up. ‘So we must go to bed soon.’

  I ran into the parlour and told Persson that I had to go to bed. He packed up the newspapers and bowed. ‘Then I will bid you good night, Mademoiselle Clary,’ he said.

  I was at the door when he suddenly murmured something. I turned back.

  ‘Did you say something, Monsieur Persson?’

  ‘It’s only—’ he began. I went over to him and tried to see his face in the dusk; I did not bother to light the candles as we were going to bed. I could just see Persson’s pale face.

  ‘I only wanted to say, Mademoiselle, that I – yes, that I shall soon be going home.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Monsieur; why?’

  ‘I have not yet told Madame Clary, I did not want to trouble her. But you see, Mademoiselle, I have been here for a year and more, and they want me in the business in Stockholm. And when Monsieur Etienne Clary comes back everything will be in order here. I mean, in the business as well; and then I will go back to Stockholm.’

  It was the longest speech I had ever heard Persson make. I couldn’t quite understand why he told me before the others. I had always thought he didn’t take me any more seriously than they do. But now, of course, I wanted us to go on talking. So I went over to the sofa and indicated with a very ladylike gesture that he was to be seated next to me. As soon as he sat down, his tall frame folded up like a pocket knife; he rested his elbows on his knees, and I could see he didn’t know what to say next.

  ‘Is Stockholm a beautiful city?’ I asked politely.

  ‘To me it is the most beautiful city in the world,’ he answered. ‘Green ice-floes sail about in Mälar, and the sky is as white as a sheet that has just been washed. That is in the winter, but our winter is very long.’

  His description did not make me think Stockholm particularly beautiful. I wondered, too, where it was that the green floes were sailing about.

  ‘Our shop is in the Vester Longgatan. That is the most modern shopping centre in Stockholm. It is just by the Royal Palace,’ Persson added proudly.

  But I was not really listening, I was thinking ‘about tomorrow’, and thinking ‘I must stuff some handkerchiefs into the front of my dress and—’

  ‘I wanted to ask you a favour, Mademoiselle Clary,’ I heard Persson saying.

  ‘I must look as pretty as I can,’ I was thinking, ‘so that for my sake they will release Etienne.’ But I asked politely:

  ‘What is it, Monsieur?’

  ‘I should like so much,’ he faltered, ‘to keep the broadsheet about the Rights of Man, the one Monsieur Clary brought home. I know, Mademoiselle, that that is a presumptuous request.’

  It was indeed. Papa had always kept the broadsheet on his little bedside table, and after his death I had taken it for myself.

  ‘I shall always treasure it, Mademoiselle,’ said Persson.

  Then I teased him for the last time: ‘So you’ve become a Republican, Monsieur?’

  And once more he wouldn’t say. ‘I am a Swede, Mademoiselle,’ he replied, ‘and Sweden is a Monarchy.’

  ‘You may keep the broadsheet, Monsieur,’ I said, ‘and show it to your friends in Sweden.’

  At this moment the door flew open and Julie cried angrily: ‘When are you coming to bed, Eugenie? Oh,’ she added, ‘I didn’t know you were with Monsieur Persson. Monsieur, the child must go to bed. Come along, Eugenie!’

  Julie was still scolding me when I had put almost all my paper curlers into my hair and she was in bed. ‘Eugenie, your behaviour is scandalous. Persson is a young man, and it’s not proper to sit in the dark with a young man. You forget that you are a daughter of François Clary. Papa was a highly respected citizen, and Persson can’t even speak decent Fren
ch. You will disgrace the whole family!’

  ‘What rubbish,’ I thought, as I snuffed out the candle and got into bed. ‘What Julie needs is a husband; if she had one my life would be easier.’

  I tried to sleep, but I could not stop thinking about tomorrow’s visit to the Maison Commune. And I kept thinking, too, of the guillotine. I see it so often when I am trying to go to sleep, and then I dig my head into the pillow to drive away that memory, the memory of the knife and the severed head.

  Two years ago our cook Marie took me secretly to the Town Hall square. We pushed our way through the crowd that swarmed round the scaffold. I wanted to see everything, and I clenched my teeth because they were chattering so. The red tumbril brought up twenty ladies and gentlemen. They all wore fine clothes, but dirty bits of straw clung to the gentlemen’s silk breeches and the ladies’ lace sleeves. Their hands were bound with rope behind their backs.

  Sawdust is spread on the scaffold round the guillotine, and every morning and evening, after the executions, fresh sawdust is put down, but it spite of that it is always a terrible reddish yellow mess. The whole square smells of dried blood and sawdust. The guillotine is painted red like the tumbrils, but the paint is peeling off; for the guillotine has been there for years.

  On that afternoon the first person brought in was a young man who was accused of being in secret correspondence with enemies abroad. When the executioner jerked him on to the scaffold his lips were moving; I think he was praying. He knelt and I shut my eyes; I heard the blade fall. When I looked up, the executioner was holding a head in his hand. The head had a chalk-white face; the eyes were wide open and staring at me. My heart stood still. The mouth in the chalky face was wide open as though about to scream. There was no end to that silent scream.

  I could hear confused voices round me; someone sobbed, and there came a high-pitched giggle. Then the noise seemed to come from far away, everything went black before my eyes, and – well, yes, I was horribly sick.