CAMBACÉRÈS
There is also Madame de Staël, who is intelligent, enjoys creating trouble, and dangerous. And perhaps a little too virile. Talleyrand argues that he and Chateaubriand both figure in her novel, Delphine, disguised as women. There is also Benjamin Constant, a woman’s man and Madame de Staël’s unfaithful lover. In politics as in love, one never knows which way he will lean.
BONAPARTE
Don’t speak to me of those two! They are hollow, and cast ill upon the entire human species. I admire Corneille, and they are far from his sort. Madame de Staël in particular, daughter of the incompetent Necker, is a bird of bad omen. She always was a sign of trouble. I do not intend to let her stay in France.
CAMBACÉRÈS
There are those who oppose you, Citizen First Consul, and not all of them are writers. The ones to fear are not the royalists or the Jacobins. They are all around you, in the Army, and perhaps in your own family, which is weaving its own dark designs. The day you created the Légion d’honneur, General Moreau awarded an honorary casserole to his cook. General Bernadotte works hard — but not for your interests. And your brother Lucien. .
BONAPARTE
I know that Lucien conspires. Why do you think that I made him ambassador to Spain?
CAMBACÉRÈS
To remove him as Minister of the Interior — and to get him far from Paris. That was well done.
BONAPARTE
Lucien is ambitious and thinks himself self-made. He badly wants to get involved in politics. He plays the republican and pretends to a patriotism that he mocks in private. Joseph, my older brother, has very little ambition, and also not much spirit. Lucien, on the other hand, could easily see himself sharing power with Moreau and Carnot, three equal consuls each taking their turn as president. A revolving presidency! Can you imagine the stupidity of that? Lucien helped me on Eighteen Brumaire, but he has never stopped conspiring against me, and with a clumsiness that does both of us harm. Yet he keeps doing it. And now he wants to get married.
CAMBACÉRÈS
I thought that he already was married.
BONAPARTE
He was. He married the daughter of a Provence innkeeper. She died, which was a good thing. Then he pursued Juliette Récamier, who wanted nothing to do with him and sent her ridiculous letters with openings like, “Romeo writes you, his Juliet. .”
CAMBACÉRÈS
This came to you through Fouché, I imagine.
BONAPARTE
Of course Fouché, thanks to whom, even though he is no longer a minister — though I may reappoint him — I have a functioning police force. Then I learned from Pauline that Lucien had become infatuated with a widow, a kind of stockbroker: Madame Jouberthon. I opposed this relationship, but to no effect. Do you know what he said to me?
CAMBACÉRÈS
I’m afraid I don’t. I’m not as close to Fouché as you are.
BONAPARTE
He said, “At least mine is pretty.”
CAMBACÉRÈS
That is not only vulgar but inaccurate. In any case, I hope he won’t marry her. Let him make her a kept woman. She seems accustomed to that and it’s his fantasy.
BONAPARTE
Too late. He married her. Lucien is as much an idiot in his private life as in his public life. Oh, my dear colleague, the French people think that I am preoccupied only with great thoughts about power and war, and instead I spend my time worrying about matters of the heart.
CAMBACÉRÈS
I find that hard to believe.
BONAPARTE
No, it’s quite true. My youngest brother, Jérôme, is nineteen. While he was on a trip to the United States, he married an American girl.
CAMBACÉRÈS
An American?
BONAPARTE
Yes, an American! The daughter of a merchant from the city of Baltimore by the name of Elizabeth Patterson. So you see, now I am the brother-in-law of Madame Jouberton and Elizabeth Patterson.
CAMBACÉRÈS
You are the Victor of Rivoli and Marengo, you have conquered Venice and Egypt, you have forced the English to accept a peace treaty, and you are First Consul and President of the Italian Republic.
BONAPARTE
I also have brothers and sisters, and they strive to poison my life and dishonor what I have taken such pains to nurture. Only my dear and beautiful Pauline has given me some satisfaction.
CAMBACÉRÈS
At least that’s something.
BONAPARTE
As you say. After the death of poor Leclerc, who was so brutally taken from her before being carried off by yellow fever in Santo Domingo, she has found consolation, first with that thug Sarlovèze, who hated me and whom I got rid of, and then with Eugène de Beauharnais, the son of my Joséphine. Happily, she just married Prince Camille Aldobrandini Borghèse, grand-nephew of two popes, who is both more capable and wealthy than the miserable Bacciochi, husband of my sister Élisa.
CAMBACÉRÈS
My congratulations, Citizen First Consul.
BONAPARTE
Élisa has gone nearly mad with rage and jealousy over it. Her relationship with that journalist Fontanes is not enough to bring her peace. Oh, Cambacérès! You see how it is with family. Mine has made disgraceful marriages and yet dreams of wealth and glory. It owes everything to me and yet wants everything from me — power, money, titles, honors. It makes me wonder sometimes whether we are not all sharing in the legacy of my dead father. Everything they have comes from me and I am exhausting myself counteracting their idiocies and grossness.
CAMBACÉRÈS
You can always count upon your friends — upon me, who thinks only of your greatness. And upon Joséphine.
BONAPARTE
Joséphine! I loved her so very much. Now she’s making problems for me, serious problems, by not giving me an heir. And then meaningless things, with which she harangues me all day long. Have you heard about this business of the shawl?
CAMBACÉRÈS
No. What shawl?
BONAPARTE
It would appear that about two weeks ago an Armenian merchant called upon my sister Caroline with a cashmere shawl, embroidered with red and gold, and covered with enormous flowers. A garish thing, but strange and rather extraordinary and therefore outrageously expensive.
CAMBACÉRÈS
I wonder what price Madame Murat would consider “outrageous.”
BONAPARTE
Fifteen-thousand francs.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Ah. That is a hefty price.
BONAPARTE
That’s what Caroline thought. She told the Armenian, “That’s too costly. I won’t buy it.” Then she added almost immediately, “My god but it is handsome. I would offer you ten thousand.” To which the Armenian replied, “Fifteen thousand and not a sou less.” This angered Caroline, who told him he was out of his mind and to leave immediately.