Meanwhile Lucien had got rid of the Marquesa and acquired a mistress with a most dubious reputation, named Alexandrine Jouberton, the wife of a defaulting stock-jobber, and had installed her in a house in the Rue du Palais Bourbon. Then, at the end of October, when Napoleon approached him about marrying the Queen of Etruria he had calmly revealed that he had already been married for six months to Alexandrine; giving, of all things for such a man, as his reason that he had felt in honour bound to marry her because he had put her in the family way.
Napoleon's anger knew no bounds and he declared that as Jouberton was still alive the marriage could not be legal; but fate was against liim because the defaulting broker had fled to San Domingo and, soon afterwards, it was learned that he had died there of yellow fever. Pleas and threats alike failed to induce Lucien to divorce the undesirable wife he had acquired and, supported by his mother, who always took his side, he declared that he would -have no more to do with his autocratic brother and departed with his wife to live in Italy.
Napoleon, meanwhile, was taking, with the ladies of the theatre, such relaxation as he could snatch from his endless commitments. Little Mademoiselle George, honest, sweet-natured, unambitious, devoted, the perfect companion for a tired man, remained his favourite. But from time to time others were summoned, among them the superb actress Mademoiselle Mars and the pert, mentally agile Therese Bourgoin. The latter he took from his Minister of Finance, Chaptal, who had long kept her, to that elderly gentleman's fury and, not long afterwards, Therese's disgust; because she had given up a rich permanent lover for the mercurial Napoleon who, tiring of her rapacity, soon threw her aside.
The usual procedure was for Constant, Napoleon's valet, to collect these ladies from the theatre at which they were playing and conduct them in a coach, driven by the First Consul's faithful but notoriously drunken coachman, to St. Cloud. There Rustem, Napoleon's Mameluke bodyguard, took over, escorted them to a vast room with a bed in one corner and reported their arrival to his master; after which these delectable young ladies might wait for anything from ten minutes to four hours before being received by their host, according to what other matters might be occupying his immediate attention.
Josephine, of course, knew all about these goings-on and, occasionally, threw jealous scenes during which she wept copiously; but in the main she accepted them with resignation, on other nights reading Napoleon to sleep and consoling herself with his abiding affection for her.
Early in November Roger suffered a severe blow to his self-esteem. On the nights when he was able to visit Pauline in secret, which averaged about twice a week, it had become customary for him to undress in a small closet on the far side of Pauline's boudoir from her bedroom. On this occasion he had spent some two hours with her and returned to the closet to dress. The little room held only a marble basin, in which Aimec always left a covered jug of hot water for him, hooks on which to hang clothes and a shelf holding a few toilet things.
He was just about to blow out the candle and leave the room when he noticed among the scent bottles and powder jars a round pocket mirror. His attention was caught by the elaborate gold cipher on the leather back, and he recognized it at once as that which the flamboyant Murat had emblazoned a foot high on the doors of his coaches and carriages.
To come upon the little mirror in that particular place gave Roger furiously to think. But it was possible that on some occasion Pauline, finding that she had neglected to put her mirror in her reticule, had borrowed it from her vain brother-in-law and had forgotten to return it. Picking it up he walked across the boudoir into Pauline's bedroom and, as she sat up in bed for him to kiss her goodnight, he held it out to her and asked:
'How did you come by this pretty thing?'
Smothering a yawn, she replied sleepily, 'Oh, that is Joachim Murat's. He is always looking at himself in it and must have left it on the table in the boudoir when he was taking coffee with me this afternoon.'
By admitting that Murat had been there that day she had given herself away; as there was no lavatory in the closet nor water, except that brought up by Aimee at night in a can. If he had wanted to wash he would have done so downstairs; so he could have used the closet only to undress in.
After a moment, Roger said, 'Drinking coffee was not the only thing you did together, was it? You see, I found this in the closet.'
'Oh dear!' Pauline sighed. 'How very careless of him to leave it there. He... he went in to... to, yes, fetch me some scent.'
'Stop lying!' he told her sharply. 'You keep all the scents you use yourself in your own bathroom. You went to bed with him, didn't you?'
Now wide awake and very flushed, she stammered, 'I.. .well... if you must know the truth, yes.'
'And he your sister's husband!'
'What has that to do with it?' she asked peevishly. 'Caroline goes to bed with lots of men, and would have with Lcclerc if she had had half a chance. Camillo had ridden out to Chantilly to see a race horse he wants to buy; so was out of the way and ... well, Joachim and I just felt like it.'
'I don't doubt he did. I remember hearing Napoleon once say of him, "Apparently Murat has to sleep with a woman every night but any woman does for him". But you! Damn it! And knowing that I was coming to you tonight!'
'Oh, Roje, please don't be unreasonable. How could I refuse an old friend?'
'So this wasn't the first time?'
'No, oh no. The first time was years ago, when I was a girl at Montebello.'
'And how many other old friends have you?' Roger demanded angrily.
Becoming angry too, she snapped at him, 'Since you insist on prying into my affairs, quite a number. And I don't see what you have to complain about.'
'Don't you, indeed! I thought you loved me.'
'But I do. I put you before all others. I let you come to me any night you choose.'
'D'you mean that on the nights I don't, you have other men here?'
'Well, now and then. After all, when you have to go to the coast you are sometimes away for a week or more. You can't expect me not to have a little fun with someone else occasionally.' Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears.
Angry as he was, he could not bring himself to upbraid her further, and she clung to him until he said he would forgive her.
While walking back down the Champs Elysees across the Place de la Concorde, then through the dark, older streets of Paris to La Belle Etoile, he sadly took stock of this new situation. Scandalous stories had come back from San Domingo about Pauline's immoralities while she was there—even that she had participated in orgies and had had a giant negro as a lover. Those he still did not believe, but it was now beyond doubt that she was a nymphomaniac and so unable to control her sexual urges. He then admitted to himself that her attraction for him was solely a physical one, and that his distress was not really because he had a deep love for her but because his pride was hurt. There remained the question of whether he should break off the affaire or continue it knowing that she had other lovers.
Having slept upon it, he decided that since going to bed with her gave him so much pleasure, and he apparently held first place in her affections, to break with her would only be to cut off his nose to spite his face; so during the next week he went to her again on two occasions, both of them tacitly ignoring the scene they had had after her revelation that he was not her only lover.