Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte by Kate Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

Robespierre was in midflow, addressing the convention, when Tallien leaped up, waving the dagger and crying, “Down with the dictator!” It was a signal to his fellow plotters Paul de Barras and Louis Fréron to rise up behind him.
    The deputies turned on Robespierre, and he fled to the Hôtel de Ville. Barras stormed the building and Robespierre was dragged away. He tried to shoot himself but succeeded only in shattering his jaw. He was left bleeding on a table in the Committee of Public Safety, then moved to the same cell that Marie Antoinette had occupied. Hundreds of Parisians followed his cart to the guillotine. Robespierre, always immaculately dressed, stood in front of a furious crowd, his jaw held together with bandages, his blue coat spattered in blood. The people cheered as he was executed.
    The Jacobins were now the new enemies. Barras, Tallien, and Fréron were the heroes. Tallien became the president of the convention. The Terror was over. Through the incredible revolving door of eighteenth-century France, a new political system was in charge: Thermidor. Founded on the hope of equality, it has left little to history, conserved only as the name of a lobster recipe.
    In Les Carmes a few days later, Marie-Josèphe was told that she would walk free. She was among the first to be chosen, thanks to thepersonal intercession of Tallien. When she received the news, she fainted. She had lost her husband and many of her friends. She had been in prison for three and a half months, and her health was ruined.
    Fortunately, she was not entirely alone. General Hoche had also managed to escape the guillotine, and he wished to resume their affair.

Acknowledgments
    So many new letters and documents have emerged, and yet popular notions persist of Josephine as featherbrained. In the summer of 2008, I rented a flat near the Musée de Cluny in Paris and spent every day in the Archives Nationales, studying Josephine’s letters and the memoirs of her friends and enemies. It became clear that her reputation as excessively “feminine,” lacking intellect or ambition, was a carefully cultivated power play that worked perfectly until the very end. This was the Josephine I wanted to explore in this book. Josephine’s own propaganda of the gentle consort occupied only by trivialities is very seductive. But in a merciless time, she had to be tough to survive, and her letters lay bare her ruthless determination. It feels fitting that she chose as her symbol a swan, a bird that appears graceful but is scrabbling underneath the surface—and has a pretty unforgiving bite.
    I am indebted to all those who have edited the letters and diaries of Josephine and her circle, and who have written on her life and those of her associates. The current project of the Fondation Napoléon, led by Victor André Masséna, Prince d’Essling, to publish Napoleon’s full correspondence—including letters omitted from the earlier volumes—is a joy to all Napoleon scholars. Ten volumes have been published to date, with four to come, and they have been invaluable to me, as they will be to researchers in the future.
    My work would not have been possible without the efforts of archivists to conserve the papers of Josephine, Napoleon, and her circle, and I am very grateful to them all. The generosity of other scholars is alwayshumbling. I am indebted to those who have written books that have transformed our view of Josephine and her circle—and been very helpful to me with advice, insight, and help. Bernard Chevallier, to whom anyone who works on Josephine is always greatly indebted, Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, who was always full of generous encouragement (and kindly loaned me her book), Andrew Roberts, Munro Price, Paul Strathern, Flora Fraser and the generous Mlle. Mountjoly at the Musée de la Pagerie, Martinique, have all been very welcoming, and Andrea Stuart was very kind. Sandra Gulland’s work is always inspiring. A welcome grant from the Society of