Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte Read Online Free PDF Page A

oppression, emerging phoenix-like from the ashes of the Revolution. “The nation was seized with hopes for boundless happiness,” wrote Madame de Staël,and “one has never seen both so much life and so much intellect.” 3 Her salon was vital in directing government policy; there Marie-Josèphe encountered men who were shaping her country and who would also transform her life, including the ruthless former priest Abbé Sieyès and the limping bishop-turned-republican Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, who had tried to seduce Madame de Staël to further his ambitions. The thirty-six-year-old aristocrat was the most skilled and devious politician Marie-Josèphe would ever meet.
    Newly dressed in her plain striped gowns, Marie-Josèphe was all the more popular for never having been presented at court. She was congratulated, admired, invited to balls, operas, country picnics, and receptions; in short, she was in demand, and to keep up her new status, she spent money as if there were no tomorrow.
    But underneath all the sparkling conversation, the cheering, and the caps of liberty, the truth was that France was bankrupt. Unrest continued to surge; the crowds were prowling and angry, unwilling to wait much longer for the bread they had been promised.
    A T TEN-THIRTY P.M. on Monday, June 20, the two surviving children of the king and queen were carried out of the Tuileries, half asleep and disguised in heavy woolen dresses, and bundled into a coach with their governess. The young princess asked her brother what he thought they were doing. “I suppose to act a play,” he replied, “since we have got these odd costumes.” 4 The king and queen, the king’s sister Elisabeth, and their escorts joined them, all disguised as servants in shawls and pulled-down hats. Louis’s crown and robes were stuffed into the baggage under the seats. The king had finally agreed to flee Paris and head to the border, where royalist troops and foreign armies would protect him and allow him to demand concessions.
    The plan was that the royals would pretend to be the servants of a noblewoman, the Baroness de Korff, played by the children’s governess. The king would act the part of a valet. At the city walls, the party transferred to a large custom-made coach guarded by three men in bright yellow livery.
    At eleven on the following night, the ill-disguised set of servants arrived at the small town of Varennes-en-Argonne, where they searcheddesperately for fresh horses. The huge coach and the yellow-clad guards made them conspicuous. They were recognized and captured only twenty-five miles from the fortified royalist town of Montmédy, where they had hoped to be safe.
    When the news came through of the royal flight, Alexandre was on his second day as president of the assembly. He dispatched riders to retrieve the royal party and announced that the assembly should sit continuously until the runaways were caught.
    O N J UNE 25, the royal family were dragged back through Paris in front of crowds of spectators. Madame Campan attended the queen on her return to the Tuileries and found that her hair had turned entirely white.
    Alexandre de Beauharnais was the hero of the hour. The flight of the king was a turning point. The moderates who had espoused the idea of a constitutional monarchy—or a king with limited powers rather than an elected form of governance—felt terribly betrayed. Those on the left were confirmed in their notion that the king and queen were dangerous traitors who had intended to reach Austria and then wage war on France. The members of the powerful pro-Revolution Jacobin club—who hoped for equality, along with their working-class supporters, the sans-culottes —were infuriated. Marie Antoinette was cast as a corrupt plotter, a woman who would betray the country without compunction.
    In September 1791 the constitution, so long in formation, was signed by the king. Louis had only the right of veto, and the country would be governed by a