The Second Empress Read Online Free PDF Page A

she told me, enjoying her little joke. “The ancient Egyptians were proud to bare them.”
    When she has fastened her robe, she crosses the bedchamber into the salon. “Are you coming? I have a story to tell you about Joséphine.”
    I follow her into my favorite room in the Tuileries. The doors to the balcony have been thrown open, and fresh light illuminates the gilded walls where an artist has painted scenes from the temples of Egypt. Women in white sheaths raise their arms to the sun, and strange godswith the heads of jackals and bulls carry powerful insignias: crooks, flails, a golden key to life—all symbols of rule. I sit across from her on a padded chair while she arranges herself on the divan.
    “I was only fifteen when I met Fréron, but I knew what I wanted. We were set to marry in Martinique until Joséphine …” Tears redden her eyes, and I am shocked. I had no idea she felt so strongly about Fréron, whose name she has mentioned briefly in the past. “Until Joséphine told my brother that Fréron would never be good enough for me.”
    I sit forward. “Then you loved him?”
    “Of course! I was fifteen.”
    “But he wasn’t a soldier,” I point out. Nearly all of Pauline’s affairs have been with men in French uniforms.
    “No.” She closes her eyes. “I almost tied my fortunes to a lowly deputy. Can you imagine? I would have lived in poverty, clinging to the hope that the government might increase his salary one day! But Joséphine was not to know that,” she adds heatedly.
    “So she saved you from penury,” I reply, and the look she gives me is thunderous.
    “I was a sensitive girl! He was going to save me. You don’t know—”
    But I do. I know exactly how it is with Pauline Borghese, the princess of Guastalla who was raised in poverty on the little Italian island of Corsica and vowed with her brother to conquer the world. I wish I had known her then, before the world gave her so much pain and grief. She wipes away real tears with the back of her hand, and this rare show of tenderness presses at my heart. Then, as if on cue, Aubree arrives, curling herself on the divan next to her mistress. There is nothing in the world the princess loves as this dog. She is tiny, weighing only ten pounds, but her eyes are filled with a world of expectation and play. “Tell me what you’ve heard about the divorce,” Pauline says, tracing the delicate, folded ears of her Italian greyhound. Tell me something cheerful is what she means.
    “I heard the empress fainted when he told her the news, and thatthe emperor had to carry her up to her chamber because she was too weak to walk.”
    “What an actress!” she exclaims. “I’ve never asked to be carried by the emperor, and I’m the one who’s always in pain. Do you remember how terrible it was last week?”
    “Your Highness couldn’t move from the divan for two days.”
    “And did I ask my brother to come and carry me? Did I stand up and pretend to faint at his feet?”
    “No, you are far more subtle than that.”
    She stares at me, but my face betrays nothing.
    “I told him to have Hortense tell her,” she continues. “He could have spared himself the theatrics. What else? I know my brother confides in you. Have you heard anything about how she’s to be treated?” She sits up on her divan, forcing Aubree to readjust her position.
    It would be easier for us both if I lied, but I will not. “The emperor has offered her a kingdom in Italy, including”—I exhale—“the city of Rome.”
    There is a tense moment of silence, and even Aubree knows what is coming; the little greyhound buries her nose in her paws.
    “ Rome ,” Pauline repeats, as if she can’t believe it. “How can he offer her the greatest jewel in Italy without any thought for me?” And then she cries, “I am the Princess Borghese, and Rome should be mine !”
    I spread my hands, as if it’s a mystery. But the truth is, her brother feels guilty. He has cast off a wife