The Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart

Author:Andrea Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2003-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

By the end of April 1798 the secret plans for the Egyptian campaign were complete. On 4 May the Bonapartes – travelling in separate vehicles – left Paris. Five days later the large Berlin conveying Josephine, Napoleon’s secretary Bourrienne and Eugène in his smart aide-de-camp uniform lumbered into Toulon. They were confronted by an awe-inspiring sight: the entire French fleet, ‘whose masts resembled a huge forest’, at anchor in the city’s harbour, its ships spreading almost a mile out to sea. On board were over 30,000 troops, 1,000 civilians and 700 horses. Napoleon, surrounded by his generals, took his place on the admiral’s barge to review the fleet. Every gun on every vessel and in the port’s fortresses fired a salute, while every ship broke out its flags. It must have been an intensely satisfying sight for the young general who had arrived in this same harbour as a poverty-stricken unknown five years before.

Forced to wait six days for a storm to pass, Josephine was given the opportunity to inspect Napoleon’s flagship, the Orient. It was meant to be the greatest battleship of its time and was certainly one of the biggest: more than 6,000 great oak trees would have been felled in its creation. Home to 2,000 soldiers, sailors, scholars and craftsmen, the ship was so vast its inhabitants called it ‘the wooden world’. Nearly sixty metres long, it had three gun decks, with 120 cannon. Despite its size, however, it was terribly overcrowded. Later, when supplies ran out, the inhabitants would suffer even more as they battled with heat, dysentery and tainted water.

Josephine was awed by the ship’s size and the cavernous darkness and silence of the lower depths, like that of a Gothic church. She was astonished too by the luxury of her husband’s quarters. His bed was set on casters in an attempt to lessen the seasickness that always plagued him. Their friend the poet Arnault had assembled a comprehensive library of 287 volumes of history, politics, philosophy, poetry, travel writing, literature and science. There was even a printing press on which Napoleon would prepare his declarations to the Egyptian population. The wine cellar was stocked with 800 bottles of the finest wines and a carriage was on board for his use in Egypt. Josephine also met a number of the 150 savants, the scientists and intellectuals who were also part of the expedition. Of these, only a select few knew the armada’s true destination; the rest spent their time speculating and dreaming.

Despite the ship’s many amenities, Napoleon did not want Josephine to risk the journey. Instead he decided that she should visit Plombiéres, a spa famous for sulphur baths that were said to boost fertility. Determined to accompany her husband, Josephine spent much of her time trying to change his mind. One morning one of Napoleon’s generals, Alexandre Dumas, the handsome black giant whose son would write The Three Muskeeters and The Count of Monte Cristo, walked in on the couple, only to discover Josephine in tears.

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