The Queen's Fortune

The novel, a work of historical fiction, opens in December 1860 with an elderly woman riding through the midnight streets of Stockholm in a royal carriage. Known to the Swedes as Queen Desideria, she was once a girl from the south of France whose name meant "Desire." She has outlived Napoleon, Josephine, and nearly everyone else from her extraordinary past, and she claims a power greater than ruling: the power of survival.

The story returns to 1789, when eleven-year-old Desiree Clary and her older sister, Julie, are pulled from their convent school as the French Revolution erupts. They return to Marseille, where their father, François Clary, is a wealthy silk and soap merchant. By 1794, François is dead, and the family's fortune makes them targets of the Terror, the period of mass executions carried out by France's revolutionary government. When Desiree's brother Nicolas is arrested, their mother sends sixteen-year-old Desiree to the town hall to petition for his release, hoping her youth and beauty will move the authorities.

At the town hall, Desiree and Julie encounter Joseph di Buonaparte, a gregarious Corsican who secures Nicolas's freedom. The next morning, Joseph brings his younger brother, Napoleone, a twenty-four-year-old army general who is thin, intense, and blunt. Napoleone reveals that he orchestrated the rescue through his connections to the powerful Robespierre brothers. He fixes his gaze on Desiree and declares he will return that evening.

Julie and Joseph quickly fall in love and marry. Napoleone courts Desiree with overwhelming intensity, telling her she is good, earnest, and pure, qualities he needs beside him as he pursues greatness. After a brief imprisonment following the fall of the Robespierre government, he takes Desiree to the bell tower of a hilltop church overlooking the Mediterranean, declares them bound for eternity, and they make love for the first time. The encounter is hasty and rough, leaving Desiree with a pang of unfulfilled longing.

Napoleone departs for Paris to seek his fortune, leaving Desiree behind with a study regimen and promises of marriage. His letters grow cold and infrequent. Then Desiree discovers through a newspaper that Napoleon, as he now spells his name, is publicly courting Josephine de Beauharnais, a widowed Caribbean-born socialite six years his senior and one of Paris's Merveilleuses, a circle of extravagant, trendsetting women.

Refusing to be left behind, Desiree moves to Paris with Julie and Joseph. Napoleon introduces her to Josephine as a sister, a "cherished member of our family." Josephine is tall, elegant, and disarmingly warm. On a private walk, she confides her harrowing past, including an abusive first husband and near-execution during the Terror, then reveals that she and Napoleon are to marry. Desiree attends their wedding and flees in tears when the sounds of the couple's lovemaking travel through the ceiling during the supper.

Napoleon departs to lead his Italian campaign. Over the following years, Desiree endures arranged meetings with General Leonard Duphot, an elderly suitor Napoleon has selected for her. Before any engagement occurs, Duphot is murdered by an anti-French mob in Rome as Desiree and Julie watch from a window.

Traumatized, Desiree returns to Paris, where she meets Sergeant Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte at a grand ball honoring Napoleon's victories. Bernadotte is tall, confident, and warm, teasing Napoleon openly in a way no one else dares. On a terrace one evening, he points to Venus and tells Desiree it is her star, saying she shines beautifully on her own. This contrasts sharply with Napoleon, who once compared himself to a shooting comet and invited Desiree to cling to its tail.

Bernadotte courts Desiree properly, securing her family's blessing before proposing. They marry in the summer of 1798. On their wedding night, Desiree discovers a tattoo across her husband's chest reading "Death to Kings," a mark of his youthful republican convictions. Bernadotte later confesses that Napoleon suggested the courtship, but insists his love developed genuinely. Desiree chooses to trust him.

Their son, Oscar, is born in 1799, with Napoleon named godfather. Political leaders approach Bernadotte about leading a coup against France's failing government, but he refuses on constitutional principle. Napoleon seizes power instead, declaring himself First Consul. The family flees Paris temporarily, then returns once the new government stabilizes.

Napoleon transforms France into an empire. He names Bernadotte a Marshal of France and later grants him the principality of Pontecorvo. Josephine's inability to produce an heir becomes the central crisis of her marriage, fueling Napoleon's rages and his family's open hostility toward her. At the December 1804 coronation at Notre Dame Cathedral, Desiree carries Josephine's veil and handkerchief as Napoleon crowns himself Emperor and places a diamond diadem on Josephine's head.

Years of war and court intrigue follow. In late 1809, Napoleon annuls his marriage in a public ceremony at the Tuileries. He weeps openly while Josephine maintains her composure and departs for her country estate, Malmaison. As their eyes meet in farewell, Desiree senses that their intertwined fates are not yet finished.

Napoleon marries the eighteen-year-old Habsburg princess Marie Louise in 1810. Swedish diplomats, remembering Bernadotte's kind treatment of captured officers during earlier campaigns, approach him about accepting Sweden's crown. After tense negotiations, Napoleon approves: "Very well then, Bernadotte. Go. And let our destinies be fulfilled" (341).

Bernadotte departs for Stockholm. Desiree follows reluctantly, finding the cold, the food, and the court culture deeply alien. She must change her name to "Desideria" because "Desiree" sounds too French, and Oscar is required to convert to Lutheranism, though Desiree resists pressure to abandon her Catholic faith. Over the following years, she spends long stretches in Paris while Bernadotte rules as Regent after the elderly King Charles XIII suffers a stroke.

Napoleon's catastrophic 1812 invasion of Russia destroys his army. Bernadotte joins the allied coalition against him. Napoleon abdicates in 1814 and is exiled to the island of Elba. Josephine dies within days, and Desiree believes she died of grief. Napoleon escapes Elba in 1815 for a brief return known as the Hundred Days but is defeated at Waterloo and exiled permanently to St. Helena. In a final private conversation, he reflects to Desiree: "Josephine was the wife who would have come with me to St. Helena. But I threw it all away" (381).

King Charles XIII dies in 1818, and Bernadotte and Desiree are crowned King and Queen of Sweden. Napoleon dies in exile in 1821; his posthumous memoirs condemn Bernadotte as a traitor and expose intimate details of Desiree's past, including their physical relationship. Desiree is mortified but fears most for her husband's devastation.

Desiree's premonition proves correct when Oscar falls in love with Josephine de Beauharnais's granddaughter, also named Josephine, who wins over the Swedish people by greeting them in Swedish. Bernadotte dies in 1844 after a stroke, tormented in his final delirium by memories of fighting against France. Desiree lives on as dowager queen, devoting her remaining years to compiling and publishing the letters and journals of her life, determined that Napoleon's version of their shared history will not stand as the final word. She reflects that among all her titles, the fight she deferred her entire life, the fight against Napoleon's narrative, has been her most important victory.

The epilogue notes that Desiree died on December 17, 1860, and that the House of Bernadotte still rules Sweden today, with descendants sitting on more European thrones than the Houses of Bourbon and Bonaparte combined.