Mon amour, ma vie

17

Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Étiennette was dead. Dead and gone. Dead.

Napoléon had offered you a large funeral. You said no. He understood. There had been a small, private service for her. You had balled your eyes out throughout the entire service. Napoléon had her body put in a coffin linden with pink and flowers. She was laid to rest in the Bonaparte mausoleum and on her tomb it read;

Étiennette Joie Bonaparte

August 7 1808 - April 6 1809

Beloved adopted daughter of Napoléon

Daughter of Y/N L/N

Psalm 23:4

It was a beautiful thing he had done for her. He had adopted her posthumously.

And so life went on. April turned into May and May into Summer. Most days you stayed in your bedroom or just the bed. Napoléon tried to make you smile, but all his attempts were in vain. He understood though. He had lost many friends and family members in his life, but never a child, so he gave you space and time to grieve, however long that would take.

Sometimes he would have to leave the palace for foregin countries which was hard for you, but he made sure you were okay and lavished you with gifts, though you didn't mean to be rude, you didn't really want them, you only wanted one thing back in your life and she was gone.

All of the Bonaparte family was as well on edge. It'd been over a year since Napoléon divorced and besides you, he had no other woman in his life. Lucien had tried in vain for him to take a German mistress, but he took no interest and said only you were the one for him.

"You need to marry and have an heir, soon." Lucien said one night in the library while discussing plans with Portugal.

"I already know who I will marry." Napoléon said coolly.

"You can't marry y/n. She isn't of your class or status. She is so depressed. She'd be a mockery to France-" Lucien began but his brother stopped him.

"Do not dare tell me who I should marry. I have never felt love like this since Joséphine and I divorced. She is in mourning for her child, I already have a ring for her and plan to ask her soon once I can track down her estranged husband and grant her a divorce." He said.

Lucien went quiet. There was no point in trying to argue anymore. His own brother had dismissed all his mistresses for you and wanted to marry you. There wasn't anything he could do to change his mind.

~~~*~~~

It was Late July and you sat on a bench outside by the fountain of Mary holding her son. You had stopped spending so much time inside your bedroom and decided to go out today. You drew yourself to a secluded area of the palace where some wild tulips and cherry blossoms grew. You picked some and whittled it into a flower crown and placed it on Mary's head.

It was a beautiful statue. Sadly it had been taken over by nature but it was nonetheless beautiful. It was calming to see Mary's serene face as she held her son Jesus. Over the past two weeks you had slowly moved on from your depression phase of sleeping all day to doing small tasks daily, even if it was just getting dressed and going to eat lunch.

So now you were here, thinking deeply about the past year and how much your life had changed. You thought back to a year ago when you were just a shy, trembling pregnant woman who wanted the best for her child. And now you were living with the most powerful man in France with every material possession you could ever ask for, but without your child.

It was ironic that life was that way. You had everything a princess would want but were missing what you needed to make life worth living; your child. You wondered how many other mothers suffered in silence for their children, most worse off than you. Losing a child was the greatest pain one could endure.