Napoleon and Josephine


Josephine

The story of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais has got to be one of the most passionate and stormy love affairs in history.

Josephine's husband had been executed at the guillotine during the Terror in Paris in 1794. As a widow however, she did not remain idle for long and became mistress to several prominent politicians of the time. In 1795 she started a relationship with Napoleon, who was 6 years younger than her and married him in March of the following year after an intense an all-consuming love affair. In 1810, after years of failing ot produce an heir for him they both agreed to divorce.

The intensity of their relationship comes across very strongly in Napoleon's letters to her, an example of which is the below:


"Dec. 29, 1795

I awake all filled with you. Your image and the intoxicating pleasures of last night, allow my senses no rest.
Sweet and matchless Josephine, how strangely you work upon my heart.
Are you angry with me? Are you unhappy? Are you upset?
My soul is broken with grief and my love for you forbids repose. But how can I rest any more, when I yield to the feeling that masters my inmost self, when I quaff from your lips and from your heart a scorching flame?
Yes! One night has taught me how far your portrait falls short of yourself!
You start at midday: in three hours I shall see you again.
Till then, a thousand kisses, mio dolce amor! but give me none back for they set my blood on fire. "

Comments

Daldianus said…
So emperors have the same human feelings as we mere mortals! :)

Good to know, hehe.
Tuesday, 05 July, 2005
Anna said…
Apparently so! ;-))
Tuesday, 05 July, 2005
Nick said…
I believe he also wrote to her - I'll be back in three days' time. Don't wash.
I'm not sure it's good to know that Emperors have personal hygiene fetishes . . .
Tuesday, 05 July, 2005
Anonymous said…
And people actually DID use the word "quaff"! Previously only heard of when describing the drinking of ale in fantasy novels.
Wednesday, 06 July, 2005
Anna said…
Who would have thought Napoleon was pervy...heh heh! ;-) Well, actually he was a very strange person. Amongst his peculiarities was his terrible fear of the dark. He could not sleep in the dark and required that there were several candles burning all throughout the night in his bedroom. Apparently this really annoyed his women no end as they had trouble getting to sleep with so much light.
Wednesday, 06 July, 2005
Anonymous said…
He was also terrified of cats.
Wednesday, 06 July, 2005
Anna said…
"Greatness" comes with a price!
Thursday, 07 July, 2005
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine the Great and her Many Lovers

Image
Catherine the Great was empress of Russia from 1762 until she died in 1796. She was born in 1729 in Poland and in 1744 was taken to Russia to marry the young Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne and not of a sane mind. For seven years during their marriage Peter spent his time playing with toy soldiers and dogs and showed no interest in sex. In fact he had a physical disability, a very tight foreskin, which may have played an important part in that matter. Finally the empress Elizabeth gave Catherine the permission to take a lover, which she did and was soon pregnant. She convinced Peter it was his own child, as was the plan anyway. In the meantime he had been circumcised so that he could perform the sexual act. Catherine developed a taste for young soldiers. She had a special area built in her bedroom, which was curtained off and where she received her lovers. Gregory Orlov was her on and off lover for around thirteen years. He was said to possess excellent equipment, unbelievable ‘st...
Read more

Emperor Elagabalus; the Teenage Pervert

Image
When the emperor Caracalla was murdered in 217, the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus succeeded him. He only ruled for 4 years, but in that short period of time he commited a variety of grotesque and debauched acts, enough to make Caligula and Commodus seem rather plain. His real name was Bassianus but as he developed an intense interest in worshippng the Syrian god Elagabal, became High Priest of the cult and so had his name changed to Elagabalus. To honor his god, he demanded that hundereds of cattle were slaughtered daily on huge sacrificial altars. He had a temple built on the Palatine Hill and ordered the Romans to worship a statue of a giant phallus, which didn't go down very well at all... Eventually he decided he was the god embodied. He started to wear women's clothes and make-up, implored his surgeons to cut his penis off and make him a vagina and when they said tehy could not do this he settled for circumcision. His body is said to have been very effeminate and he had a m...
Read more

The Smelly Woad Dyers

Image
Woad leaves Before Indigo was imported from the East in the 16th Century, the only source of rich blue dye was Woad, Isatis Tinctoria, a plant which is a member of the cabbage family and which was brought to Britain by the Celts. They called it Glasto, hence Glastonbury, which means ‘a place where woad grows’. The process by which the dye was extracted was lengthy and very smelly indeed, (think combination of raw sewage and rotten cabbage) and the people who did this work, woad dyers, were outcasts of society, since they smelt so much. As a result they were isolated and inbred. There was no way of hiding if you were a woad dyer as even if you washed yourself really well to remove the stench, the blue dye could be seen on your fingers and under your fingernails. Queen Elizabeth I, not being able to stand the stench from their workshops, decreed that woad dyers should be at least 5 miles away from wherever she was staying. As it took 50 kilos of woad in order to produce 5 kilos of pigme...
Read more