Napoleon was ardently in love...
but Josephine’s feelings for him were lukewarm.
She told friends “Il et drole, Bonaparte” (He’s funny, Bonaparte) and was more interested in her social life and her children than her new husband. She had married him for financial security... He would later claim to have married her for her money but in point of fact she did not have much and he was rather, passionately in love. She remained in Paris while he went to war, but he wrote her passionate love letters which have become famous... and tried to persuade her, once it was safe, to come to Italy to be with him.
Josephine did not want to leave her beloved Paris and her comfortable life. She was soon having an affair with Hippolyte Charles, a handsome and sophisticated Hussar officer whose charming manners were more to her taste than Napoleon’s bursts of ardour and his rough social manner. He was never comfortable with women and was often very rude to them. His family did not like Josephine either, seeing her as a loose woman who was too glamorous and Parisian for them. His sisters felt gauche and clumsy beside her elegance and charm.
She told friends “Il et drole, Bonaparte” (He’s funny, Bonaparte) and was more interested in her social life and her children than her new husband. She had married him for financial security... He would later claim to have married her for her money but in point of fact she did not have much and he was rather, passionately in love. She remained in Paris while he went to war, but he wrote her passionate love letters which have become famous... and tried to persuade her, once it was safe, to come to Italy to be with him.
Josephine did not want to leave her beloved Paris and her comfortable life. She was soon having an affair with Hippolyte Charles, a handsome and sophisticated Hussar officer whose charming manners were more to her taste than Napoleon’s bursts of ardour and his rough social manner. He was never comfortable with women and was often very rude to them. His family did not like Josephine either, seeing her as a loose woman who was too glamorous and Parisian for them. His sisters felt gauche and clumsy beside her elegance and charm.
Josephine put him off when he tired
to persuade her to go to join him in Italy, claiming that she was pregnant and could not travel...
However eventually she yielded to his entreaties and made the journey... the pregnancy was either a mistake or a deliberate lie... because she and Napoleon never had any children.
However eventually she yielded to his entreaties and made the journey... the pregnancy was either a mistake or a deliberate lie... because she and Napoleon never had any children.
Napoleon was delighted to see his
wife and she was treated almost as a queen in Italy. He had won great victories and was increasingly
popular in France. He knew that as well
as his military skills, he was highly intelligent and that he would probably be
accepted as a ruler since people in France were increasingly fed up with the corrupted
Directorate.
On his return to Paris, he made use
of his wife’s social skills to attract supporters to his cause. Josephine continued
her affair with Charles, but Napoleon was so in love that he seemed blind to
it.
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