Alexander the Great won 9 battles
Julius Caesar won 16
Napoleon? THIRTY EIGHT
17 of them with impossible odds
Half a dozen EMPIRES had to join hands to stand a chance against him
Yet his wife slept with other men
The tragic love story of one of the greatest men of all time:
1/ Joséphine
An aristocrat’s daughter, a widow, mother of 2
Also 6 years older than Napoleon
On the marriage certificate, she increased Napoleon’s age by 1.5 years and decreased hers by 4...
Wedding was officiated by an illegitimate priest
Napoleon was just an army officer
2/ Napoleon’s love for her - despite her age, previous children, and his family’s great disapproval - could only be described as wild and profound. From a love letter: “The remembrance of last night’s delirium have robbed my senses of repose. My waking thoughts are all of thee.”
3/ Joséphine hardly ever wrote back
In 1796 Napoleon wrote:
“You do not write me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters afford him, and you do not write him six lines of even haphazard scribble.”
Future Emperor, left on “read”
4/ As Napoleon led his men to impossible victories, his spirit stayed agitated and morose
He wrote to Joséphine, telling her he can’t muster a response to “How did you sleep?” without knowing how she slept
He wanted his “genius” to protect HER, and leave him “unguarded”
5/ The thought of Joséphine kept Napoleon sane in the middle of INHUMAN emotional and physical turmoil:
“When I’m weary of the worries of my profession, when men disgust me, when I’m ready to curse my life, I put my hand on my heart where your portrait beats in unison.”
6/ Napoleon was haunted by the suspicion that Joséphine loved him “less” with each passing day
This idea, he wrote, “blights my soul, stops my blood, makes me wretched without even leaving me the courage of fury”
He was right
She was cheating on him immediately after marriage
7/ Napoleon to Joséphine:
“I haven't drunk one cup of tea without cursing the pride and ambition which force me to remain apart from the moving spirit of my life. If I rise to work in the middle of the night, it is because this may hasten by a matter of days our meeting."
8/ Joséphine had the GALL to come visit Napoleon with the man she was cheating on him with
And when Napoleon came for her, she was nowhere to be seen:
“I arrive at Milan, I rush into your apartment, I have left everything to see you, to press you in my arms…you were not there”
9/ Napoleon’s last words: “France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine”
He divorced her
But never got over her
Affairs didn’t help
The pain of not being loved back by her lingered on
I’m reminded of a line from a letter he wrote in 1796: “I had the right to be spared this”
“I had the right to be spared this”
Besides being a heartbroken lover...
Napoleon was an obsessive workaholic, a voracious reader, an incredible ruler, and the scariest general of his time
He also had a golden tongue
I've collected Napoleon's most interesting ideas and sayings here:
new.memod.com/jashdholani/co…
Thank you for reading fren
I appreciate your time
RT for Napoleon🫡🫡🫡
Today is Napoleon's 254th Birthday...
https://t.co/N7TA0Yy8Wh
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