While a highly successful military officer during the French Revolution and an esteemed French Emperor, one of the most famous aspects of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life is actually his intimate relationship with Joséphine de Beauharnais. Here is the story of Bonaparte’s relationship with his eventual wife that shaped him into the man he became.
When Joséphine was a teenager, she was married off to a minor French lord. During her marriage, she gave birth to two children, however, she was the victim of multiple affairs as her husband struggled to remain loyal. in 1794, he guillotined during the French Revolution, and so Joséphine was loveless once again.
Attempting to rise in French society, Joséphine engaged in affairs with numerous senior politicians, among them Paul Barras, who was the mentor of none other than Napoleon himself. In 1795, he grew tired of her, deciding to introduce her to his prodigy. Although Joséphine looked down on Napoleon at first, little did she know that in five years, he would be crowned Emperor of France.
Napoleon showered Joséphine with gifts while building a strong bond with her kids. As a result, the couple married just two months after meeting. The French military leader was obsessed with his new wife, and when he had to lead the French army into Italy just two days after the wedding, he wrote to her constantly. While Napoleon’s letters were passionate, Joséphine’s lacked the same emotion, so much so that it truly rocked him emotionally.
I don’t love you anymore; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a vile, mean, beastly s—. You don’t write to me at all; you don’t love your husband… Soon, I hope, I will be holding you in my arms; then I will cover you with a million hot kisses, burning like the equator,” he wrote in one letter to his bride, showing just how much she played on his mind wherever he went.