If it is March 9, it is the anniversary of Napoleon and Josephine, a cautionary tale about power, love, lust, and romance.
Known as “Rose” before marrying Napoleon, Josephine could entrance men. She had an eye for talent and she chose a winner when she picked the Corsican. She rose with the military commander to become Empress of the French, a title she retained to death. If that is success, Josephine chose wisely.
Napoleon and Josephine had great physical passion and copies of their letters make for passionate reading:
All my thoughts are concentrated in thy boudoir, in thy bed, on thy heart. Thy illness ! that is what occupies me night and day. Without appetite, without sleep, without care for my friends, for glory, for fatherland, you, you alone the rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were annihilated. I prize honour since you prize it, I prize victory since it pleases you ; without that I should leave everything in order to fling myself at your feet.
If love is sexual desire, then these two were in love. If Eros could be enough, then they were full. Josephine and Napoleon were sated on love.
Yet over time, the marriage failed. Josephine cheated on Napoleon and then Napoleon cheated a lot. They were mutually dependent on each other until death, but they also hurt each other badly. In the end, the Emperor ruled that he needed a male heir and got a divorce. Napoleon let Josephine keep the title, the money, and called his new princess a womb. Still the Womb produced the Heir and Josephine got the crumbs of the great man’s attention.
Of course nothing worked out for Napoleon and he was in exile when Josephine died. He was devastated, in the sense of that made a thing out of it, and her name was one of his last words, but with the latter day Napoleon, the play acting is hard to separate from the man. Napoleon was hooked on Josephine and she could let him go either, but was this love?
Neither Napoleon nor Josephine ever seemed to say “no” to desire. Since they were both remarkably talented, they lived a full life, but destroyed altars, families, and nations as they lived and little positive accomplishments endured. She was Empress of an Empire that did not outlast her time and the son of the Womb and the Emperor never ruled France. Nothing amounted to anything which would have been bad enough if the failure of this man and this woman had not thrown much of the world into war, famine, and destruction.
The truth is loveless: a grand passion burned down to mutual self-assured destructiveness. This is Wuthering Heights played out over all of Europe: a selfish, moody Heathcliff with a more sensuous Catherine. The Bronte novel is correct: if you cannot restrain passion, it will burn up everything. Napoleon and Josephine burned up Europe.
That is not romantic, or even tragic, that is evil. Most of us lack the emotional, intellectual, or physical excellence to be Napoleon and Josephine, but we can still burn ourselves and others. Best to learn moderation, prudence, and how to say “no.”
Napoleon and Josephine never had Lenten love and so when love died, as love always does, love could not rise again as love can. There is no Easter without Lent.
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