Napoleon and Josephine

The relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, a six years older widow with two children was turbulent from the very start. Only two days after their wedding day, Napoleon left on a military campaign in Italy. Josephine who stayed behind in Paris soon started an affair with lieutenant Hippolyte Charles. Napoleon was infuriated when he found out about his wife’s infidelity and soon started an affair on his own. No further Josephine’s affairs have been recorded but Napoleon’s love for Josephine was no longer the same. And when it became clear that Josephine is unable to have children, Napoleon decided to divorce her. He thereafter married Marie-Louise of Austria who gave birth to the long-awaited heir. But despite Josephine’s infidelity, divorce and remarriage, Napoleon’s last words are said to be “France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Josephine.” 

 Joséphine de Beauharnais, now a widow, had affairs with several leading political figures, including Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras. In 1795, she met Napoléon Bonaparte, six years her junior, and became his mistress. In a letter to her in December, he wrote, "I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses." In January 1796, Napoléon Bonaparte proposed to her and they married on 9 March. Until meeting Bonaparte, she was known as Rose, but Bonaparte preferred to call her Joséphine, the name she adopted from then on.
Prominent in Parisian social circles during the 1790s, Joséphine married the young general Napoléon Bonaparte

The marriage was not well received by Napoléon's family, who were shocked that he had married an older widow with two children. His mother and sisters were especially resentful of Joséphine as they felt clumsy and unsophisticated in her presence. Two days after the wedding, Bonaparte left to lead the French army in Italy. During their separation, he sent her many love letters. In February 1797, he wrote: “You to whom nature has given spirit, sweetness, and beauty, you who alone can move and rule my heart, you who know all too well the absolute empire you exercise over it!”

Joséphine, left behind in Paris, began an affair in 1796 with a handsome Hussar lieutenant, Hippolyte Charles. Rumors of the affair reached Napoléon; he was infuriated, and his love for her changed entirely.

In 1798, Napoléon led a French army to Egypt. During this campaign, Napoléon started an affair of his own with Pauline Fourès, the wife of a junior officer, who became known as "Napoléon's Cleopatra." The relationship between Joséphine and Napoléon was never the same after this. His letters became less loving. No subsequent lovers of Joséphine are recorded, but Napoléon had sexual affairs with several other women. In 1804, he said, "Power is my mistress.

In December 1800, Joséphine was nearly killed in the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, an attempt on Napoléon's life with a bomb planted in a parked cart. On December 24, she and Napoleon went to see a performance of Joseph Haydn's Creation at the Opéra, accompanied by several friends and family. The party travelled in two carriages. Joséphine was in the second, with her daughter Hortense, her pregnant sister-in-law, Caroline Murat, and General Jean Rapp. Joséphine had delayed the party while getting a new silk shawl draped correctly, and Napoléon went ahead in the first carriage. The bomb exploded as her carriage was passing. The bomb killed several bystanders and one of the carriage horses, and blew out the carriage's windows; Hortense was struck in the hand by flying glass. There were no other injuries and the party proceeded to the Opéra.