Napoleon's Sex Life Uncovered

[Music] when you think about Napoleon you obviously think about the great battles you're thinking about aitz borino in The Retreat from Moscow the Battle of watero but Napoleon was so much more than just a conqueror an emperor he was a man he was a lover and he had an extraordinary love life in particular historians and frankly all of us have been obsessed over the centuries with Napoleon's tempestuous his passionate his deeply complicated love life with his wife Josephine and that marriage and their traumatic divorce plays center stage in the extraordinary new Ridley Scott Napoleon which features not only some of the most remarkable battle scenes ever filmed but a picture an image of this relationship that runs right the way through Napoleon's career and to get to the bottom of the real history behind all that I'm going to talk to the brilliant sex historian Dr Kate liser he seems to be like absolutely devoted to this woman you're a vile mean beastly she had an affair with a lower level army guy I'm creeping towards the position that insecure men should not be allowed to wield the power of life and death over the rest of [Music] us hey Kate welcome to the show hi Dan thank you for invied me on to the show Napoleon did not have an easy tweenage early teenage life right it was rough for him it was rough he was quite awkward he was quite clunky is sort of the only word that I can think of is when people relatable when people write about him he's kind of Scruffy he's kind of awkward he doesn't quite fit in and it's not just the accent that makes him stand out and the fact that he does by it's not quite an impoverished background but by the standards of the people he was running with he was practically a peasant that all made him stand out but he was also he wasn't great at talking to people he wasn't he wasn't blessed with like the gift of the gab and endless charm okay I'm going to come to an expert here was he successful well in his first romantic Adventures he writes a lot in his Diaries so we have got the sources about his earliest sexual encounters andlike many young men in France Napoleon lost his virginity in a brothel H um but what's interesting about it is he seems to have a real aversion to sex and sexuality he is really uncomfortable around it whereas his peers were just you know like let let's go let's do it you can't get them out of the brothel he writes about it that he's really upset that he's that he can't stay away from this debauchery is the word that he uses he's quite serious minded isn't he very serious he thinks he thinks he's one of the a a great world historical figure even as a teenager Y and there I what the physicality the mckiness of sex is kind of freaking out he thinks mcky is a good word for it he think but he's also desperately attracted to it so the the time he manages to lose his virginity he picks up um a sex worker on the street and he writes about this in his diary like he's recording an experiment it's the weirdest thing and the way he talks to it and this is from his own perspective this is his best slant on it you read it and you just think you are a strange strange duck Napoleon so he goes up to this first of all he spots her and he thinks that she's more bashful than all of the others so that appeals to him right and then he says he said that that he's usually disgusted by them them that he's usually like so revolted if they even look at him he feel sick but for some reason this time he's going to he's going to go for it so he goes over to and his opening line is don't you think you could be doing something better to earn your living it's like and he then proceeds to interrogate about where did you come from how did you end up like this would you like to be doing something else and then he finishes it off with this weird phrasing of like let's go back to my hotel so you can get your satisfaction or something like treat yourself right you lucky lucky girl getting to have a a go on this and he was a virgin and he just he draws a kind of a discreet Veil over it of exactly what happens but that's that's how he lost his virginity just going up to this this girl on the street and going you could be doing something better else with your time do you fancy a go on this you your lucky duck that is so interesting weird isn't it I love it it's weird what do this costume you have on this is my [Music] uniform I led the French victory at to Long what is your name Napoleon has the course of my life just changed Napoleon the film really hangs around this Fellowship between Napoleon and Josephine doesn't it and really right from the beginning it start you get a sense that Josephine is sort of tolerating this kind of awkward jumped up figure yeah you do and a lot of their history and the Mystery that surrounds them is often packaged as that is that Napoleon was the one that was like really invested really intense really over the top like to the point where restraining order might be might be required at some points and that Josephine is framed as being much cooler to this she was older than he was she was 32 with two kids and he was he was 26 and it's often framed as like almost that Napoleon was the last Chopper out of Saigon for that she had to that like there was nothing else on offer and I never like that framing of it because but that's interesting is it because yes she had been the lover of other senior revolutionary figures and she kind of ended up with this corsac because she was sort of falling from favor a little bit I I have heard that and I've read that and I know why people say that but I also think she had she had a lot going for her you know she was renowned as an absolute Beauty but more than that she was charming and she was funny and she was intellectual she was one of those people that just exudes charm and she absolutely captivated any room that she was in I think that she could have have found other opportunities but you've also got to frame it within the fact that well she is a single M with two kids she's making her money you know by musin isn't she she it's useful to think of her I think in terms of being a cartisan how did they meet they met at it was after the French Revolution it became weirdly fashionable for people who had survived it to get together again like a postraumatic stresing they would have balls and they would be called survivors balls and in the film you see her with her hair cropped really short in the beginning that was very fashionable amongst aristocratic women that had escaped the guillotin because obviously they'd cut all their hair off before they went to the guillotin you see with the choker on as well that was like a status symbol because it represented the blade she was there holding court she was the Mistress of a very very wealthy man and Napoleon was there too and he was absolutely entranced by her but her background was quite aristocratic so before the Revolution she was part of France's ruling class and it all I mean she has a tough Revolution she has a very tough Revolution so her husband by all accounts was a bit of a dick he um and he was playing away and he wasn't very nice and he got guillotined in the revolution which he didn't deserve even let's just clarify that no one even atrocity yeah to be to be guillotined although I imagine she probably wasn't crying all that hard about it but she was one of many Aristocrats that was rounded up and kept in jail just waiting they didn't know if they were going to be executed they didn't know when they were going to be executed people would come in and just take them out of the jail each day and they just and these conditions in these jails are horrendous it's just loads of people men women everyone piled in they don't have enough food it's dirty it's crowded and she was in there for a long time her husband was guillotined she didn't know if she was going to be guillotined and one of the things that you read about a lot in these conditions now it wasn't just in French jails all across if you were pregnant you'd get a stay of execution it was called pleading your belly and that meant that in jails a lot of women would be trying to get pregnant for that makes perfect sense to me so there would be there' have been lots of sexual immorality there been lots of abuse there was there's no human rights in a jail waiting to be guillotined it would have just been horrific and she lived through that and I think a much more sympathetic portrait of Josephine and maybe lots of people went through that is that this is a woman dealing with what we'd probably call post- trumatic Stress Disorder so she's older than him she's narrow scratched she's done a lot of living she has and her name wasn't Josephine really no she's gone down in history as Josephine but Josephine was Napoleon's name for her her name was Maria and she went by Rose before she she met Napoleon he just that was her name one of her middle names was was Joseph Joseph so I think that he he see but he basically just went I now give you a new name your name is now Joseph that's extraordinary I wonder if that's partly him saying I'd like to draw a veil over everything that's happened before now I want you to be a new I want there to be a blank slate it might have been that I mean that's quite i' never thought about it before as a way of drawing a line under everything that had gone before that she has a new identity she's a new person to him whatever it was she didn't seem to fight it and she's certainly gone down in history as Josephine but that was his name for for her and coming out of prison she yes she has a she's alive but her her status in society is now dependent on powerful men well it is she so she's an aristocrat so it's going to be very difficult for her to go and get a job working down the supermarket for example she doesn't have that option to her she has got a little bit of money she's relying on aristocratic friends but really what she needs is a wealthy protector that was just the way this system worked I think that she could have had other options she everyone was entranced by her I think that she loved Napoleon a lot more than is often allowed I I really do or she saw something she knew he was going places yes she backed him look Daniel see a surprise once you see it you'll always [Music] wanted This Vermin has held the world hostage with his egotism and his lack of simple good [Music] [Applause] [Music] manners I've got some love letters from Napoleon to Josephine December 1795 so early on so he's not like an all Conquering Hero he's doing all right at this stage sweet and matchless Josephine how strangely you work upon my heart you start at midday in 3 hours I shall see you again till then a thousand kisses me dolori but give me none back for they set my blood on fire he's good is he he's good I mean it's a bit Clockwork I mean what's wrong you know what's going on pre midday he writes to her obsessively you know like all the time he writes to her about how he's thinking about her all the time that he hopes she's thinking about him and all I know it's been two hours since I wrote to you last but now I'm going to write to you again he just he can't stop it he is obsessed with this woman he would have been a nightmare on WhatsApp he would he really would okay November 21st 1796 so his career is progressing a kiss on your heart and one much lower down much lower I'm going to bed with my heart full of your adorable image I cannot wait to give you proofs of my Ardent love how happy I would be if I could assist you at your undressing the little firm white breast the adorable face the hair tied up in a scarf alak Creo you know that I will never forget the little visits you know the little black forest I kiss it a thousand times and wait impatiently for the moment I will be in it to live within Josephine is to live in the Elian Fields kisses on your mouth your eyes your breast everywhere everywhere you're the expert I you make of that I think he was actually quite a good lover you know that implies he was a better lover than he's portrayed in the movie I I he was a giver but mind you CU he's a taker in the movie he is is new and it's it's quite abrupt it's abrupt it's yeah it's it's functional sex in in the movie but in his letters he writes a lot about kissing her down down way below and about kissing her little black forest and I mean you have to remember these are letters right like my inbox is full of texts of people going I'm going to rock you all night baby and then it's like well that was over in 5 seconds and now you're in an doesn't mean anything that I do know it's very relatable he could he could just cuz he's writing it doesn't mean Josephine might have been there just going well that was a lot of promising for for nothing but if we believe his letters he he's very intimate he wants and he wants to give a head that's that's what's in in the letters and would that have been sort of like culturally normal at the time yes yeah yeah I think that that we're often surprised by people in the past having the kind of sex that that that we have today but why wouldn't they I mean I think what's unusual about him is that he writes about it so much in his letters I mean you know it's not every single letter by a long shot but the fact that he would even mention that I think he's a giver not a taker he seems to be like absolutely devoted to this woman and I think that the film I I think maybe they they did him down a bit there I think he was a bit more of a generous lover than he's portrayed there but then we'll never know will we he might have just been biging himself up the one letter that everyone's heard of which is when he tells her not to wash oh that you haven't hav been able to stand that one up have you ah I wish that was true because it's such a good line and I think it really gets to like just the visceral fleshy realness of sex that I'll be home I'll be in Paris in three days don't wash or don't bathe or something that's attributed to him I can't find that actually in one of his letters I can find historians that write about it but when you go through their sources they've got another historian and another book and it's I can't it might exist and I've just not but I I've never actually seen doesn't have the CATE list to S approval but he does write I want to kiss you down down down below and talk about kissing her little black forest so just because he didn't say that doesn't mean that that's not something that that he was interested in and did he have nickname for her vagina he did he did uh Baron de Keen right which is really and it's really funny but it's also it's quite it's like a really sweet intimate thing that she has a really playful part of him mind I don't know who Baron Deen was no there might be a whole story there I it might not have been a nice playful thing if anyone else going to take a guess we'd love to hear your thoughts on Baron de kein uh what is interesting it would not be the first couple this has happened to or I suspect the last as soon as they get married their relationship seems to uh get slightly more fraught bit less sexy they get married in March 1796 and there's a letter here in which he says I have your letter to the 16th and 21st there are many days when you don't write what do you do then I'm not jealous but sometimes worried come soon I warn you if you delay you will find me ill fatigue and your absence are too much your letter is the joy of my days and my days of Happiness are not many because he's busy fighting the austrians in Italy he's not having a happy time is that a sense that she's not as into him as he was into her we've got a lot of letters from Napoleon to Josephine like that he's really upset that she hasn't written to him and it's it's a really interesting insight into this a brilliant military tactician some people think of as a tyrant but a leader and then you've got these letters where he becomes very much like a child he said why haven't you written to me write to me please write to me and he gets increasingly angry with her and that bit of I'm not jealous I'm just just a bit worried yeah honestly not jealous not jealous and later that year he writes I don't love you anymore on the contrary I detest you you're a vile mean beastly you don't write to me at all you don't love your husband you know how happy your letters make him and you don't write him six lines of nonsense and then slightly later in the letter he goes soon I hope I'll be holding you in my arms then I will cover you with a million hot kisses burning like the equator he's all over the place isn't he it's all over the place I follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and Caesar my destiny is more powerful than my [Music] [Applause] will he is that it's the the Napoleonic equivalent of leaving a message on red isn't it and then not getting B it is frustrating but he gets like that level of anger at her but we'll never know if that was like was that playful was that like an in joke or did he genuinely mean to call his wife a detestable CU she wouldn't to him and because he was actually worried about her having and he was well he was perhaps right to have been was he so what what's going on at her end what do we think is happening she had an affair with um a lower level well much low Napoleon because he was the top but a lower level army guy called epola Charles and it became public knowledge Napoleon was very very upset and when she went to visit him she traveled to see him she actually brought iolita with her which is that's an interesting move on on her part I think but she was having Affairs it did hit the Press he knew about it and he nearly divorced her as well that's right so and actually it's that's portrayed in the movie isn't it where he's in Egypt and he does hear news I think from his brother but he does hear news in Egypt that she has been is being unfaithful to again though was that was that culturally it's France it's France it's France they're they're rich like he having Affairs he was having Affairs too he's having loads of Affairs he had 22 at least that we know about and and a fair few illegitimate children but you know patriarchy so she's the one that's that's that's held up and is and is castigated and he nearly divorces her and and she has to literally throw herself at him and and beg for him to take her back and is is it superar I mean is it public is it yeah it's public is it yeah it be no it' be embarrassing it would for him too not just for her but um yeah there was huge public interest in this because he's the leader of the country and what you can't even keep your wife under control you can't even satisfy your wife in the bedroom it's it's interesting in a way that he takes her back he really loves her yeah he could have divorced her he could have chucked out his family didn't like her very much they didn't like her from from the get-go that was the perfect opportunity to have divorced her but he didn't and then there's the issue of of sons and heirs right which gets dynastic and gets even more complicated as you've often talked about when it comes to like the Dynamics of sex in in a kind of in a in a dynastic culture becomes emperor in 1804 and he needs to start a dynasty and it becomes this huge pressured thing why aren't there any babies we need a baby let's have a baby and a baby boy got to have a baby and she's in a late 30s or 40s by the stage she let say she was 32 when they met she already had two kids yeah yeah she must be must be late 30s early 40s by this point no babies and there was a big thing about who is it that can't can't get pregnant who is it is it him is it her his family were really angry about this and were pushing for a divorce from Joe me they were from the very beginning and then he gets one of his lovers pregnant so then it becomes this haha it wasn't me I'm I'm fertile I'm just proven it and in the film they they play on that a little bit but that really did happen not quite like it did in the film but it was used as a he's fertile she's the problem she's got to go sex and relationships complicated enough right but then when you have to have a baby to ensure the continuity of a state of a regime then what does that and that adds a whole level to it doesn't it it becomes hideously transactional and about the law and like people become more like farmyard animals that like with animal husbandry we're trying to breed them as opposed to any kind of romance because now the Dynasty and the and France is at stake here I thought that was some great lines the movie when he's like it's not me it's not you it's it's the it's what we need it's France France sadly what a shame and it's I think they did it really well in the film there's a kind of inevitability to it and I guess there was in real life like there aren't going to be any babies here they're just for whatever reason they're just they're just not going to be babies so now what' you do and it's interesting isn't it like you could have different identities she was she was a lover she was a wife then she's an empress and well hang on if you're an empress then you got to be a baby machine that's the rule that's I mean it's really ugly but that's it that's you've got to make the babies and he stayed with her for so long even though no babies were coming and the pressure that he was under and even when they signed the divorce and they they separated and he went off and married a 19-year-old he was still in love with her he was still boted with her you want to be great but you are nothing without me say it I believe I speak for all of us we will all sleep again without This Vermin [Music] sh whose country are we [Music] in the movie really captures like kind of tempestuous nature they have these massive fights and she says you're nothing without me and then you also see her kind of working rooms don't you and he's being awkward and and sort of Genius Like and and she's clearly a politician so I think yeah they would have been a team they were a fantastic team actually and they did have a really turbulent relationship many people did but this was a time when people didn't really marry for love they married for for especially if you were Rich they married for political reasons for alliances but I think they really really did love each other they could have walked away from this several times over and they didn't they had a really tempestuous relationship and the film I think the film does a really good job of capturing that actually that that switch all the time between we have responsibilities to France but we love each other and then who's actually in charge he says to her that she's nothing without him and then she said says you're nothing without me in a different scene and it's this real tussle between them and I think they nailed it and what comes out of all of it is that these are two people that are just pretty crazy about one another what's really interesting for me you know I've talked about this before but like how because the nature of people writing history in the the generations that follow they they're not interested in that story are they so it is very hard for us to to find source materials for this right because they you have every single boot on the back bit is recorded about exactly where it was exactly every point of the day but none of the kind of BLS in the mid 19th century that are writing the first draft of History care about her influence on him and vice right it's it's tough to get there I mean they there's always been an interest in Josephine she was very much the it girl of the day she was a socialite people were fascinated by a by a hold over him but no people haven't been as interested in the did he really like to go down on a question as so what role she played in his regime like in his yeah I mean and she she played an absolute Blinder because he he viewed her as the place he would go to to I don't to say calm down but she was like this Haven for him he she made him feel happy and in the world that he lived in that was pretty rare I would have thought you know if you've just been seeing hundreds thousands of guys having their legs blown off by cannons you perhaps a bit of downtime is quite valuable yeah he's a busy guy he's very busy and he's and he's mentally very busy like because even in between the battles he's like writing law codes and organizing Charters from Napoleonic Code yeah yeah that was a bit of a he did there was a lot of good stuff that came out the Napoleonic Code but it wasn't particularly friendly to women and I think that maybe Josephine playing away influenced some of that like he made um husbands could divorce their wives on grounds of adultery not the other way around it was perfectly right for a husband to murder his wife's lover not the other way around so he sort of he obviously went right I'm going to make it illegal for you to do this ever again and he really went to town with it that's quite funny so that so that their own their own little drama has played out through the rest of French history yeah yeah this enduring legal code exactly and you know you wonder how much influence Josephine had you know where because he's writing to of these love letters but I love you I love you I love you and then there's little bits about like oh I'm going into battle tomorrow d d like this like huge military movements are being prefaced by please write me a letter and it's you kind of Wonder like what influence did that have if his head isn't in the game if he's all why has Josephine written me a letter I'm not saying that's why I lost the battle of water L I'm just saying I'm just putting it out there I'm creeping towards the position that um insecure terrified men should not be allowed to wield the power of life and death over the rest of us and control the C his stream that's that's an interesting point yeah and 200 years later the equivalent of Napoleon have got nuclear weapons so that is a really exciting really exciting thought she is really upset about the divorce she seems to have bought into to the Imperial Mission doesn't she by that stage of the movie and I think that's proba it feels about right which I don't think she had a choice I don't actually think that either of them had much much of a choice about that so you're like the movie is right and when it goes Napoleon goes we have to have a divorce for France so I thought it quite I thought it was quite funny and he just projecting he's well he is obviously he always assumes that his fate is that of France as well yeah but I guess I guess is true I guess the future of the regime and stability in France did depend on him having a kid it did and that's what it boils down to and again Josephine is often framed as oh poor Josephine she got was it an olded or divorced I can't remember but whatever it was it was very public it would have been very embarrassing he's gone off married a 19-year-old I personally think that that she played an absolute Bell to there because she got to keep the title of empress he made sure that she kept all of her money which by the way she spent like a drunken sale she lived in the shatow M which was a huge palatial thing absolutely loaded and doesn't have to have sex with a windy husband anymore what what's sad about that and there some poor Austrian princess has been ripped out of the hapsburg palace and delivered to Napoleon Austria's most deadly enemy yeah and she but she Bears him a son and then there's that scene in the movie that I thought that can't be real Napoleon does take the baby to go and meet Josephine it's extraordinary he's such he's such a boundaries do not exist for this man he's such a clutz it's just the idea that you know you've you've sent your your wife away your wife of 15 years she's now living pretty much in Exile she's been nationally humiliated so you can have this baby you're just going to rock up at a house and go look this is this is the baby you couldn't give me Tada that for me that just harks back he hasn't evolved much since that first conversation with the with the sex worker on the street he's he he doesn't and he doesn't seem to be able to no completely clueless right but that's probably why he was such a good military tactician not being clueless but just not just being that pigheaded that determined that refusing to see other people's perspective as as far as he was concerned there's a baby he's really happy about it of course she'll be happy about it he's happy about it his affair that I'm most interested in is with the with the Polish woman Marie I can't pronounce second name Vash Vash what you said and and we think that may have actually shaped his policy towards Poland he kind of resurrects Poland as a political entity I was really struck in the movie by Josephine diant flous relationship with Alexander thear of Russia and I thought look at these Hollywood filmmakers talking nonsense looked it up there that's actually that is actually based in a real story at the time but it was gossip at the time it they definitely hung out they definitely got on really well they did they did um she was was it nine years older than than he was maybe even more than that I'm not sure but yeah they definitely they caused gossip yeah they did they hung out they seemed to get along very well it was an interesting move on behalf of Josephine that's for sure and because unusually 1814 Russian troops occupying Paris so he's there he's the all Conquering Hero and they spend like chunk of time together they spend a chunk of time together in each other's house in relative is privacy enough to get the Press talking we don't know if anything actually happened now in the movie It's portrayed that that drives him so crazy he basically invades France and tries to get thrown back which is it's kind of that's probably overplaying it a bit but it's it must have been devastating for him reading those reports when he was stuck on his little line the must he must have been absolutely Furious about it and in the movie he's so pretty as well oh there AR he is pretty he's very very pretty I'm not surprised that that she would want to dance with him but he must have been absolutely raging he never ever let go of Josephine ever even when when they were I suppose forced to separate well and death forced them to separate Kate not we be too poetic because that's so interesting that she never saw him returned to power in 1815 did she no she didn't she pegged out slightly before that bless her and well and one Theory it was said at the time she got cold walking around with the Zar trying to impress him with her off the shoulder dresses but that's malicious gossip no doubt but like it's she it was around that time so she she she falls ill and dies at this very dramatic juncture of of History I know she never got to see him come back I mean she was in her early 50s I think and it was an illness that came on quite Suddenly It's probably diptheria and it just it just bam which was alarmingly common for the time but yeah Napoleon arrived back and and she was gone it's so so sad isn't it it is sad and it's that line is so strange in the movie when he he says to he says Joseph kids I don't blame you I don't blame you I love that so that such a great weird like really in keeping with the kind of character he was the reports of what he was actually like when he found out that she died when he was a man destroyed he was in pieces he was because he'd been away for such a long time and that she died without him and she died so suddenly and and he thought he was coming back to see her I mean imagine that like you've traveled across oceans and you've built a fleet and you've commanded ships and you've just you've disobey the government in part to come and see this woman and then it's oh sorry she she has died actually and that's oh he was beyond devastated and then without his talismanic partner he goes and loses the Battle of water I love the framing of that but I'm not quite sure if not I'm not sure she yeah you know but he was certainly very sad he was a very different man in 1815 to where he was in 1805 and that's what like he was he was far less energetic far more listless he probably could have defeated the prussians and the Brits if he'd been a little bit shown a bit more activity do you think after the battle of Len yeah bit Niche there but yeah so I want you know that it all contributes no doubt right to his mental state I think his mental state deteriorated what he'd been through and the other thing the film got across really well is the instability of the political yeah life like all right so you're on top of the world one minute and everyone's cheering you and giving you flowers but the next minute the guillotine is out and they're chasing you through the streets me the stress of that break anyone I just think in general we're so poorly placed to judge these people in the past and really and try and get inside their heads cuz they'd seen trauma like can't believe you can't even am like the stuff that he would have seen her imprison elsewhere one of the things they do in the movie is they list the number of casualties in the battles and you sort of get a scale of a million people he just used to walking across carpets of corpses right amazing and then like the one thing that cheers him up is going up with Josephine and she's gone I would put money on the fact he was thinking about it when he was on his deathbed but even if it's not true it's part of their mythology and it's part of the that we recognize how much he did love this woman K thank you very much for coming on and telling me all about Napoleon's sex life it was my pleasure thank you for asking me I must warn you I will not leave a second in command I will win by fire I am destinate for greatness I found the crown of France in the gutter and place it at top my own [Music] head where [Music] burning

Channel: History Hit

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Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, napoleon love story, napoleon love life, napoleon love letter, napoleon love and death, napoleon love letters to josephine, napoleon love scenes, napoleon and josephine, napoleon and josephine a love story, napoleon and josephine movie, napoleon and josephine documentary, napoleon letters, josephine bonaparte affairs, josephine bonaparte movie, josephine napoleon bonaparte, napoleon bonaparte love life, napoleon and josephine divorce

Id: CzYpYga0MTo

Length: 33min 48sec (2028 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2023