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Napoleon's Letters to Josephine

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
Englisch
Copycaterschienen am23.03.2023
Napoleon was not only a great commander and ruler, he was also a king of words. This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence of Napoleon and his wife Josephine show us this great leader in a new light. Throughout this correspondence readers will be able to follow Napoleon's career through his own eyes and thoughts who he shared with women he loved the most. Also, this collection is enriched with historical and chronological notes with aim to provide additional explanations to modern readers.mehr

Produkt

KlappentextNapoleon was not only a great commander and ruler, he was also a king of words. This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence of Napoleon and his wife Josephine show us this great leader in a new light. Throughout this correspondence readers will be able to follow Napoleon's career through his own eyes and thoughts who he shared with women he loved the most. Also, this collection is enriched with historical and chronological notes with aim to provide additional explanations to modern readers.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9788028291310
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
Verlag
Erscheinungsjahr2023
Erscheinungsdatum23.03.2023
SpracheEnglisch
Artikel-Nr.11374120
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe


NAPOLEON'S LETTERS
SERIES A

Table of Contents

(1796)


February 23rd.-Bonaparte made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy.


No. 1.

Seven o'clock in the morning.

My waking thoughts are all of thee. Your portrait and the remembrance of last night's delirium have robbed my senses of repose. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an extraordinary influence you have over my heart. Are you vexed? do I see you sad? are you ill at ease? My soul is broken with grief, and there is no rest for your lover. But is there more for me when, delivering ourselves up to the deep feelings which master me, I breathe out upon your lips, upon your heart, a flame which burns me up-ah, it was this past night I realised that your portrait was not you. You start at noon; I shall see you in three hours. Meanwhile, mio dolce amor, accept a thousand kisses,14 but give me none, for they fire my blood.

N. B.

A Madame Beauharnais.

March 9th.-Bonaparte marries Josephine.
March 11th.-Bonaparte leaves Paris to join his army.

No. 2.

Chanceaux Post House,
March 14, 1796.

I wrote you at Chatillon, and sent you a power of attorney to enable you to receive various sums of money in course of remittance to me. Every moment separates me further from you, my beloved, and every moment I have less energy to exist so far from you. You are the constant object of my thoughts; I exhaust my imagination in thinking of what you are doing. If I see you unhappy, my heart is torn, and my grief grows greater. If you are gay and lively among your friends (male and female), I reproach you with having so soon forgotten the sorrowful separation three days ago; thence you must be fickle, and henceforward stirred by no deep emotions. So you see I am not easy to satisfy; but, my dear, I have quite different sensations when I fear that your health may be affected, or that you have cause to be annoyed; then I regret the haste with which I was separated from my darling. I feel, in fact, that your natural kindness of heart exists no longer for me, and it is only when I am quite sure you are not vexed that I am satisfied. If I were asked how I slept, I feel that before replying I should have to get a message to tell me that you had had a good night. The ailments, the passions of men influence me only when I imagine they may reach you, my dear. May my good genius, which has always preserved me in the midst of great dangers, surround you, enfold you, while I will face my fate unguarded. Ah! be not gay, but a trifle melancholy; and especially may your soul be free from worries, as your body from illness: you know what our good Ossian says on this subject. Write me, dear, and at full length, and accept the thousand and one kisses of your most devoted and faithful friend.

[This letter is translated from St. Amand's La Citoyenne Bonaparte, p. 3, 1892.]

March 27th.-Arrival at Nice and proclamation to the soldiers.

No. 3.

April 3rd.-He is at Mentone.

Port Maurice, April 3rd.

I have received all your letters, but none has affected me like the last. How can you think, my charmer, of writing me in such terms? Do you believe that my position is not already painful enough without further increasing my regrets and subverting my reason. What eloquence, what feelings you portray; they are of fire, they inflame my poor heart! My unique Josephine, away from you there is no more joy-away from thee the world is a wilderness, in which I stand alone, and without experiencing the bliss of unburdening my soul. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the one only thought of my life. When I am weary of the worries of my profession, when I mistrust the issue, when men disgust me, when I am ready to curse my life, I put my hand on my heart where your portrait beats in unison. I look at it, and love is for me complete happiness; and everything laughs for joy, except the time during which I find myself absent from my beloved.

By what art have you learnt how to captivate all my faculties, to concentrate in yourself my spiritual existence-it is witchery, dear love, which will end only with me. To live for Josephine, that is the history of my life. I am struggling to get near you, I am dying to be by your side; fool that I am, I fail to realise how far off I am, that lands and provinces separate us. What an age it will be before you read these lines, the weak expressions of the fevered soul in which you reign. Ah, my winsome wife, I know not what fate awaits me, but if it keeps me much longer from you it will be unbearable-my strength will not last out. There was a time in which I prided myself on my strength, and, sometimes, when casting my eyes on the ills which men might do me, on the fate that destiny might have in store for me, I have gazed steadfastly on the most incredible misfortunes without a wrinkle on my brow or a vestige of surprise: but to-day the thought that my Josephine might be ill; and, above all, the cruel, the fatal thought that she might love me less, blights my soul, stops my blood, makes me wretched and dejected, without even leaving me the courage of fury and despair. I often used to say that men have no power over him who dies without regrets; but, to-day, to die without your love, to die in uncertainty of that, is the torment of hell, it is a lifelike and terrifying figure of absolute annihilation-I feel passion strangling me. My unique companion! you whom Fate has destined to walk with me the painful path of life! the day on which I no longer possess your heart will be that on which parched Nature will be for me without warmth and without vegetation. I stop, dear love! my soul is sad, my body tired, my spirit dazed, men worry me-I ought indeed to detest them; they keep me from my beloved.

I am at Port Maurice, near Oneille; to-morrow I shall be at Albenga. The two armies are in motion. We are trying to deceive each other-victory to the most skilful! I am pretty well satisfied with Beaulieu; he need be a much stronger man than his predecessor to alarm me much. I expect to give him a good drubbing. Don't be anxious; love me as thine eyes, but that is not enough; as thyself, more than thyself; as thy thoughts, thy mind, thy sight, thy all. Dear love, forgive me, I am exhausted; nature is weak for him who feels acutely, for him whom you inspire.

Kind regards to Barras, Sussi, Madame Tallien; compliments to Madame Chateau Renard; to Eugène and Hortense best love. Adieu, adieu! I lie down without thee, I shall sleep without thee; I pray thee, let me sleep. Many times I shall clasp thee in my arms, but, but-it is not thee.




A la citoyenne Bonaparte chez la
citoyenne Beauharnais,
Rue Chantereine No. 6, Paris.

No. 4.

Albenga, April 5th.

It is an hour after midnight. They have just brought me a letter. It is a sad one, my mind is distressed-it is the death of Chauvet. He was commissionaire ordinateur en chef of the army; you have sometimes seen him at the house of Barras. My love, I feel the need of consolation. It is by writing to thee, to thee alone, the thought of whom can so influence my moral being, to whom I must pour out my troubles. What means the future? what means the past? what are we ourselves? what magic fluid surrounds and hides from us the things that it behoves us most to know? We are born, we live, we die in the midst of marvels; is it astounding that priests, astrologers, charlatans have profited by this propensity, by this strange circumstance, to exploit our ideas, and direct them to their own advantage. Chauvet is dead. He was attached to me. He has rendered essential service to the fatherland. His last words were that he was starting to join me. Yes, I see his ghost; it hovers everywhere, it whistles in the air. His soul is in the clouds, he will be propitious to my destiny. But, fool that I am, I shed tears for our friendship, and who shall tell me that I have not already to bewail the irreparable. Soul of my life, write me by every courier, else I shall not know how to exist. I am very busy here. Beaulieu is moving his army again. We are face to face. I am rather tired; I am every day on horseback. Adieu, adieu, adieu; I am going to dream of you. Sleep consoles me; it places you by my side, I clasp you in my arms. But on waking, alas! I find myself three hundred leagues from you. Remembrances to Barras, Tallien, and his wife.

N. B.

A la citoyenne Bonaparte chez la
citoyenne Beauharnais,
Rue Chantereine No. 6, Paris.

No. 5.

Albenga, April 7th.

I have received the letter that you break off, in order, you say, to go into the country; and in spite of that you give me to understand that you are jealous of me, who am here, overwhelmed with business and fatigue. Ah, my dear, it is true I am wrong. In the spring the country is beautiful, and then the lover of nineteen will doubtless find means to spare an extra moment to write to him who, distant three hundred leagues from thee, lives, enjoys, exists only in thoughts of thee, who reads thy letters as one devours, after six hours' hunting, the meat he likes best. I am not satisfied with your last letter; it is cold as friendship. I have not found that fire which kindles your looks, and which I have sometimes fancied I found there. But how infatuated I am. I found your previous letters weigh too heavily on my mind. The revolution which they produced there invaded my rest, and took my faculties captive. I desired more frigid letters, but they gave me the chill of death. Not to be loved by Josephine, the thought of finding her...
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