Tell me about her. How did she survive the revolution? What was her endgame? What did nappy see in her?

Tell me about her. How did she survive the revolution? What was her endgame? What did nappy see in her?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >How did she survive the revolution?
    Pure luck. She was on the list of to be executed prisoners, but Robespierre was killed first. Her husband was guillotined

    >What was her endgame?
    Marry a rich husband who can give her and her kids a cushy, luxurious life

    >What did nappy see in her?
    She was apparently really sexy, and really good in bed. You never get over your first real love

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Also Napoleon was a really good father to her children and they came to love Napoleon in turn. Napoleon refused to blame her kids for her actions, so what Josephine did wasn't going to stop him from mentoring Eugène or taking care of Hortense, and he wasn't going to ruin his relationship as a father by forcing the kids to choose. Basically, Napoleon couldn't truly cut her out from his life even if he wanted to, unless he abandoned the children to her. Which given her spending habits, would ruin the kids' futures. Napoleon only divorced her at the last possible moment, when he thought he would get a political alliance that would end the coalitions in return, and even after this he continued to take care of her.

      It's notable, incidentally, that Napoleon stayed faithful to his new wife up until his abdication. This suggests that Napoleon did not actually enjoy having affairs and that he had some other purpose for having them. His first affair we know of happened in Egypt, after he realized Joséphine was cheating on him. The woman he was having an affair with wanted to continue the relationship, but he stopped the affair once he returned to France and reconciled with Joséphine, which implies the ordeal had more to do with getting even than his sexual attraction. Several years later, he started taking on mistresses again, but this was after Joséphine gaslit him, saying the reason she couldn't have a baby was because he was infertile. Once Napoleon impregnated Marie Walewska, he had the proof otherwise and stopped his affairs, other than that with Walewska since she had his kid. This implies Napoleon's affairs here were once again, less about what he was attracted to than some goal he was trying to accomplish, in this case namely figuring out if he could produce an heir for his empire.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        She cheated on him once during his first campaign and he went on to have multiple affairs throughout his career what the frick are you trying to justify

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          the husband cheating does not affect the wife in any way
          the wife cheating directly and fundamentally undermines the marriage

          if you don't understand something as basic as this you have no business studying human affairs.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Try this one for size: How about two social climbers who opportunely marry each other and instead of staying for the honeymoon the husband goes marching off onto a dangerous military campaign, potentially leaving behind any opportunity to socially climb in a major metropolitan city of the world during the most turbulent time in that countries history. Also taking your logic I am going to assume you mean the biological route since I do not detect any hint of psychological finesse in what you say. It would nor matter if Josephine slept with whomever in whatever quantity since she was already too old to bear children. There would never be any debate or concern over legitimacy. Napoleon on the other hand, would go on to destroy so much in pursuit of the legitimacy, sure he got the hot 18 year old Hadsburg princess. But at hat cost? At such a cost it was!!!
            Also I am pretty sure he did cheat on her, but I may be thinking of some chance encounter with an old flame opera singer of his.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ain't gonna read all that shit, homie

            What an abhorrently moronic statement. There's no way you'd score more than 95 in an IQ test.

            never done did an IQ test but I'm easily well above average intelligence simply because I can make money by writing code. you really underestimate how utterly moronic the average prole is.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            pseud

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            What an abhorrently moronic statement. There's no way you'd score more than 95 in an IQ test.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >cheats
        >gaslights
        what the frick, why did napolecuck stay with the b***h? he was literally emperor, he could do whatever the frick he wanted. why not execute her?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        She cheated on him once during his first campaign and he went on to have multiple affairs throughout his career what the frick are you trying to justify

        There is literally zero evidence about Josephine having an affair with Hippolyte Charles. It had been a piece of gossip (almost definitely propagated by the Buonaparte family, then fanned by Napoleon's enemies) up until Louis Hastier's 1955 book where he claimed he had "transcripts of letters" between Hippolyte and Josephine, elsewise, it was absent from all her biographies before. These "letters" have not been traced or found. He claimed to have found these letters with one of Charles' descendants. The most recent and most thoroughly documented biography of the empress by Pierre Branda states that Hippolyte's descendants have never heard or seen these letters. So, any discussion of Josephine's infidelity should remain in hypothetical/ territory.

        >how did she survive the revolution
        It’s an interesting story, probably because of the fact that she came out after it. Alexandre’s buttholeness caught up with him in 1783 and he got clapped in irons and sent to Les Carmes, one of the worst prisons in Paris where people of all descriptions are imprisoned. The stay was traumatizing for many of the inmates there due to the terrible conditions and the cart that made rounds daily and picked people to take to the concergerie for “trials” (and guillotining). Josephine was forced to live in a crowded cell with several other women, and a guard took away her mattress so she was relegated to sleeping on the ground. She met Alexandre and gave him his sendoff once they finally came for him. Fortunately for her and the remaining inmates, a bit-part actor named Delperch de la Bussiere who was employed by the committee of public safety for legal prosecution, and was responsible for clandestinely destroying more than a thousand documents of prisoners, including hers, which caused the ‘trials’ to be postponed. (Josephine would return his kindness in 1803 when she recognised him in a theatre and sent him a purse with 1,000 francs). This short delay in trials saved a lot of lives until 27th July when the Thermidorian reaction went into swing and Robespierre and Saint-Just were guillotined. One of Josephine’s inmates had an interesting role in this, Theresia Cabarrus (pic related at Les Carmes) managed to smuggle a dagger and a note to her lover and associate, Jean-Lambert Tallien, calling him a coward for not saving her life and others imprisoned with her. This note prompted him to usher the 9th Thermidor incident a few days later (He was brandishing the same dagger sent to him by Cabarrus in Robespierre’s face, infront of all the national convention).

        I forgot to mention that Josephine was imprisoned because she stupidly tried to leverage her contacts to get a pardon for Alexandre, the same man who threw her into the convent (and I forgot to mention earlier that divorce was not legal in France at the time). Rose's letters to the committee painted a huge target on her, and a few days later inspectors went through her home and belongings, and not long after she was taken to Les Carmes.

        >impregnated one of her mistresses (a calculated plan by his family members to drive the wedge between Napoleon and Josephine).
        I havent heard of this, It was not Waleeska who was first impregnated??

        The first mistress to become pregnant (allegedly) by Napoleon was Eleanore Denuelle de la Plaigne. The Buonapartes dangled her infront of of him in hope of them up. She was a lectrice (reader) employed for Caroline Murat. After their affair was consummated in Tuileries they moved her to an isolated cottage, in hope that if she becomes pregnant, it would give Napoleon confirmation that he isn't sterile (and thus a concrete reason to divorce Josephine). The affair was one-sided, Eleanore found Napoleon's company so boring she'd set the clocks forward in his apartments, and had more affairs from her new post, so it's dubious that the child was his (though the boy bore an uncanny likeness for Napoleon, when Napoleon saw him, he claimed it as his own).

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Wasnt there some long stay he did with her, I think it might've even been near the Italian front. I cant remember. But I'm certain there is evidence for their acquaintance being more than just acquainted.

          I mixed up the mistresses, de plaigne was the first one and bore the first illegitimate. Waleeska was one of his last, I believe very close to the divorce

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Charles was one of her escorts, so yes. Its one of the circumstantial things that made the rumor so easy to spread, combined with the fact that Charles was popular with everyone, handsome and good humoured.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Hippolyte Charles.
            I dont know its pretty widely accepted that he was the guy, it lines up really well to with how brisk Napoleon was with her at the time and how fresh the whole relationship was, like with the letters too. I took it as her not reciprocating them very well, and not really caring about what Napoleon wrote. Since she received them so poorly.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            There's many reasons explaining why Josephine poorly received Napoleon's relationship immediately:
            -The match was mismatched, and arranged by Paul Barras and Talleyrand. She accepted it as a sort of concession that she won't get a better match than Napoleon at her age (and she had two children at the time).
            -Josephine was one of the 'stars of Paris' at the time, part of the highest, most elegant and fashionable society in the Directoire period. She learned the trade to fit in with this mode, and was used to gallant and elegant men. Napoleon on the other hand, was extremely crude, poorly dressed and unkempt. His presence was tolerated in those circles because he was Talleyrand's protégé.
            -Napoleon was very late to his wedding (2 hours, a lot of people were on the verge of walking out). Josephine was standing during the entirety of that time.
            -He left her only 2 days later, departing on his Italian campaign.
            -He was bad at sex (he finishes really quick), this is in contrast to the sensual tastes Josephine developed in the post-terror period.
            -His letters were a mental trigger to Josephine, he nagged her about what she wrote, and how to write to him. This was similar to Alexandre's behavior whenever she corresponded with him in her first marriage (and what made her stop replying to his letters, the correspondences she received would always be patronizing).
            -Napoleon was crazily in love with her, even though he didn't know her for long previously, and was late for his wedding.
            You can see many ominous signs if you put yourself in her feet, for her to not correspond frequently with him. As I've stated previously, Josephine was habitually not a frequent writer of letters. Even many years later when Napoleon departed to fight the 4th coalition it vexed him that sometimes it took a week to get a reply from her (while he'd religiously write a letter a day, sometimes twice a day).

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            All those points also sound like perfect grounds for a women to cheat on any man, let alone a man so great as Napoleon. Although I will give you a maybe, maybe it did not happen, even though I think everyone acknowledged it, even Napoleon.

            Any particular reason why you yourself are so attentive to the history of this women?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            They're all circumstantial evidence* for any woman to cheat on a man. But otherwise, there is nothing concrete proving this affair took place. All serious historians on this topic have reverted to treating it as speculative gossip (what it is).

            >Any particular reason why you yourself are so attentive to the history of this women?
            I read a lot of French history from the time period. Josephine interested me more than many of the other people of the time because her life was a rollercoaster of ups and downs (and concurrently a great lens into French history and culture at the time). Why do you ask?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Why do you ask?
            Because I want to learn more and you are a rare fountainhead gouging out history. What captivates your curiosity and so.

            What you have brought here is intriguing. The idea of a tested women with a serene, reserved nature is an attractive character, and women of such experience often develop a respectable nature that is highly esteemed. The way you describe her she almost reminds me of Napoleons sister, Pauline. How she could be so faithful, following her husband to that most gruesome place Haiti, and how she stayed by his side as he died diseased and raddled. Although her faithfulness was in direct contradiction to her debauchery. There is something so curiously disgusting about her boob mold. How could a women have such impeccable qualities yet wield extreme excesses?

            I do appreciate such women, they are like marvels in of themselves. But they surely have some sins, doesn't she?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Everyone has some sins, no one is perfect. Mme. de Remusat probably provided one of the most clairvoyant and balanced observations on Josephine (being one of her Dames du Palais);

            "Without being precisely pretty she possessed many personal charms. Her features were delicate, her expression was sweet, her mouth was very small and concealed bad teeth; her complexion was rather dark but with the help of skillfully applied rouge and powder she remedied that defect; her figure was perfect... she dressed with impeccable taste, enhancing the beauty of what she wore; and with these advantages... she contrived to avoid eclipse by the youth and beauty of many of the women by whom she was surrounded... She was not a person of remarkable intellect . . . but she was aware of her deficiencies and never made blunders in conversation. She possessed true natural tact; she readily found pleasant things to say... To all this, she added extreme kindness of heart, a remarkably even temper and a great readiness to forget any wrong that had been done to her"

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yes, that's the women, that describes her perfectly. Ah yes, it all comes together! My knowledge has been made more perfect. Its like the piece of the puzzle I was looking for.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Thank you for all these informative posts anon! DO you know if it's true Josephine jumped with joy when she got a letter saying Napoleon was dead? Seems very ooc and callous of her even is she didn't love him

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >if it's true Josephine jumped with joy when she got a letter saying Napoleon was dead? Seems very ooc and callous of her even is she didn't love him
            Not him but Josephine grew to love Napoleon to the point that she begged Alexander to let her join Napoleon in Elba.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            This reads like some of the slanderous gossip that was passed around in her lifetime. There was rumour that Napoleon was killed in the coup of 18th Brumaire, she was frantic at the time until she received a report late in the evening that he was alive. When de Malet tried to coup the government while Napoleon was being run out of Russia, under the pretext that Napoleon was killed in Moscow, she wrote to Eugene;

            "The audacity or even more the folly of the three monsters who created this trouble is truly incredible. Watch carefully over the Emperor's safety, for these evil men are capable of anything. Tell him from me that he is wrong to live in palaces without knowing whether they are mined"

            Josephine loved Napoleon more than he deserved. But even if she didn't, she would never stoop this low. She was not petty or spiteful and never held a grudge. Most telling was the pension she granted for her old enemy Mme. de Longpre when she became empress and the then-old woman contacted her for support, writing in her recommendation "this lady is now very infirm". This is the same woman who convinced Alexandre de Beauharnais that Hortense was the product of adultery (and Alexandre then went around spreading this slander in her home at Martinique, both at the port town and the Isle de Troits), and even maliciously tried to bribe some of the slaves at her family's plantation at La Pagerie to solicit some accusations on her "scandalous behavior" when she was growing up, all of this occurred when he was in multiple affairs. Josephine did not hold a grudge after their separation and risked her life trying to appeal the committee of public safety for his pardon during the terror.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah that's what I though as well.
            Thank you for your well researched and written reply, it's not everyday you see that on this board, it is really much appreciated!

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    He was a simp.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I read quite a bit about Josephine, it's hard to answer any question about her that isn't specific, due to her secretive nature in life and the fact that her memoirs are all ghostwritten by Mme. De Remusat (marvelous woman, her own memoirs and correspondences provide quite an insight into the period).

    Josephine (Nee Rose Tascher de la Pagerie) is too complex a character to give a small or short rundown on, and she's an extremely mystic, hard to decipher character, owing to several factors, the most significant of them are;
    -here averseness to writing letters, coupled with the fact that a lot of her correspondences to Napoleon were destroyed.
    -her unbreakable coolness to most those who surrounded her.
    To understand Josephine, you have to go through her from the very start; her creole background, and her first failed marriage with Alexandre de Beauharnais, and her life in and after the revolution. She essentially metamorphosed into 4 different people at different stages of her life to cope with extreme changes, from backwater rural Creole to housewife, from housewife to elegant Parisienne, from elegant Parisienne to revolutionary citoyenne, from the citoyenne to the general's/consul's wife, and then to empress of the French.

    >What did Napoleon see in her
    Napoleon thought his fate was intertwined with Josephine. This no doubt disturbed her early in their marriage, when his love her was nothing short of worship. Over time he cooled down (mostly due to disillusionment, his love was largely not reciprocated initially), but he still loved her like crazy. It's an irony of life that Napoleon's marriage went down a lot like her first marriage (unrequited love). She also habitually hated writing letters except to people who were important to her, and even then she still slumped on corresponding intermittently.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Napoleon wore a necklace with her likeness on it in his Italian campaign as a lucky charm, and viewed it as a bad omen when the glass cover on it broke. He confided in whatshisname that "Josephine is either very ill or has betrayed my trust". He was quite superstitious
      This is due to two reasons; her rural creole education and her experience in her first marriage with Alexandre (a histrionic narcissist who was obsessed with his social image, he saw her as damaging to his public image due to being "unfashionable" and her simple creole background sticking out like a sore thumb in the contemporarily complex Parisian social culture). Alexandre chided her frequently in his replies to her letters, nagging her to improve her writing and so on. This all happened during a formative period of her life (she was 16-17), and unsurprisingly she dropped responding to his letters. The marriage was already over less than 4 years later in basically an unofficial divorce when she was 20 (Alexandre was having many mistresses, and one of them, Mme. De Longpre, convinced Alexandre while he was in America that Rose's 2nd child, Hortense, was not his). Alexandre at the time was already extremely vexed with Rose, who was giving him the silent treatment for several months (having found out concrete evidence about his infidelity, with Longpre and others).

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Alexandre tried to wreck Rose's life by ejecting her to a convent but fortunately everyone on both sides of the Beauharnais and Tascher families stood with her (including all her in-laws) and, despite not saving her from being thrown to a convent, a legal settlement was made where Alexandre was obligated to pay her an annual stipend (and iirc return the dowry money). So her 1st marriage was wrecked by essentially a sociopath who left her with 2 children and at a convent in the age of 20. Surprisingly, her resolve was apparently not broken (her resolve and mental fortitude are really commendable, frankly). So, to cut to the chase, Alexandre had a big hand in instilling a mental disinclination to correspondence, especially to people who nagged her or criticized her writing skills (which were not terrible, but they were not 'fashionable' or fitting the standard. Alexandre complained about her letters being too short and informal, while Napoleon seethed that the odes of worship he put on his letters were reciprocated with largely formal and 'cold' letters that didn't return his burning passions).

        According to almost all who knew her, Josephine was extremely charming, elegant and compassionate. And her social fortitude never, ever waned. Whenever she put on one of her new skinsuits (empress, humble citizen, plenipotentiary, etc) she didn't show cracks on the surface. If anything, her charm was lauded as nothing less than superhuman, not just for the aforementioned reasons, but because she became this articulate and proficient in the complexities and intricacies of her various social stations inspite of her crude and rural creole upbringing.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          In addition to viewing her as the "ray in his star", Napoleon also saw her as an extremely useful and elegant tool through most stages of his career. In the Italian campaign she was the intermediary between all the envoys, plenipotentiaries and delegates that were dispatched by various Italian states to reach Napoleon. When he became emperor, she gave him access to major demographics that he otherwise wouldn't be able to reach (French aristocracy, emigres and the hitherto unruly creoles). She had a significant role as consort and a diplomatic medium (a lot of the diplomacy of the empire was conducted through her), and giving Napoleon's government a balanced image of compassion and benevolence. Many historians believe Napoleon's empire wouldn't have lasted as long without her providing counterweight to his authoritative brutality, and all contemporaries and historians unanimously agree Marie Louise was significantly worse than her in this role, lacking Josephine's charm and experience.

          The biggest problem she had with Napoleon was her infertility. Napoleon adopted her children as her own, and treated them like they're his own. He made Eugene his aide de camp and even granted her two children nobility before he did for his brothers and sisters (who despised Josephine since the outset of his desire to marry her, and worked tirelessly to drive a wedge between the two, they were most likely the root source of the famous Hippolyte Charles rumors). Napoleon though he was infertile himself until he (apparently) impregnated one of her mistresses (a calculated plan by his family members to drive the wedge between Napoleon and Josephine). Hitherto Napoleon wanted to resolve the issue of having an heir by marrying his stepdaughter Hortense to his (mentally ill, neurotic) brother Louis Buonaparte (the marriage was a failure, due to his brother's character, to the point that Napoleon had to concede to letting his stepdaughter stay at Malmaison with Josephine.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Hortense's first son died only aged 4 and the turmoil of the wedlock between Hortense and the psychotic Louis worsening and the Buonaparte's meddling into Napoleon's life made him continue considering divorce to get a wife capable of bearing child and by 1808 (at around Napoleon Louis' death) he was already perusing lists of candidates in European royalty for marriage from the Austrian and Russian royal families. It was a hard few years for Josephine as she was constantly toeing her anxiety of being divorced (and fearing the loss of protection for her and her children, and loss of income) that would come with divorce. It was a very hard decision for Napoleon himself as well, stating in a conversation with Pierre-Louis Roederer
            "They are jealous of my wife, of Eugene, of Hortense, of all that is near to me... she is always the butt of their persecutions. My wife is a good wife who never does anyone any harm, and is considerate of everybody and unfailingly sweet to me; It is from a sense of justice that I will not divorce her! I am above all a just man. If I was thrown in prison, instead of mounting a throne, she would share my misfortune. How can I put away this excellent woman just because I am becoming great? No, that is beyond me. I have the heart of a man... Yes, she shall be crowned! She will be crowned, if it costs me 200,000 men!"

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >how did she survive the revolution
            It’s an interesting story, probably because of the fact that she came out after it. Alexandre’s buttholeness caught up with him in 1783 and he got clapped in irons and sent to Les Carmes, one of the worst prisons in Paris where people of all descriptions are imprisoned. The stay was traumatizing for many of the inmates there due to the terrible conditions and the cart that made rounds daily and picked people to take to the concergerie for “trials” (and guillotining). Josephine was forced to live in a crowded cell with several other women, and a guard took away her mattress so she was relegated to sleeping on the ground. She met Alexandre and gave him his sendoff once they finally came for him. Fortunately for her and the remaining inmates, a bit-part actor named Delperch de la Bussiere who was employed by the committee of public safety for legal prosecution, and was responsible for clandestinely destroying more than a thousand documents of prisoners, including hers, which caused the ‘trials’ to be postponed. (Josephine would return his kindness in 1803 when she recognised him in a theatre and sent him a purse with 1,000 francs). This short delay in trials saved a lot of lives until 27th July when the Thermidorian reaction went into swing and Robespierre and Saint-Just were guillotined. One of Josephine’s inmates had an interesting role in this, Theresia Cabarrus (pic related at Les Carmes) managed to smuggle a dagger and a note to her lover and associate, Jean-Lambert Tallien, calling him a coward for not saving her life and others imprisoned with her. This note prompted him to usher the 9th Thermidor incident a few days later (He was brandishing the same dagger sent to him by Cabarrus in Robespierre’s face, infront of all the national convention).

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >impregnated one of her mistresses (a calculated plan by his family members to drive the wedge between Napoleon and Josephine).
            I havent heard of this, It was not Waleeska who was first impregnated??

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    great thread

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    She grew up on a Caribbean sugar plantation and ate so much sugar her teeth were black. She trained herself to laugh with her mouth closed because of this.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Her teeth weren't black. The reason she never opened her mouth when smiling was because of a cavity she had in the front left incisor.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Didnt they know how to remove cavities in the 18th century?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Maybe it was too large to be filled, or she was afraid of the pain associated with dentist operations.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Not what I read.

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