Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812
him the unique and priceless favour of kissing your cheek, and I, I
shall be alone and very far away; but you are about to come, are you
not? You will soon be beside me, on my breast, in my arms, over your
mouth. Take wings, come quickly, but travel gently. The route is long,
bad, fatiguing. If you should be overturned or be taken ill, if
fatigue--go gently, my beloved.
I have received a letter from Hortense. She is entirely lovable. I am
going to write to her. I love her much, and I will soon send her the
perfumes that she wants.
N. B.
* * * * *
I know not if you want money, for you never speak to me of business.
If you do, will you ask my brother for it--he has 200 louis of mine!
If you want a place for any one you can send him; I will give him one.
Chateau Renard may come too.
_A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c._
* * * * *
_April 28th.--Armistice of Cherasco (submission of Sardinia to
France): peace signed May 15th._
_May 7th.--Bonaparte passed the Po at Placentia, and attacks
Beaulieu, who has 40,000 Austrians._
_May 8th.--Austrians defeated at Fombio. Lose 2500 prisoners,
guns, and 3 standards. Skirmish of Codogno--death of General La
Harpe._
_May 9th.--Capitulation of Parma by the Grand Duke, who pays
ransom of 2 million francs, 1600 artillery horses, food, and 20
paintings._
_May 10th.--Passage of Bridge of Lodi. Austrians lose 2000 men and
20 cannon._
_May 14th.--Bonaparte was requested to divide his command, and
thereupon tendered his resignation._
_May 15th.--Bonaparte enters Milan. Lombardy pays ransom of 20
million francs; and the Duke of Modena 10 millions, and 20
pictures._
_May 24th-25th.--Revolt of Lombardy, and punishment of Pavia by
the French._
_May 30th-31st.--Bonaparte defeats Beaulieu at Borghetto, crosses
the Mincio, and makes French cavalry fight (a new feature for the
Republican troops)._
_June 3rd.--Occupies Verona, and secures the line of the Adige._
_June 4th._--Battle of Altenkirchen (Franconia) won by Jourdan.
_June 5th.--Armistice with Naples. Their troops secede from the
Austrian army._
No. 7.
TO JOSEPHINE.
_Tortona, Noon, June 15th._
My life is a perpetual nightmare. A presentiment of ill oppresses me.
I see you no longer. I have lost more than life, more than happiness,
more than my rest. I am almost without hope. I hasten to send a
courier to you. He will stay only four hours in Paris, and then
bring me your reply. Write me ten pages. That alone can console me a
little. You are ill, you love me, I have made you unhappy, you are in
delicate health, and I do not see you!--that thought overwhelms me. I
have done you so much wrong that I know not how to atone for it; I
accuse you of staying in Paris, and you were ill there. Forgive me,
my dear; the love with which you have inspired me has bereft me of
reason. I shall never find it again. It is an ill for which there
is no cure. My presentiments are so ominous that I would confine
myself to merely seeing you, to pressing you for two hours to my
heart--and then dying with you. Who looks after you? I expect you
have sent for Hortense. I love that sweet child a thousand times more
when I think she can console you a little, though for me there is
neither consolation nor repose, nor hope until the courier that I
have sent comes back; and until, in a long letter, you explain to me
what is the nature of your illness, and to what extent it is
serious; if it be dangerous, I warn you, I start at once for
Paris. My coming shall coincide with your illness. I have always
been fortunate, never has my destiny resisted my will, and to-day I
am hurt in what touches me solely (_uniquement_). Josephine, how
can you remain so long without writing to me; your last laconic
letter is dated May 22. Moreover, it is a distressing one for me, but
I always keep it in my pocket; your portrait and letters are
perpetually before my eyes.
I am nothing without you. I scarcely imagine how I existed without
knowing you. Ah! Josephine, had you known my heart would you have
waited from May 18th to June 4th before starting? Would you have given
an ear to perfidious friends who are perhaps desirous of keeping you
away from me? I openly avow it to every one, I hate everybody who is
near you. I expected you to set out on May 24th, and arrive on June
3rd.
Josephine, if you love me, if you realise how everything depends on
your health, take care of yourself. I dare not tell you not to
undertake so long a journey, and that, too, in the hot weather. At
least, if you are fit to make it, come by short stages; write me at
every sleeping-place, and despatch your letters in advance.
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.
Sometimes I tell myself that I alarm myself unnecessarily; that even
now she is better, that she is starting, has started, is perhaps
already at Lyons. Vain fancies! you are in bed suffering, more
beautiful, more interesting, more lovable. You are pale and your eyes
are more languishing, but when will you be cured? If one of us ought
to be ill it is I--more robust, more courageous; I should support
illness more easily. Destiny is cruel, it strikes at me through you.
What consoles me sometimes is to think that it is in the power of
destiny to make you ill; but it is in the power of no one to make me
survive you.
In your letter, dear, be sure to tell me that you are convinced that I
love you more than it is possible to imagine; that you are persuaded
that all my moments are consecrated to you; that to think of any other
woman has never entered my head--they are all in my eyes without
grace, wit, or beauty; that you, you alone, such as I see you, such as
you are, can please me, and absorb all the faculties of my mind; that
you have traversed its whole extent; that my heart has no recess into
which you have not seen, no thoughts which are not subordinate to
yours; that my strength, my prowess, my spirit are all yours; that my
soul is in your body; and that the day on which you change or cease to
live will be my death-day; that Nature, that Earth, is beautiful only
because you dwell therein. If you do not believe all this, if your
soul is not convinced, penetrated by it, you grieve me, you do not
love me--there is a magnetic fluid between people who love one
another--you know perfectly well that I could not brook a rival, much
less offer you one.[15] To tear out his heart and to see him would be
for me one and the same thing, and then if I were to carry my hands
against your sacred person--no, I should never dare to do it; but I
would quit a life in which the most virtuous of women had deceived
me.
But I am sure and proud of your love; misfortunes are the trials which
reveal to each mutually the whole force of our passion. A child as
charming as its mamma will soon see the daylight, and will pass many
years in your arms. Hapless me! I would be happy with one _day_. A
thousand kisses on your eyes, your lips, your tongue, your heart. Most
charming of thy sex, what is thy power over me? I am very sick of thy
sickness; I have still a burning fever! Do not keep the courier more
than six hours, and let him return at once to bring me the longed-for
letter of my Beloved.
Do you remember my dream, in which I was your boots, your dress, and
in which I made you come bodily into my heart? Why has not Nature
arranged matters in this way; she has much to do yet.
N. B.
_A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c._
* * * * *
_June 18th.--Bonaparte enters Modena, and takes 50 cannon at
Urbino._
_June 19th.--Occupies Bologna, and takes 114 cannon._
_June 23rd.--Armistice with Rome. The Pope to pay 21 millions, 100
rare pictures, 200 MSS., and to close his ports to the English._
_June 24th._--Desaix, with part of Moreau's army, forces the
passage of the Rhine.
No. 8.
TO JOSEPHINE.
_Pistoia, Tuscany, June 26th._
For a month I have only received from my dear love two letters of
three lines each. Is she so busy, that writing to her dear love is not
then needful for her, nor, consequently, thinking about him? To live
without thinking of Josephine would be death and annihilation to your
husband. Your image gilds my fancies, and enlivens the black and
sombre picture of melancholy and grief. A day perhaps may come in
which I shall see you, for I doubt not you will be still at Paris, and
verily on that day I will show you my pockets stuffed with letters
that I have not sent you because they are too foolish (_bete_). Yes,
that's the word. Good heavens! tell me, you who know so well how to
make others love you without being in love yourself, do you know how
to cure me of love??? I will give a good price for that remedy.
You ought to have started on May 24th. Being good-natured, I waited
till June 1st, as if a pretty woman would give up her habits, her
friends, both Madame Tallien and a dinner with Barras, and the acting
of a new play, and Fortune; yes, Fortune, whom you love much more than
your husband, for whom you have only a little of the esteem, and a
share of that benevolence with which your heart abounds. Every day I
count up your misdeeds. I lash myself to fury in order to love you no
more. Bah, don't I love you the more? In fact, my peerless little
mother, I will tell you my secret. Set me at defiance, stay at Paris,
have lovers--let everybody know it--never write me a monosyllable!
then I shall love you ten times more for it; and it is not folly, a
delirious fever! and I shall not get the better of it. Oh! would to
heaven I could get better! but don't tell me you are ill, don't try to
justify yourself. Good heavens! you are pardoned. I love you to
distraction, and never will my poor heart cease to give all for love.
If you did not love me, my fate would be indeed grotesque. You have
not written me; you are ill, you do not come. But you have passed
Lyons; you will be at Turin on the 28th, at Milan on the 30th, where
you will wait for me. You will be in Italy, and I shall be still far
from you. Adieu, my well-beloved; a kiss on thy mouth, another on thy
heart.
We have made peace with Rome--who gives us money. To-morrow we shall
be at Leghorn, and as soon as I can in your arms, at your feet, on
your bosom.
_A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c._
* * * * *
_June 27th.--Leghorn occupied by Murat and Vaubois._
_June 29th.--Surrender of citadel of Milan; 1600 prisoners and 150
cannon taken._
FOOTNOTES
[14] _Un millier de baise_ (sic).
[15] So Tennant (_t'en offrir un_): but Baron Feuillet de Conches, an
expert in Napoleonic graphology, renders the expression _t'en
souffrir un_.
SERIES B
(1796-97)
"Des 1796, lorsque, avec 30,000 hommes, il fait la conquete de l'Italie,
il est non-seulement grand general, mais profond politique."--_Des
Idees Napoleonniennes._
* * * * *
"Your Government has sent against me four armies without Generals, and
this time a General without an army."--_Napoleon to the Austrian
Plenipotentiaries, at Leoben._
SERIES B
(For subjoined Notes to this Series see pages 211-223.)
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