Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

4 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTtime. Having her accompany him to the port at least allowed him to put off thedifficult decision whether to take her with him.The young general—notorious for his opportunism and mercurial temperament—wasexperiencing a rare moment of genuine love and affection forhis wife of two years. Josephine had grown up on the island of Martinique in theCaribbean, a daughter of down-on-their-luck minor nobles named Tascher de laPagerie (her father had been reduced to performing manual labor on the estatesof others). Originally known as Rose, she had come to France, married awealthy officer, Alexandre de Beauharnais, and established a literary salon. Butafter the Revolution, she had seen her husband, an aristocrat and an officer wholost a major battle with the Prussians, executed as a counterrevolutionary. Thenthe Jacobins clapped her in prison, as well, and scheduled her date with the guillotine.A well-connected lover rescued her. She later had a number of affairs,one with a budding politician named Paul Barras, who went on to become amember of the French executive. Finding her a spendthrift, he introduced herto the romantically naïve young Bonaparte, who renamed her Josephine andpursued and married her. In one of his early letters to “Madame Beauharnais,”full of Corsican misspellings, he wrote, “I wake up full of you. Your portrait, andthe intoxicating memory of last night, left my senses altogether bereft of repose.”5 In 1796 Barras arranged for him to become supreme commander of theFrench army invading Austrian-ruled northern Italy, a campaign that separatedhim from his new bride for most of the following two years. He wrote frequentlyand passionately. She seldom replied. During the campaign, he remonstratedwith her from Bologna, “You are sad, you are sick, you never write tome. . . . Don’t you love your good friend any more? . . . Perhaps I will makepeace with the Pope and will be with you soon.” Rumors reached him of her affairs,but despite flying into a rage at first, he generally dismissed them.Neither of them appears to have been eager for another long separation. InToulon, Josephine expressed her confidence that, given her upbringing in Martinique,the rigors of his exotic destination held nothing new for her. Theywaited together in the port for a storm to blow over, touring his magnificent flagship,the Orient, and welcoming the generals and scientists who were to participatein the expedition. In private, they discussed earnestly the question ofwhether Josephine should accompany her husband abroad, and in between theirdeliberations they made passionate love. Gen. Alexandre Dumas at one pointblundered in on one of their arguments, finding Josephine in bed in a state of undressand weeping at her husband’s indecision. In the end, Bonaparte decided topostpone the decision, sending her to take the waters at a health spa, Plombières,