The exact date when Napoleon met the first significant woman in his life (Letizia apart) is not

known, but by the time Joseph married Julie Clary, Napoleon was deeply interested in her
sixteen-year-old sister Bernardine Eugenie Clary, also known as Desiree. Both girls were
brunettes, and at this stage Desiree had not shed all her puppy fat so that, petite as she was, she
had a somewhat dumpy appearance. But she was warm, affectionate and good-natured, with a
smile like Mediterranean sunshine, and she had large, lustrous, slightly popping brown eyes; her
portraits show her as sexy rather than beautiful. The initial attraction for Napoleon is easy to
explain, but before September 1794, Desiree probably rated no higher in his affections than
Emilie de Laurenti, whose hand he once lukewarmly solicited from her father, in the certain
knowledge that he would be turned down. As is quite clear from the events of 1795, Napoleon
liked to 'test the water' by making frivolous marriage proposals, just to see how his social status
was perceived by others. But we can certainly discount the wild story that Joseph really wanted
to marry Desiree until Napoleon 'leaned on' him by pointing out that stable should marry flighty
and flighty stable; this meant the pairings should be Joseph/Julie and Napoleon/Desiree. Joseph
made a hardheaded marriage of convenience to solve his financial problems, and there was never
any suggestion of an automatic second connection between the Bonaparte and Clary families.
There was certainly nothing special about Napoleon's feelings for Desiree in September 1794, as
his first letter to her (he always called her Eugenie), from the Italian front, makes clear: 'Your
unfailing sweetness and the gay openness which is yours alone inspire me with affection, dear
Eugenie, but I am so occupied by work I don't think this affection ought to cut into my soul and
leave a deeper scar.' Scarcely coup de foudre. The epithet best describing Napoleon's letters to
Desiree at this juncture is 'patronizing' . He advised her on what books she should read, how she
could improve her piano playing (though his technical advice on scales, tones and intervals is
nonsensical), how to develop an acknowledged 84 musical talent, and how she could brush up
her deportment and manners. When Desiree, unsurprisingly, rebuked him for his unromantic
tone, he replied with a list of her shortcomings. Yet the visits to her_ house from December 1
794 onwards, while he was preparing the Corsican expedition, obviously increased his ardour,
for the tone of his letters changes. 'You are always in my thoughts. I have never doubted your
love, my sweet Eugenie, how can you think I could ever cease to love you?' The romance caught
fire, and on 21 April 1795 Napoleon became engaged to Desiree. Although it has often been said
that Madame Clary opposed the match, there is no sign of this at this stage, nor of Joseph's
supposed objection on the grounds that one Bonaparte in the family was enough. Since Desiree
would bring in a healthy dowry - up to 10o,ooo francs on some estimates - the marriage made
sense to the hardheaded Napoleon. It is clear from subsequent events that at some time between
21 April and his departure for Paris on 7 May Napoleon made Desiree his mistress. When the
guilt-ridden Napoleon admitted this on St Helena, his confession was disregarded as the fantasy
of a 'dirty old man', but to construe his remarks in this way reveals an astoundingly superficial
view of his psychology. To take the virginity of a girl and then not marry her was against his
own old-fashioned code of honour - it was vastly different in the case of experienced women -
and he always felt guilt about this. Why he did not marry her he scarcely knew at the conscious
level and continued to hark back to her wistfully. But there are some important clues to the
relationship and its eventual failure in the outline for a novel Napoleon wrote during the affair
with Desiree, Clissold et Eugenie. It is obvious that Eugenie is Desiree (Napoleon thought the
name more refined and dignified than the erotically charged 'Desiree') and that Napoleon is
Clissold. This is how he described hero and heroine: Clissold was born for war. While still a
child he knew the lives of all the great captains. He meditated on military tactics at a time when
other boys of his age were at school or chasing girls. As soon as he was old enough to shoulder
arms, brilliant actions marked his every step. One victory succeeded another and his name was as
renowned among the people as those of their dearest defenders ... Eugenic was sixteen years old.
She was gentle, good and vivacious, with pretty eyes and of medium size. Without being ugly,
she was not a beauty, but goodness, sweetness and a lively tenderness were essential parts of her
nature. Clissold is the Romantic hero, a loner who has reached high rank in the army while still a
young man, thus making him prey to insane jealousy 85 and insane rumour. In the countryside
near Lyons he meets two sisters, Amelie and Eugenie. After some inconsequential flirting with
Amelie, Clissold falls in love with Eugenie and she with him. Thereafter Clissold renounces
fame and lives only for the love of Eugenie. Years go by and they have children. In what is
surely a reference to his affair with Desiree, Napoleon writes: 'Every night Eugenie slept with her
head on her lover's shoulder or in his arms . . . In his new life with Eugenie Clissold had certainly
avenged men's injustice, which had vanished from his mind like a dream.' The incomparable
idyll comes to an end when Clissold is recalled to the Army. He is away for years but every day
gets a letter from Eugenie. Wounded in battle, he sends his right-hand man, Berville, to comfort
Eugenie. Berville and Eugenie fall in love and, hearing of this, Clissold decides to die in battle.
At two in the morning, just before the battle, he writes a letter of farewell to Eugenie: How many
unhappy men regret being alive yet long to continue living! Only I wish to have done with life. It
is Eugenie who gave me it ... Farewell, my life's arbiter, farewell, companion of my happy days!
In your arms I have tasted supreme happiness. I have drained life dry and all its good things .
What remains now but satiety and boredom? At twenty-six I have exhausted the ephemeral
pleasures of fame but in your love I have known how sweet it is to be alive. That memory breaks
my heart. May you live happily and think no more of the unhappy Clissold! Kiss my sons. May
they. grow up without their father's ardour, for then they would be like him, victims of other
men, of glory and of love. The theme of betrayal by a woman hints at what was in the
Napoleonic unconscious. It squares with what we know of his deep ambivalence towards Letizia,
and the conviction that she had betrayed Carlo. The seeds of disaster for the love affair with
Desiree are already on show here. To marry Desiree, Napoleon seems to hint, is to expose
himself to the full blast of romantic love with its almost inevitable heartache and, given his
opinion of women, virtually certain betrayal. Desiree's very status as a virgin when Napoleon
took her is, paradoxically, felt to be what is most threatening about her. Any chance of a
spontaneous development of the romance was destroyed when Napoleon suddenly received
orders to join the Army of the West, engaged in fighting the royalist counter-revolutionaries of
the Vendee. This posting to an infantry command was, in effect, a demotion and Napoleon
decided to go to Paris to protest it. Accompanied by 86 Marmont and Junot, he set off north in a
post-chaise, travelling via Avignon, Montelimar, Valence, Lyons and the Saone to the Marmont
family home in Burgundy. As the coach drove off, Desiree wrote: 'You left half an hour ago ...
Only the thought of knowing you forever faithful ... ' at which point the letter tailed off on a tear-
splotched page. That Napoleon, though possibly sexually besotted, was not in love in any true
sense became clear even before he reached Paris. At the Marmont house he met a bright young
woman named Victorine de Chastenay, who fell under his spell at once, as she herself testifies.
At dinner Victorine sang a ballad and asked Napoleon if her pronunciation was correct. He said
'No' rather boorishly and otherwise spoke to her only in blunt monosyllables. But she was much
taken with this very pale and thin general with the long greasy hair, and set out to impress him.
Evidently she succeeded for the following day after dinner she spent four hours alone with him,
while he held forth as a literary critic: he told her he loved Ossian, hated happy endings in the
theatre, and thought Shakespeare's plays were pathetic and unreadable. It is quite clear that
Victorine threw herself at him; whether the encounter ended with sexual consummation is
unclear. Napoleon and his companions proceeded via Chalon, Chiitillon-surSeine and Semur and
arrived in Paris on 25 May. Once in the capital Napoleon went to the Ministry of War to protest
his demotion from the rank of artillery general. A stormy interview followed, after which it
looked likely that Napoleon would end up on a supernumerary list as an unemployed general.
The Minister reiterated that the artillery quotas were full and that, as he was the last to be
promoted, there was nothing for it but he must command a brigade in the Vendee. Napoleon, as
usual in such an emergency, stalled by asking for three weeks' leave, intending in the meantime
to lobby his influential friends to get him off the hook. He began collecting evidence of
victimization and discovered that a number of politicians, including the Minister of War himself,
held the rank and pay of a brigadier-general though not on active service. When there was no
resolution of the stand-off after the expiry of the leave period, Napoleon found himself on half
pay and reduced to living in a cheap hotel, wearing a shabby uniform, muddy boots and no
gloves, and getting by on a pittance sent by Joseph. He was said to have been so poor that when
dining out he wrapped the money for his bill in a piece of paper, to conceal how little he was
spending. No longer able to maintain Louis, he managed to find him a place in the artillery
school at Chiilons. Despondent and disillusioned, he cut a poor figure, as described by Laure
Permon, the future duchess d' Abrantes: 87 At this time Napoleon was so ugly, he cared so little
for his appearance, that his uncombed and unpowdered hair gave him a disagreeable look. I can
still picture him, entering the courtyard of the Hotel de la Tranquillite, and crossing it with an
awkward, uncertain step. He wore a nasty round hat pulled down over his eyes, from which his
hair, like a spaniel's ears, flopped over his frock-coat ... an overall sickly effect was created by
his thinness and his yellow complexion. Other contemporary descriptions mention his short
stature and his deepset, grey eyes, which could look gloomy or fiery and could be changed in a
trice to produce either a charming or a terrifying effect. Some observers noted his unusually
delicate features or his 'spaniel's ears' haircut - cut square under the ears and falling to the
shoulders - while others spoke of the peculiar charm of the lines of his mouth and his palpable
physical presence - something no other Bonaparte possessed. But all were agreed about the
predominant tone of depression. Certainly in these dark days in Paris in the summer of 1795
Napoleon contemplated suicide. At other times he thought of going into service with the Sultan
of Turkey, always provided his beloved Joseph would agree to serve as French consul at Chios.
He actually submitted a formal application to the War Ministry to be allowed to serve in Turkey,
but the application was not immediately processed because of incompetence by Ministry clerks.
The mixture of depression and emotion for Joseph comes through in a letter written to Joseph in
June: Whatever may happen to you, remember that you cannot possibly have a warmer friend
than I, one to whom you are more dear or who is more sincerely desirous for your happiness.
Life is a mere dream that fades. Should you go away and suspect that it may be for some time, let
me have a miniature of yourself. We have lived together for so long and been so close that our
hearts have become as one- you know more than anyone how completely mine belongs to you.
Napoleon's letters from this period, both to Joseph and Desiree, are gloomy and depressive. The
epistles to Joseph oscillate between the sentiment that life has little meaning and he would
welcome death and a hyper-cynicism and money obsession, heightened by the presence all
around him in Paris of quick-fix speculators, shady get-rich-quick characters, parvenus, arrivistes
and the nouveaux riches: 'There is only one thing to do in this world and that is to keep acquiring
money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless.' There is much
about the Napoleon of 1 795 to back Madame de Remusat's 88 assertion that Napoleon was bold
and resourceful only when luck was running his way, but when at a low ebb he was timid,
circumspect and uncertain. There was little encouraging news from Joseph: just that Lucien, still
destitute in St-Maximin, had been arrested as a Jacobin a full year after Thermidor but then
released after two weeks. To Desiree he wrote that he had a 'romantic soul', an imagination of
ice, a head of ice, a bizarre heart and melancholy inclinations. This was hardly what she wanted
to hear, for she was busy writing that she was doing everything she could to make herself worthy
of him, adding, however, that she feared he would forget all about the pleasures of Marseilles in
the heady, hedonistic atmosphere of Paris. So uninterested was Napoleon in Desiree that he let
nine days go by before going down to the poste restante to retrieve her tear-stained letters. But it
was typical of him to blow hot and cold. On 24 June he decided to have his portrait painted for
Desiree. In July, when she was with her family in Genoa, he complained to Joseph that he never
heard from her, did not know whether she was alive or dead, and chided Joseph with never
mentioning her.