Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796–1812

About this book

In March 1796, two days after his marriage to the elegant widow Josephine de Beauharnais, the young general Napoleon Bonaparte left Paris to command the French army in Italy, and from the battlefield he wrote her passionate letters, full of longing and jealousy, begging her to join him and reproaching her for not writing. This collection follows their relationship through his rise to emperor, his campaigns across Europe and the divorce of 1809, when he left her because she had not given him an heir, and the kinder letters he sent her afterwards.

Context and significance

The letters were collected and translated in 1901 by Henry Foljambe Hall, with notes on the events behind each one. They show a side of Napoleon that his battles hide. His invasion of Russia, as seen by the Russians, is told in Tolstoy's War and Peace.

About the author