Napoleon And Josephine's Relationships

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Love is the most important thing in a marriage. Especially when the marriage is that of the rulers, the Emperor and Empress, of a nation. Napoleon and Josephine’s relationship and marriage was very fragile and built on something that was a false sense of love. They both convinced themselves that they could tolerate and in both cases, love each other at one time or another during their time spent as man and wife. With their nation sitting on their backs, the two had to carry it in believing that all was well in their household. Many of the struggles and differences were kept hidden away from their people during Napoleon and Josephine’s lives. As their struggles escaped hiding though, it became a question to many as to if this union was good …show more content…

He continued his constant sending of love letters, yet Josephine kept herself distant and kept her responses to his constant claims of affection to a minimum. Napoleon became fed up over time with her minimal effort to uphold their relationship. “Surrounded with pleasures and entertainments, you would do wrong to make the least sacrifice for me,” Napoleon wrote in a letter to Josephine (Ober 236). It was hard for Napoleon to grasp the idea of his wife’s negligence in writing back to him while he made time to write to her frequently. He was almost past his breaking point but the news he would receive from his dear friend, Junot, while in Egypt pushed him to feeling the need to end his marriage with Josephine. While on a walk, Junnot told Napoleon of his wife’s scandals with other men while he was away and that she didn’t write him because she had felt no love for him. This sent Napoleon into a rage and caused him to make the decision of getting an annulment (Schneider). Napoleon returned to Josephine to tell her of his divorce decision. He told her of how he had learned of her cheating habits and that her love she spoke of for him, was untrue. Josephine knew that she could not allow their marriage annulment to pass so she shed light onto the fact that a church wedding had never been performed between her husband and herself. She knew that becoming Emperor was the power that he truly craved and for him to obtain that power, the two first must have an official church wedding

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