Many of Josephine's friends thought that Napoleon was a strange
choice for her. Their personalities clashed, as she was indolent while he
was violent and passionate. He was not really a man of sufficient means,
as he had no 'old money', had a numerous family to support and could
end up penniless if the wheel of fortune turned once more. Her lawyer,
Ragudeau, warned her that she was on shifting sands: 'Can you be so
foolish as to marry a young man who has nothing but his cloak and his
sword?' Others of her friends pointed out that Bonaparte was physically
unappealing and - the most obvious objection of all - that she neither
loved him nor was in love with him.
Josephine weighed all this, but against the minuses were some
powerful pluses. Her own charms were fading fast, and the supply of
influential admirers would sooner or later dry up. She felt she had a hold
over Napoleon, which she never had over Barras, and only fleetingly with
Hoche. Also, Bonaparte had the makings of an excellent stepfather, and
Eugene, in particular, needed a male guardian he could look up to.
During the Terror, when it was mandatory for all children to learn a
trade, he had been apprenticed to a carpenter. Then he had spent a year
as Hache's orderly in the Vendee and had witnessed terrible atrocities.
Josephine felt that her son had seen too much of the seamy side of life too
soon, and hoped that he would be wrapped thereafter in Napoleon's
mantle. It was true that her daughter Hortense did not appear to care for
her prospective stepfather, but time could cure that. Whether Josephine's
estimate of Hortense's feelings was accurate is a moot point. In her
memoirs Hortense speaks of being overwhelmed by Napoleon's intellect
and exhausted by his energy; she recalled a dinner with Barras at the
Luxembourg on 21 January 1796, when she sat between her mother and
Bonaparte, and he seemed besotted with Josephine, as an emotionally
draining experience.
On 7 February 1796 the marriage banns between Napoleon and
Josephine were announced and on 9 March the wedding took place - but
not before Napoleon had kept the bride waiting three hours. Barras,
Tallien and her lawyer acted as the witnesses on Josephine's side, and an
eighteen-year-old Army captain, Le Marois, played the role for
Napoleon. Although Napoleon was twenty-six and Josephine rising
thirty-three, they both declared themselves to be twenty-eight: according
to the marriage certificate Josephine had been born in 1767 and Napoleon
in 1768.
This was not the only false aspect of a somewhat sordid marriage
ceremony. Josephine had cynically opted for a civil ceremony to make
divorce easier, but in fact there is doubt that the couple had been legally
marcin
(Marcin)
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