Clisson andEugénie by Napoleon Bonaparte

Author:Napoleon Bonaparte [Napoleon Bonaparte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906040611
Publisher: Gallic Books
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

A Relationship is Formed

During the years 1794 and 1795, the period following Napoleon’s ventures into literary and political writing, he was to experience the love affair that would inspire the creation of his most ambitious work, Clisson and Eugénie.

In the summer of 1794, Bonaparte, already a general of artillery, met Eugénie Désirée Clary, a pretty girl from Provence, and the sister-in-law of his brother Joseph, who had married Julie Clary on 1 August 1794. In the autumn of that year Désirée and Napoleon entered into an amorous, but platonic relationship, conducted mainly through letters. On 10 September 1794 Napoleon wrote: ‘Dear Eugénie … the charms of your person and character have won over the heart of your lover.’ On 4 February the following year he wrote to her about literature and her dancing. He urged her to learn music and offered to be her mentor. Then he wrote on 12 February 1795: ‘If you could have seen, Mademoiselle, the emotions your letter inspired in me, you would realise the injustice of your reproaches.’ Then again on 11 April 1795: ‘I wrote to you, dear friend, from Avignon … Your image is engraved on my heart. I have never doubted your love, tender Eugénie, why would you imagine that I cannot love you any more?’

Napoleon then returned to Marseilles (on 21 April) apparently to ask for Désirée’s hand in marriage. Yet this had not been discussed in the letters between the pair although Napoleon had written on 11 April of his commitment ‘to you for life’. He left Marseilles on 2 May, arriving in Avignon on 9 May where he wrote to Désirée that he was ‘much afflicted at the thought of having to be so far away from you for so long’. On 2 June he wrote from Paris, ‘I saw many pretty women of agreeable disposition at Marmont’s house in Châtillon, but I never felt even for an instant that any of them could measure up to my dear, good Eugénie.’

From 4 June 1795 onwards, however, relations between the pair were deteriorating: ‘Adored friend, I have received no more letters from you. How could you go eleven days without writing to me?’ wrote Napoleon. Then again on 7 June, ‘I receive letters from all sides, from everyone but you, Mademoiselle.’

On 13 June 1795 Napoleon was appointed brigadier general of the infantry in the Western Army. But since he did not care for civil war, he managed to take a leave of absence from 15 June until 31 August for convalescence. That was how he had time on 14 June to write a long letter to Désirée, while she was in Genoa with her mother:

You are no longer in France, dear friend; were we not already far enough apart? You have decided to put the sea between us. I don’t reproach you; I know that you were in a delicate position, and I was much affected by the touching picture you painted in your last letter of your troubles. Gentle Eugénie, you are young.

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