Scatter Brained

NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE VERSUS JOSÉPHINE 
DE BEAUHARNAIS
Th
  e tabloid celebrity split watch of their day from the very 
beginning, all of France was waiting for the inevitable. After 
all, it didn’t take a Nostradamus to see it coming: His family 
despised her, and she cheated on him constantly. Yet the man 
was clearly smitten, and eventually she gave up infi delity, 

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won over by his brilliant strategic barrage of sappy love let-
ters from the front. Th
  e relationship lasted 13 years, only to 
prove conventional wisdom correct when it became clear she 
couldn’t produce an heir. Still, it wasn’t what you’d call an ac-
rimonious break-up. From the transcript:
Napoléon:
 “She has adorned thirteen years of my life; the 
memory will always remain engraved on my heart.”
Joséphine:
 “I am pleased to off er him the greatest proof of 
attachment and devotion ever off ered on this earth.”
After this sickening display, Napoléon went off  to marry a 
teenager and lose Europe, and Josephine went off  to die of a 
bad head cold. (Really.)