383. Young Napoleon: The Shadow of the Guillotine

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 18.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Within the turmoil of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte stands out to his military superiors, first by defeating the English at Toulon, then by putting down a royalist mob in Paris when outnumbered four to one, with a “whiff of grapeshot”. Having finally shaken off the humiliation of the failed invasion of Sardinia which began his career, he is made Commander of the Interior, and rewarded with command of the Army of Italy. Has the Corsican rebel finally given up on his roots, and embraced French ideals of brotherhood? Join Tom and Dominic in the second part of our deep dive on young Napoleon, as they delve into his rise within the French military, his disillusionment with Corsican politics, his precocious strategic savoir-faire, and the story of how he met the future Empress of the French, Josephine de Beauharnais… *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For bonus episodes, early access,
0:04.4	add free listening and access to our chat community, sign up at restishist report.com. That's restishist report.com.
0:13.2	17th Rea 1796
0:28.0	All right to you, Marble Lovid. Very often, and you are very little. You are wicked. You are noty or sonotty,
0:38.4	as much as you are fickle. It is unfathomable so to deceive a poor husband, a tender lover.
0:46.5	Auty to lose all his enjoyments, because he is so far away, bound down with toil, fatigue and
0:54.1	hardship. Without his Josephine, without the assurance of her love, what is left him upon earth?
1:03.3	What can he do? Adir, Adirabla, Josephine. One of these nights, your door will happen with a
1:11.5	great noise, as a jealous person, and you will fend me in your arms. A thousand loving kisses.
1:24.0	Oh, God of mate. So, Dominic, I had to watch that. They just have to listen to it. I had to watch
1:31.6	that. That was Napoleon Bonaparte writing to Josephine, famous, of course, as his wife,
1:38.8	not tonight, Josephine, all that kind of thing, which we will be coming to at the end of this
1:43.2	episode. And alert listeners may recall that in the previous episode, I began with a very
1:50.1	Ligurian accent. And now I have given Napoleon a French accent, even though actually he never
1:56.7	had a French accent. He always kept his course. But you've uncovered a symbolic truth there,
2:00.5	Tom. It's all about the symbolic truth. It's all about the symbolic truth, because this episode
2:06.6	really is about the process by which Napoleon jettisoned his course can identity and commits whole
2:13.0	heartedly to La France. Is it Neba? Yeah, absolutely right. I'm still slightly in shock after
2:18.0	that. I mean, it was very inspectic Luzo, but the stuff at the kisses was quite punchy. I didn't
2:24.5	see that coming. Yes. So Napoleon's relationship with Josephine is an intriguing story.
2:30.0	Yes, a crazy story, isn't it, actually? So we'll, something to look forward to at the end of
2:33.7	this episode. But to begin with Dominic, the revolution is kind of hurtling towards the terror.
	...

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