Josephine Bonaparte
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2012
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"I get to Milan," wrote Napoleon. "I fling myself into your room. I have left everything in order to see you, to clasp you in my arms .... you were not there." The tale of Napoleon and Josephine is one of history's great love affairs, and while she did not win the battles he fought, she was both present, and perhaps influential, at a great moment in Europe's past. Her own life before then was equally extraordinary - born in Martinique, her first husband was executed and she was in jail too, expecting the madame guillotine at any time.
Reporter Janine di Giovanni champions Josephine with the expert help of her biographer Andrea Stuart, who makes no apology for the methods Josephine employed to ensure her survival and rise. An astonishing life, though presenter Matthew Parris remains unconvinced that she was truly great. The producer is Miles Warde.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the |
| 0:03.8 | podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC. |
| 0:08.6 | It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world. |
| 0:15.0 | What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism |
| 0:20.0 | and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines. |
| 0:23.7 | And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject |
| 0:28.3 | you might not even have thought you were interested in. |
| 0:30.2 | Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment, |
| 0:36.1 | you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.3 | Thank you for downloading this great Lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:44.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts, |
| 0:47.0 | just visit BBC.co. UK slash radio 4. |
| 0:51.0 | So often on Great Lives, our subject is a man who has made history. |
| 0:55.2 | A man who has made history. |
| 0:57.3 | A Genes Khan, a George Washington, a Napoleon Bonaparte. |
| 1:00.8 | The list of these types of character goes on and on. |
| 1:03.7 | Wellington, Caesar, Winston Churchill. |
| 1:06.6 | Finding great women has been more of a challenge. |
| 1:10.1 | Plenty of female writers and poets and performers, but the list of women who prior to the last |
| 1:14.8 | century sat at the center of events who were allowed by a male-dominated culture to influence |
| 1:21.3 | events is obviously far shorter. |
| 1:23.4 | Elizabeth First comes to mind, but she was chosen for this program a decade ago. |
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