‘A kiss on the heart’
As this year’s Valentine’s Day approaches, many of us might remember how thrilled we were to receive a handwritten letter or card through the post from a special someone.
With that in mind, this week, we’ll be sharing some of the more notable handwritten love letters sent between admirers and lovers throughout the ages.
Today, we bring you a letter sent from General Napoleon Bonaparte to his new bride, Josephine. The letter found her in Paris while Napoleon is fighting in Italy, just after their marriage, but already he is craving her, tormented with jealousy.
Theirs is a love match. He is the young victorious general of revolutionary France; she is the Creole girl born in Martinique, the widow of an aristocrat guillotined during the terror of the early 1790s. She became the mistress of Paul Barras, one of the ruling directors of France who then introduced her to his rising general, Napoleon, whom she married on 9 March 1796. Afterwards, Napoleon defeated France’s enemies – the Austrians, the Russians, the Prussians, the Egyptians and himself seized power in France. In 1804, he crowned himself and Josephine emperor and empress.
‘I have your letters of the 16th and the 21st. There are many days when you don’t write. What do you do then? No, my darling, I am not jealous, but sometimes worried. Come soon; I warn you, if you delay, you will find me ill. Fatigue and your absence are too much.
‘Your letters are the joy of my days, and my days of happiness are not many. Junot is bringing twenty-two flags to Paris. You must come back with him, do you understand? Hopeless sorrow, inconsolable misery, sadness without end, if I am so unhappy as to see him return alone.
‘Adorable friend, he will see you, he will breathe in your temple; perhaps you will grant him the unique and perfect flavour of kissing your cheek, and I shall be alone and far, far away. But you are coming, aren’t you? You are going to be here beside me, in my arms, on my breast, on my mouth. Take wing and come, come! But travel gently. The road is long, bad, tiring…A kiss on the heart, and one lower down, much lower!’
