Joséphine, then Joséphine de Beauharnais, then Empress Joséphine so many lives for a single woman but what a woman! The question then arises, who was she really this Josephine who put Napoleon at her feet? Answer.
Born in 1763 in Martinique, under the name of Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, her first marriage took her to France. But it quickly turns sour. In 1779, she married Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais (a spendthrift and unfaithful), with whom she had two children. The couple separated 6 years later. Joséphine continues to live like a Parisian socialite and...finds herself with the creditors at her heels. During the revolution, she barely avoided the guillotine (her ex-husband lost his mind). But Joséphine is none other than the mistress of the (younger than her) conqueror with a promising future:the future Emperor Napoleon whom she will marry in 1796.
She will exert a great influence on him. And when Napoleon repudiated her (“I let it be known that I have put an end to the common life that I shared with Val Joséphine “), in 1809, because she could not give him an heir to the throne, the Treasury continued to pay him a pension of 2 million per year… Well, that’s it for the very summary recontextualization. To learn more, we advise you to read Memoirs on the Empress Josephine , by Georgette Ducrest. Now, place to what intrigues us:how did she manage to seduce the strong man of France? Decryption.
According to author Robert Greene*, Joséphine belongs to the profile of "coquette", whose talent for seduction lies in the ability to "establish emotional slavery long after the first arrows of desire ". And this, despite the fact that these women reveal themselves, as soon as you start scratching the first layers, rather selfish. For Freud, it is the "narcissistic woman" type, those who care a little TOO much about their face. Strangely, that's precisely why the other adores him.
Freud:“Such women love, strictly speaking, only themselves, about as intensely as the man loves them. »
She masters like no other the famous adage "Flee me, I'm following you, follow me, I'm running away from you ". After the familiarities, make way for coldness and dodging. And bing:successful destabilization operation. The other doesn't really understand what's going on. He wonders why he suddenly stopped pleasing. Consumed by his doubts, it is likely that a certain vanity makes the man want to prove that he is still desirable.
In any case, that is what Napoleon did. When they were lovers, Josephine let him… sometimes visit her, sometimes not. This closed door made the future Emperor greatly furious. But the fiery letter he received the next day rushed him (re) home… Opposing indocility to a conqueror quick to quell the battlefields =very judicious. This continued when they were married. While campaigning in Italy, she initially refused to join him there, and, when they were finally to meet, she was never where she was supposed to be... He wrote to her one day:"I arrive in Milan, I rush to your apartment, I left everything to see you, to hold you in my arms; you weren't there:you roam the towns with parties, you move away from me when I arrive, you no longer worry about your dear Achille (…). The unhappiness I feel is incalculable " . We imagine the face of the generals he had, in the meantime, planted to join her.
1 / According to Freud, each of us goes through a narcissistic phase in childhood during which he is self-sufficient:it gives the charm of the child (watching a toddler play alone:#cute). The narcissistic woman, on the other hand, reminds the other of this childish period of the "golden age", and makes him subconsciously think that he will find this self-sufficiency lost in contact with her.
2 / The autonomy of the "Coquette" acts on man as a challenge. He does everything to make her dependent but does not succeed:the narcissistic woman is not emotionally deprived (since she is self-sufficient).
Note:we do not confuse narcissism and navel-gazing. Talking about yourself all the time is to be avoided; what is seductive and what attracts in narcissism "coquettes" as described by Greene, is self-confidence, autonomy and giving. The coquette knows how to give pleasure, then… refuse it. It excels in hot / cold. Admittedly, it's a bit manipulative, love marketing, teasing, not a nice girl, but in small doses, it helps to catch and maintain the flame. But in high doses, it's just exhausting for everyone and above all unhealthy.
*Read:The art of seduction by Robert Greene, Leduc.s Editions.
