Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hello, welcome
Speaker 1: to a very special episode of Noble Blood. I am
Speaker 1: here with my friend, the brilliant writer and historian Jennifer Wright.
Speaker 1: Hi Jennifer, Hi Danna. I am so happy to be
Speaker 1: here again. I am genuinely thrilled to be doing this
Speaker 1: episode with you. We are going to be talking about
Speaker 1: Josephine Bonaparte, which was not her actual name, really it
Speaker 1: was not, but for popular reference, Josephine Bonaparte. And what
Speaker 1: I find very exciting is coincidentally, both you and I
Speaker 1: separately saw the Napoleon movie, the Wordly Scott movie. Last night.
Speaker 1: We did. Yeah. I was at the Americana. I was
Speaker 1: at the Grove. Oh my god. We were both doing
Speaker 1: our Rick Caruso Many Many Town. That's a very la
Speaker 1: thing to say. I really liked it. I had a blast.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. I think there are some historical accuracies.
Speaker 2: I don't think they matter. I think there are historical
Speaker 2: accuracies in Marie Antoinette by Sophia Coppola, doesn't stop it
Speaker 2: from being an amazing movie. I think their historical inaccuracies
Speaker 2: in Marie Antoinette starring Norma Shear doesn't make it less
Speaker 2: of an amazing powerhouse performance by Norma Fear.
Speaker 1: I have gone on the record and I will continue
Speaker 1: to go on the record and say that I think
Speaker 1: historical fiction should not operate like a history book. No,
Speaker 1: it's entertainment. It's entertainment. It's about theme, it's about character,
Speaker 1: it's about it's about vibes. It's vibe.
Speaker 2: Slowly do they get the vibes of French Revolution and
Speaker 2: the vibes of Napoleon being a very unpleasant little bit.
Speaker 1: I wrote my letterbox review, which is the most film
Speaker 1: broth thing I'll ever say. And then my letterbox review
Speaker 1: is like, it is a misconception that Napoleon was short.
Speaker 1: He was average. I that was average high time, was.
Speaker 2: Very hunched, and he was poorly fed growing up because
Speaker 2: his mother cared a great deal about having furniture in
Speaker 2: about Saha, but not providing food for her children.
Speaker 1: And of course there was the discrepancy in the English
Speaker 1: system of measurement and the French system of measurement. And
Speaker 1: also as a first.
Speaker 2: Go if you were British Willington was five ten.
Speaker 1: I and Napoleon had had two guards next tohem who
Speaker 1: are very tall, very tall. But my letterbox review was
Speaker 1: that Napoleon was not short. But as this movie makes
Speaker 1: UPU net clear, he was Europe's weirdest little guy. That
Speaker 1: that is exactly right, that is absolutely true. And the
Speaker 1: beautiful Vanessa Kirby played Josephine, which we'll get into her life,
Speaker 1: but to Segue, I will say I did find it
Speaker 1: very hollywood that they got an actress like fifteen years
Speaker 1: younger than Joaquin Phoenix, when.
Speaker 2: When in reality, Josephine was six years older then Napoleon,
Speaker 2: and Napoleon was very young when they met. It's twenty four.
Speaker 2: Tell me about Josephine before they met. Well, I want
Speaker 2: to talk about another person who I know we've talked
Speaker 2: about on the podcast before as well, and that's Madame
Speaker 2: Pompadour and the reason that my favorite historical woman, and
Speaker 2: that's because when Josephine was fifteen years old, she was
Speaker 2: told by a fortune teller that she would marry a
Speaker 2: dark man who would cover the world in glory and
Speaker 2: make her greater than a queen. And I was so
Speaker 2: strict by this because this also happened to Madame Pompadour
Speaker 2: Louis fifteenth mistress.
Speaker 1: These fortunetage are just out here every pretty young girl.
Speaker 2: I think these fortune tellers were not uncannily accurate. I
Speaker 2: think they just realized that if a young girl comes in,
Speaker 2: just tell her she's going to be a princess.
Speaker 1: And if she's a very beautiful, they're like, you will
Speaker 1: marry a great man, a great man. Y, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: When Madame Pompter was nine, the fortune teller told her
Speaker 2: that she would capture the heart of a king and
Speaker 2: be not quite a queen, but a little queen. And
Speaker 2: just to give you a little bit of perspective on
Speaker 2: Madame Pompadour, because I think there's such fascinating archetypes of
Speaker 2: pre revolutionary and post revolutionary women. Madame Pompadour, who was
Speaker 2: born Jean Pusson, was by almost any stretch of the
Speaker 2: definition a genius. She was extremely well educated. She was
Speaker 2: almost compulsively well read, so much so that the most
Speaker 2: famous portraits of her by Bouchet show her reading and
Speaker 2: surrounded by more books. When she was told to get
Speaker 2: married by her family, she married a wealthier man who
Speaker 2: was not excited about the prospect of marrying this middle
Speaker 2: class bourgeois woman. He met her, he was immediately in
Speaker 2: love with her, so much so that he was devastated
Speaker 2: when the king took her for his mistress. As soon
Speaker 2: as she was let loose in Paris, she dominated every
Speaker 2: literary salon. Vul Teraire became her closest friend. She was
Speaker 2: able to secure him a position at court. And I
Speaker 2: think it's pretty well established that once she was made
Speaker 2: the King's mistress, she was a great champion of the enlightenment.
Speaker 2: She fought against censorship. She was friends with Didero and Montesquie.
Speaker 2: She fought the Catholic Church to create a French encyclopedia.
Speaker 2: The king considered her his best adviser and consulted with
Speaker 2: her on every matter. He should not have done that.
Speaker 2: During the seven years of war, not know where to
Speaker 2: place cannons, she was very.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, and you know, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: you know, who knew how to play, can't place cannons,
Speaker 1: just Napoleon. But I think it's also true that. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to dismiss Madame Pompadour as being frivolous,
Speaker 1: because I think she was very concerned about, for instance,
Speaker 1: what she saws overreached the Catholic Church, or censorship or
Speaker 1: the continued expansion of the Russian military. The metal.
Speaker 2: Pompadour's greatest day to day concerned with whether or not
Speaker 2: she was able to sutly satisfy the king nine times
Speaker 2: a day as he requested. Wow, all right, And when
Speaker 2: her frail health after six years meant that she was
Speaker 2: no longer able to do that, the King just gave
Speaker 2: her a new role at court that basically equated to
Speaker 2: the King's best friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She celebrated it by giving him a naked statue of
Speaker 2: herself popping her breasts at him, entitled the Spirit of Friendship.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha. That's a great that's a great inspiray. And
Speaker 1: she's perhaps best remembered for her statement apri now lad
Speaker 1: Yeu's that came after the epic failure that was the
Speaker 1: Seven Years War, when Francis army was just destroyed and
Speaker 1: their economy entirely depleted. And what it means is after
Speaker 1: us will come the flood.
Speaker 2: And Josephine was really bored into that flood quite literally.
Speaker 2: She was born Marie joseph Rose tache de la pacherie.
Speaker 2: She would come to be known as Josephine only when
Speaker 2: Napoleon started calling her Josephine. She was largely known as
Speaker 2: Rose throughout her life.
Speaker 1: Untilda, well, that's the good thing about having three hyphenated
Speaker 1: names is people can just choose their favor and go
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: And that is exactly what happened to Josephine. She was
Speaker 2: born on a sugar plantation in Martinique in seventeen sixty three,
Speaker 2: and she was born a year before Madame Pompadour died
Speaker 2: at the age of forty two. Can I interrupt so
Speaker 2: briefly just a historical fact that has always fascinated me.
Speaker 2: Is Martinique went back in fourth between the British British
Speaker 2: friend and I know that it went from the British
Speaker 2: to the French just four months before Josephine was born.
Speaker 1: Yep. So there's a world where she was born and
Speaker 1: she was British and she's off seducing. I don't know
Speaker 1: the Duke of Wealling, Lord Nelson, Duke of Wellington. Sure.
Speaker 2: When she was three her house was entirely destroyed by
Speaker 2: a hurricane, and rather than rebuilding, as her father who
Speaker 2: was a chronic gambler, just kind of moved them into
Speaker 2: the one non destroyed part of the house. She was
Speaker 2: never properly educated, to be fair. She was also not.
Speaker 1: Interested in books in any capacity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was left to run essentially wild on the plantation.
Speaker 2: She mostly ate sugar, which designed her teeth entirely and
Speaker 2: made her very overweight. And just for a little perspective again,
Speaker 2: because I love the balance between these two women. When
Speaker 2: Madame Pompadour told her family about the fortune teller's prophecy,
Speaker 2: which she'd heard because she was on a girl's day
Speaker 2: with her mom when she was getting their fortunes read,
Speaker 2: her entire family was delighted and they started calling her Radat,
Speaker 2: which means.
Speaker 1: Our little queen. When Josephine told her family about the prophecy,
Speaker 1: she was locked in a sack for eight days because
Speaker 1: they accused her of consorting with a witch. Sure, so
Speaker 1: Josephine is not growing up in the free, flourishing Enlightenment
Speaker 1: era of France that some of her contemporaries were. And
Speaker 1: because she now had rotted teeth and was very overweight
Speaker 1: and her family was completely broke, she was not married
Speaker 1: off to a plantation owner's son, and her marriage prospects
Speaker 1: were looking very, very bad by the time she was fifteen,
Speaker 1: But she had an aunt who had been a marquis
Speaker 1: mistress for eighteen years, and the marquis was getting older
Speaker 1: and he was worried about the long term security of
Speaker 1: his mistress. And Josephine's aunt convinced the marquis and Mary
Speaker 1: his son to Josephine. So Josephine goes off to marry
Speaker 1: Alexandre de Beauharnay. He is seventeen. He already has a
Speaker 1: twenty nine year old mistress. Her name is Madame DeLonge Prey.
Speaker 1: Apparently she's very charming and witty. I've never read anything
Speaker 1: about Madame Delongere that doesn't make her seem like a
Speaker 1: bit but fine. He has a twenty nine year old mistress,
Speaker 1: and he is horrified when Josephine gets off the boat.
Speaker 1: He is deeply disappointed in her appearance. He's deeply disappointed
Speaker 1: in her lack of education. He starts forcing her to
Speaker 1: go out to literary salons, of where people immediately make
Speaker 1: fun of her for being an idiot. Women say that
Speaker 1: she looks like a little girl dressed up in her
Speaker 1: mother's clothes, Joseph and Okay, to be fair, I don't
Speaker 1: want this to be me. But the literary salons at
Speaker 1: this particular time were mostly just discussing Dangerously Asons, which, look,
Speaker 1: they were very specific book clubs. I love Dangerously Asons,
Speaker 1: but it used four hundred pages of very horny letters
Speaker 1: from imaginary aristocrats back and forth. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If your only takeaway after reading Dangerously Asons was I
Speaker 2: think it would be fun to have sex with the
Speaker 2: vicant de Valmond. That would be a completely valid contribution,
Speaker 2: and indeed all it should.
Speaker 1: What if he's played by Ryan Phillipp exactly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what if they made him wear a suit as
Speaker 2: a high school student?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, very sexy. I once saw this is
Speaker 1: my fun fact. I once saw Dangerously aisms on Broadway
Speaker 1: with leab Dreiber in that role, and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I saw it too. He was not work. He looks
Speaker 1: like a dock. I also thought Alan Rickman clips I
Speaker 1: was still online if you ever want to look those.
Speaker 1: My take on leib Dreiber was I was like, I
Speaker 1: think he was going through a divorce at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was like, is there a real wine in
Speaker 1: the carross? Like he did not seem like engage. He's
Speaker 1: a good actor, and it just was not workings and
Speaker 1: seemed like he has the finesse of the velmonk. No,
Speaker 1: he did not seem sneaky. Yeah it did not work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no he uh he seems he seems like a battle axe.
Speaker 1: He doesn't seem like someone who enjoys the secrecy and
Speaker 1: power game surroundings. Yeah. So that is my little Broadway
Speaker 1: review corner. Please continue. So he's being mocked at this out,
Speaker 1: he's being mocked at the salons and in she ends
Speaker 1: up having two children by Alexandre and there is Look,
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that loves the fact
Speaker 1: that Medame Pompadour so thoroughly dominated the public imagination in
Speaker 1: terms of what a sexy, desirable woman he is. Alexandri
Speaker 1: responded to this by being like, I cannot possibly fuck
Speaker 1: let alone love a woman who does not go to
Speaker 1: book clubs. I mean that's great. It's like when you
Speaker 1: know our culture or what is sexy is a cultural concert.
Speaker 1: I think that like in the early two thousands, there's
Speaker 1: that Girl's Gone wild, Paris held the thing and then
Speaker 1: we got like the smartest sexy and I think that
Speaker 1: it's interesting that that was still happening in the seventeen hundred.
Speaker 1: It flactuates back and forth, and that is fascinating. Isn't
Speaker 1: it fun that women have to shape our very identities
Speaker 1: in order to be desirable.
Speaker 2: Yes, But Alexandre says that he can not possibly remain
Speaker 2: at home with this object who has nothing to say
Speaker 2: to him. So again, this is devastating for Josephine, and
Speaker 2: he goes off with his mistress, Lord de Longpree, but
Speaker 2: not before impregnating Josephine twice. Now when she is having
Speaker 2: his second immediately after she has important is number one
Speaker 2: nine gene yeah, Eugenie yep. Immediately after she had his
Speaker 2: second child, alex decides to divorce her so he can
Speaker 2: be with his mistress. In a truly insane response, he
Speaker 2: accuses her of infidelity. He says that she is lower
Speaker 2: than all the sluts.
Speaker 1: On the earth. Josephine has been nothing but faithful this
Speaker 1: entire career. Calling Josephine a slut, I'm sorry also for
Speaker 1: using this lay. They say it explicitly in the movie
Speaker 1: Napoleon Bade You Well. We'll come to that. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: at this point, totally fine, At this point, very very fine, uh,
Speaker 1: and again not to slut him, be a slud do whatever. Sure,
Speaker 1: at this point she has been nothing but incredibly faithful
Speaker 1: to Alexandre. Josephine retires to a convent to wait out
Speaker 1: the proceedings for legal separation. A lot of women did this,
Speaker 1: getting back to dangerous liaisons. Madame Trouvelle retires to a
Speaker 1: convent to escape the advances of the Vicon de velment.
Speaker 1: And if you've if you're listening to Noble Blood, if
Speaker 1: you've been listening to noble blood, Isabella or Isabella of Angoulem,
Speaker 1: retires to a convent after her scandal. Exactly so.
Speaker 2: Lots of stylish women are staying at this convent, and
Speaker 2: in an almost unheard of turn of events, the judge
Speaker 2: actually sides with Josephine during the legal separation and he
Speaker 2: agrees that Josephine has been wronged. He orders Alexandre to
Speaker 2: take care of his children and to withdraw any accusations
Speaker 2: towards Josephine. Alexandre does none of that, but fortunately the
Speaker 2: other women at this convent had taken note upon themselves
Speaker 2: to give Josephine a makeover, so they teach her how
Speaker 2: to use makeup, which she will use a massive amount
Speaker 2: of throughout the rest of her life. They also showed
Speaker 2: her how to lose weight, mostly by not subsisting entirely
Speaker 2: on candy. And the fashions were also changing. Marie Antoinette
Speaker 2: was going through her Tea trianon phase right now, so
Speaker 2: instead of the huge pompadour roughly hyperfeminine gowns, people were
Speaker 2: dressing in much more simple muslin gowns, and that suited
Speaker 2: Josephine a lot better and she felt a lot more
Speaker 2: comfortable in that. So after her time at the convent,
Speaker 2: she went to Fontainebleau where the king had his hunt,
Speaker 2: and she charmed the master of the hunt. He invited
Speaker 2: her to come along hunting with the various aristocrats that
Speaker 2: the king invited. She was able to find a protector
Speaker 2: very quickly. I think she had three of them. All
Speaker 2: of them were about twenty years older than her. They
Speaker 2: were giving him a tremendous amount of jewels. She was
Speaker 2: able to take care of her children, and I think
Speaker 2: had things continued this way, she probably would have ended
Speaker 2: up like her aunt, being a permanent mistress to one
Speaker 2: of these men. Except a revolution happens in seventeen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: the revolution promising equality for the common people comes and
Speaker 2: Alexandra for wanting his miserable, fucking life is a little
Speaker 2: bit useful for Josephine.
Speaker 1: He was a noble, but he was also so a
Speaker 1: staunt anti royalist.
Speaker 2: He was a vicante. This is stupid. He shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done this. But he became a key member of the
Speaker 2: National Assembly, representing a group of nobles that believe that
Speaker 2: the monarchy should be a ball And of.
Speaker 1: Course this ended really famously well and he worked out
Speaker 1: great for him. But when the royal family attempted to
Speaker 1: flee the country, it was Alexandre who dispatched the writers
Speaker 1: to bring him back and a National Assembly that everybody
Speaker 1: had to wait until the royal family returned. But they
Speaker 1: couldn't get away from this.
Speaker 2: He emerged very briefly as a hero to Paris, and
Speaker 2: Josephine is suddenly very much in style. She's being invited everywhere.
Speaker 1: She is seen very.
Speaker 2: Briefly as being a hero of the revolution. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 2: promise of democracy did not change France's situation at all.
Speaker 2: The people who were starving before are still starving, and
Speaker 2: by seventeen ninety three, the Reign of Terror, led by
Speaker 2: robes Bay had begun, and it was carried out with
Speaker 2: the intent of eliminating anyone deemed parasitic on the state,
Speaker 2: and of course that includes all royals and all members
Speaker 2: of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: Oh and Josephine's husband gets the Jophine's husband is guillotine very,
Speaker 1: very quickly. It's so fascinating.
Speaker 2: I don't want to dwell too much on the Reign
Speaker 2: of Terror, but a reign of terror is fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: The executions were based on everything. The one that fascinates
Speaker 2: me is that some executions happened because people had old
Speaker 2: playing cards and it was seen as showing sympathy towards kings.
Speaker 3: And sure, if you're playing cards, what you think. One
Speaker 3: of the other special horrors with the revolution that always
Speaker 3: sticks in my mind, special starring special horrors horrors of
Speaker 3: the Reign of Terror, is that a lot of aristocrats
Speaker 3: had dogs. Uh so their dogs went wild after they
Speaker 3: were dragged to the guillotine, and it meant that rabbit
Speaker 3: packs of dogs were roaming the street drinking blood out
Speaker 3: of the gutters. So the army had to be dispatched
Speaker 3: to start shooting the dogs.
Speaker 1: That's also another I mean, it feels like those stories
Speaker 1: are reappearing because a few hundred years earlier, we're going
Speaker 1: to get a dog with the beheading of Mary, Queen
Speaker 1: of Scones. Famously, when before she went to get beheaded,
Speaker 1: she hit her dog in her skirts, so they came out.
Speaker 2: The one that it makes me think of is the
Speaker 2: Rwandan genocide, for the government again had to be dispatched
Speaker 2: because dogs and so many people were murdered that their
Speaker 2: dogs just ran wild on the street. A lot of
Speaker 2: them went ravid. This isn't a theory, but I think
Speaker 2: this feels self evident. But I think if you have
Speaker 2: to dispatch the army to kill all the rabid dogs
Speaker 2: roaming your streets, your revolution had failed. You are going
Speaker 2: to be remembered very poorly by his stitch.
Speaker 1: True, So we need to fast forward just a little bit,
Speaker 1: and Josephine is in prison.
Speaker 2: Josephine's in prison. Josephine is at Las Comes. It's one
Speaker 2: of the most horrifying prisons in Paris.
Speaker 1: But good news.
Speaker 2: Her roommate in her cellmate, I guess in the prison
Speaker 2: is Teresa Cabarets. She is the mistress to the revolutionary
Speaker 2: John Tallienne. Now, Theresa is pretty angry that her boyfriend
Speaker 2: Protector whatever, is in close coats with robes Bier and
Speaker 2: yet she's imprisoned. So she sends Talian a dagger and
Speaker 2: a letter demanding that he kill robes Ba and free
Speaker 2: her immediately. And if he doesn't do this, he's not
Speaker 2: a man. And she feels personal shamed that she ever
Speaker 2: slept with us, and Italian actually does this, which is
Speaker 2: amazing to me.
Speaker 1: He's like, okay, ropes here has to go for all
Speaker 1: the reasons, but also for this, no very much, specifically
Speaker 1: for this and only for this. So when Robesby is
Speaker 1: giving a speech at the convention, Talian storms the stage,
Speaker 1: waving the dagger Teresa's sent him and shouting down with
Speaker 1: this dictator. His co conspirator, pauled de Barras joins him
Speaker 1: and Robesby a flees. He tries to suit himself, but
Speaker 1: he only succeeds in shattering his job before being dragged
Speaker 1: to the guillotine. Italian and Barrass emerged from this as heroes.
Speaker 1: Barrass became the head of the new Directorate government. He's
Speaker 1: also one of the only remaining super wealthy men in Paris,
Speaker 1: and Josephine emerged from prison at Teresa's behest. Teresa, who
Speaker 1: has become a hero to the Parisians, has not forgot
Speaker 1: her friend. But Josephine emerges to find Paris and ruins.
Speaker 1: Most of the homes have been lit a blaze. But
Speaker 1: she's popular again. Yeah, and this is about when she'll
Speaker 1: meet Napoleon at a part almost Yes, okay, we're coming
Speaker 1: to that. The Baron de Frindley wrote at this time
Speaker 1: that after the reign of her it was in height
Speaker 1: of good manners to be ruined, to have been suspected, persecuted.
Speaker 2: And above all imprisoned. People started wearing their hair crop
Speaker 2: to immitate prison styles.
Speaker 1: Victim for loved dem Yes, my French pronunciation is not
Speaker 1: as good as your. It's ribbons around their necks and
Speaker 1: not to the guillotine. Josephine's welcome at the extremely exclusive
Speaker 1: Balde Victim where I believe that Balde Victim actually happened
Speaker 1: all the time. Yes, absolutely, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: There were basically like support groups for people who had
Speaker 2: been imprisoned. There were special salons.
Speaker 1: For people who had been in I've just been from
Speaker 1: a purely historical standpoint, It was whether whether the actual
Speaker 1: like the main bald of victim was a actually happened
Speaker 1: or was like a Romantic invention. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you need to really say. My guess and my speculation
Speaker 1: is it's like a combination. Like I think people were
Speaker 1: having these parties and then I think in the Romantic
Speaker 1: era people were like build up their ideas.
Speaker 4: Oh nice, only yeah, the speaking of parties, Josephine was
Speaker 4: spending an astronomical amound. She was one of the only
Speaker 4: women in the city with a carriage at a time
Speaker 4: when bread was so scarce that wealthy people brought their
Speaker 4: own food to every dinner party because you couldn't expect
Speaker 4: other people to have food. Josephine was also deeply in debt.
Speaker 4: She's being constantly perceived.
Speaker 1: She's spending out her money on carriages. She's an insane expense.
Speaker 1: She's in desperate need of he protector who will cover
Speaker 1: her expensive Fortunately, she'd remained very close with Teresa, who's
Speaker 1: universally beloved in Paris, and she's now married to Italian
Speaker 1: and posting some truly extravagant orgies. So Josephine becomes one
Speaker 1: of the Marviliuses of this period. She appears around town,
Speaker 1: cladd in only see through Greek style gowns and sandals.
Speaker 1: Some of the Marviliuses walked through the streets with their
Speaker 1: breasts exposed. Most of them soaked their gowns in water
Speaker 1: so they would clan to their bodies before going out.
Speaker 1: And around this time, Teresa introduces her to Paulton Barross.
Speaker 1: Paul's now the president of the National Assembly. He's the
Speaker 1: richest man in Paris. He's able to pay off the
Speaker 1: many many.
Speaker 2: People pursuing Josephine for money, and he asks only that
Speaker 2: she'll arrange orgies for him. She does in very extravagant style. Apparently,
Speaker 2: at these orgies, women dip their breasts in champagne glasses.
Speaker 2: They stripped naked and pretended to be jungle cats. They
Speaker 2: took off their dresses and wagered on who were the least.
Speaker 2: Josephine sat on Deboras's lap the entire time so he
Speaker 2: could bondle and have sex with her.
Speaker 1: Throughout. Everything's going great, She's enjoying life.
Speaker 2: And it was around this time that a twenty two
Speaker 2: year old Corsican general appears and it's Napoleon Bonaparte. He
Speaker 2: is absolutely agg at the women in Paris. He writes
Speaker 2: to her brother, here alone, they deserve to rule. All
Speaker 2: the men are mad for them. They think of nothing
Speaker 2: but them. They live only for them. A woman needs
Speaker 2: to live in Paris for six months to know what
Speaker 2: her do is. He has big virgin energy, he has
Speaker 2: big virtin He's very very much a virgin. Women also
Speaker 2: don't like him. He is a very brilliant military strategist.
Speaker 2: He is very uncomfortable to talk to. His technique with
Speaker 2: women was to stare at them for many, many minutes
Speaker 2: on and did not say anything. Most women found this
Speaker 2: very creepy. Sure, but Napoleon was one of Deborasa's proteges.
Speaker 2: So he seats him next to Josephine at a seemingly
Speaker 2: non orgy related dinner.
Speaker 1: Sure, that's what they say. And whenever it tender, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: how do you meet, and it's like they met on tender,
Speaker 1: but it's like, oh we met dad friend party, and
Speaker 1: so it's like it was a non orgy party.
Speaker 2: I think this one was a non ergy party because
Speaker 2: I think Napoleon would have been very frightened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's funny to imagine them trying to whitewash
Speaker 1: how he met story. Yeah, and Josephine was nice to him.
Speaker 1: He says that she's the first woman in Paris who
Speaker 1: has been nice to him a lot. She just talked
Speaker 1: to him about how she saw his military strategy, was
Speaker 1: smart the entire time, and touched his arm. Oh, kid's
Speaker 1: interesting that in the movie they make her seem like
Speaker 1: an elusive creature of mystery, and it's not that she
Speaker 1: was just a very pretty lady who was being nice
Speaker 1: to him at dinner, and Napoleon was in love. He
Speaker 1: proposes very soon after, and Josephine, to everyone's surprise. I
Speaker 1: think they were married six months after meeting yep. And
Speaker 1: people kept wondering why she was marrying this man who
Speaker 1: was commonly accepted to be a fool, especially because, by
Speaker 1: Josephine's own admission, she.
Speaker 2: Had only lukewarm feelings towards him. For Us said that
Speaker 2: she was motivated entirely by money, and she would be
Speaker 2: had her own lover if she could drink gold out
Speaker 2: of his skull. But Bross was pretty mad about this,
Speaker 2: and Napoleon had so much less money than any other man.
Speaker 2: She knew he made fifteen thousand francs a year, and
Speaker 2: that's what she was spending on makeup at this point.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, a slightly more pragmatic explanation
Speaker 2: is that Josephine is thirty one by this point, Bros
Speaker 2: is very unlikely to marry her. She probably is thinking
Speaker 2: about her future in a somewhat strategic way. If Napoleon
Speaker 2: isn't successful now, he seems like he's on the verge
Speaker 2: of becoming very successful. But I think the most charitable
Speaker 2: explanation is just that he's a very awkward little foreigner
Speaker 2: over awed by Paris, who everybody thinks is awkward and dumb.
Speaker 2: And I think he probably reminded her of a younger
Speaker 2: version of herself in a way that she felt very
Speaker 2: tenderly towards. I'll also say there's something very charming. I
Speaker 2: think Napoleon is a very smart man.
Speaker 1: I think we can say that I think he's a
Speaker 1: bri militia early, you know. In turn ways, I think
Speaker 1: that she probably found his intelligence attractive, But would I
Speaker 1: also find very attractive is someone who like openly, really
Speaker 1: likes you, boss, really look, but she wasn't gonna marry him.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like she was a guy who's like, I
Speaker 1: love you, I want to marry you, and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's get on with it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think that's interesting. But certainly after their marriage, he
Speaker 2: goes off to Italy. He writes her a constant stream
Speaker 2: of letters.
Speaker 1: This is if you are a noble blood listener, listen
Speaker 1: to our episode on the Black Count Tom Alexander Duma,
Speaker 1: and that'll be like a good companion to this, because
Speaker 1: you're like, what was Napoleon off doing in Italy and Egypt?
Speaker 1: That episode will be the context. And meanwhile he's over
Speaker 1: there Josephine Josephine.
Speaker 2: One of his letters says that if Josephine ever takes
Speaker 2: a lover, he will enact Othello style revenge, murdering her
Speaker 2: and her lover and himself. This is all of the letters.
Speaker 2: This is how they all read.
Speaker 1: He keeps writing things. I feel like I've read these
Speaker 1: letters and he's like, if you loved me, you'd write
Speaker 1: me twice a day.
Speaker 2: Hey, good women would be I don't think constantly. I
Speaker 2: find I don't care for Napoleon's letters. I know that
Speaker 2: I see I know that they go for millions and
Speaker 2: millions of dollars at auction. But what bothers me the
Speaker 2: most about them is that there is no teasing, there's
Speaker 2: no warmth of familiarity, there's no friendship in those letters.
Speaker 2: Napoleon was an aspiring romantic novelist. When he came to parent,
Speaker 2: he was trying to write a romantic novel. And I
Speaker 2: think in all of his letters, Josephine could be replaced
Speaker 2: by a sexy automaton and the letters would read exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not very personal.
Speaker 2: Well, I think if you've paid attention to someone's sandwich
Speaker 2: preferences and send them a link to a sandwich shop,
Speaker 2: you think they'd enjoy it would be more romantic than
Speaker 2: anything Napoleon wrote.
Speaker 1: Josephine seems like he's just very I mean, he's very
Speaker 1: excited about being in love and desperate for I mean,
Speaker 1: not to extend the metaphor of conquering, but like to
Speaker 1: own and possess. That's this woman. Yes, I have a wife.
Speaker 1: I love her, she loves me. I have her. That
Speaker 1: is set.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, Josephine says that he does not love her, he
Speaker 2: worships her. Yeah, And I think that does get at
Speaker 2: some of the difference there.
Speaker 1: Now Josephine, while he is away, has taken a lover
Speaker 1: Ippoly Charles. Oh, yeah, he.
Speaker 2: Was twenty three. He was very, very handsome. He fit
Speaker 2: in very well with Josephine's Paris friends. Barros said he
Speaker 2: looked like a wigman cruise dummy. Ross is my favorite
Speaker 2: person in this entire story, Nabole and meanwhile was in despair.
Speaker 1: He writes.
Speaker 2: Barasaid, if Josephine didn't join him in Italy, she was
Speaker 2: going to kill himself.
Speaker 1: And Josephine's like, no, thanks, I'm not this time. You're correct. Uh.
Speaker 2: Barross needed Napoleon to win battles in Italy because France
Speaker 2: needs to re establish itself as a country with some
Speaker 2: kind of military power. So Barross tells Josephine that he
Speaker 2: is throwing a very elaborate dinner for her. He doesn't
Speaker 2: she'd throw this dinner apparrellin It's very nice. And afterwards
Speaker 2: he picks her up, bundles her into a carriage, and
Speaker 2: tells her she has to go to Italy. Now. I
Speaker 2: don't know how to explain their relationship at this point,
Speaker 2: except they seem to be best friends who hate each other.
Speaker 2: The compromise is that they agree that she can bring
Speaker 2: it Charles along with her to Italy. So off Josephine
Speaker 2: goes to Italy. She seems to somewhat enjoy her time
Speaker 2: in Italy, but before long Napoleon has to head on
Speaker 2: to Egypt, and he continues the sending letters to Josephine constantly. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Josephine goes off to take the waters for her health.
Speaker 2: She writes to Brass telling him that she hopes he
Speaker 2: gets really, really really sick so he can join her.
Speaker 2: I love their relationship. And in Egypt, Napoleon is talking
Speaker 2: about his wife so constantly that his soldiers say that
Speaker 2: virgies on idolatry. He is aimed to Camp, who was
Speaker 2: having an affair with Josephine's maid, finally tells him that
Speaker 2: Josephine is having an affair. Napoleon is devastated. He writes
Speaker 2: his brother that he's going to get a divorce. The
Speaker 2: ship carrying his letter is seized and it gets reprinted
Speaker 2: and distributed in all the British papers. Oh that's oh,
Speaker 2: British people are so excited, they're so happy. This is
Speaker 2: a great day for them. Debt collectors assume that Josephine
Speaker 2: will be divorced imminently, and they sit on her Deborahs
Speaker 2: stops French papers from printing this article. He fights off
Speaker 2: all her debt collectors and he gets her the money
Speaker 2: to buy a house called Malmaison, where he tells her
Speaker 2: to wait this out, and locals report that they often
Speaker 2: see her walking. Was a handsome young man who must
Speaker 2: be her son.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, it's itpoly, It's always her lover. Yeah, yeah uh.
Speaker 2: Napoleon decided to even the score by having an affair
Speaker 2: with a young soldier's wife named Pauline, who had accompanied
Speaker 2: her husband to Egypt. He had no idea how to
Speaker 2: initiate this affair because he was the least terming personal life,
Speaker 2: so he just did his thing where he stared at
Speaker 2: her for the entire hot air balloon launch they were attending.
Speaker 1: Pauline said, and she's like, look at that hot air balloon,
Speaker 1: it's coming up that way.
Speaker 2: Bauleen said that this made her intensely uncomfortable. Then Napoleon
Speaker 2: sent an eight of his to describe that he wanted
Speaker 2: to have sex with her. She said no and that
Speaker 2: she was married, and this made her again very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Then he sent her a diamond bracelet, and she relented immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, It's like okay, enough is enough? So I
Speaker 1: so spassed. Forwarding a little bit, Why does Napoleon ultimately
Speaker 1: forgive Josephine.
Speaker 2: So Napoleon returns to Paris. Josephine has been waiting for him.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately she's at another house. When he returns, Napoleon ands devastated,
Speaker 2: finally finds her at the house she's at. She's sobbing hysterically,
Speaker 2: and she sends her two children to go bang on
Speaker 2: his door, and she has coached them to say, our
Speaker 2: father is already did whilst we lose our second thought.
Speaker 2: So she has her two sobbing children doing this. Then
Speaker 2: she goes in. She has sex with Napoleon. The next morning,
Speaker 2: he announces he's not going to get a divorce. It's
Speaker 2: going to be fine. But Napoleon does continue to have
Speaker 2: affairs throughout the rest of its marriage. He never again
Speaker 2: indulges in the kind of single minded worship of Josephine.
Speaker 1: I'll have an illegitimate child. He will have an illegitimate
Speaker 1: child later. Now, shortly after this, if we jump ahead
Speaker 1: a little bed, Napoleon stages Acuda over from the thro
Speaker 1: the dar spoiler alert, Napoleon becomes emperor, crowns himself, bowns.
Speaker 2: Josephine, Bross gets excelled to Brussels. He continues to write
Speaker 2: Josephine constantly. Josephine never writes him back again. Nic What
Speaker 2: did he ever do other than end the reign of
Speaker 2: terror and try to have a democracy. Well, you can't
Speaker 2: have orgies and bail Josephine out of every problem.
Speaker 1: See for him. You can't be one of the main
Speaker 1: guys when there's a new emperor. You got it, you know,
Speaker 1: all right, dark lens one, the one truly lovely man
Speaker 1: in this story. So Josephine and Napoleon moving to the
Speaker 1: decrepit to Luis's palace. On the gates of that palace
Speaker 1: hung a sign from the revolution that read, on the
Speaker 1: tenth of August seventeen ninety two, royalty was abolished in
Speaker 1: France and will never return. The first thing Napoleon did
Speaker 1: was scrub away all revolutionary side. He said he did
Speaker 1: not like to see that shit around, and he began
Speaker 1: referring to Louis the sixteenth as the good Louis the sixteenth. Well,
Speaker 1: I do think, I mean not to step on this
Speaker 1: and to agree. I think that part of Napoleon's that
Speaker 1: claim to power was re establishing the old, the bad Revolution,
Speaker 1: the good power of France. And I mean, if you
Speaker 1: think back, if you as a listener are sort of
Speaker 1: imagining the imagery and architecture and fashion and furnish furnishings
Speaker 1: that we associate with Napoleon, and it's very gilded, it's
Speaker 1: very regal. It's like red velvet and it als.
Speaker 2: At one point Josephine had a dress that was covered
Speaker 2: entirely with real rose petals.
Speaker 1: I she had a dress that was made entirely of
Speaker 1: peacock feathers.
Speaker 2: Josephine also bought nine hundred dresses a year, five times
Speaker 2: more than Marie Antoinette ever bought.
Speaker 1: I read a thing that she never wore the same
Speaker 1: pair of stockings twice. Well, that's smart, I mean, they
Speaker 1: really that makes sense. But also in her defense, I
Speaker 1: think Napoleon maybe she went a little far, but I
Speaker 1: think he was very much advocating for like, we have
Speaker 1: to play this part. We took power by force, so
Speaker 1: we have to present power.
Speaker 2: They brought back people to talk about how everything used
Speaker 2: to be done at the court so they could try
Speaker 2: to mimic it. Now, Josephine was never comfortable was this.
Speaker 2: She was sleeping in Marie Antoinette's chambers and she claimed
Speaker 2: that she could hear the Queen's ghost asking her what
Speaker 2: she was doing in her bed.
Speaker 1: So creepy.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Also, around this time, Napoleon declared that French women needed
Speaker 1: to learn obedience, so he rolled back women's rights enormously.
Speaker 1: Husbands could now imprison their wise for infidelity. Also, and
Speaker 1: unrelated to the sexism aspect of this, I just want
Speaker 1: to remind people that Napoleon and France is the only
Speaker 1: country in history to ever reinstates like great yep.
Speaker 2: People thought it was because of Josephine's influence, because she
Speaker 2: grew up on a plantation and she sure was comfortable.
Speaker 1: I mean I also think it was partly because Napoleon.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just needed like them. I don't think
Speaker 1: he cared about the revolutionary ideals. I think he was
Speaker 1: driven by like cold economic prospects, absolute lust for power,
Speaker 1: power and money. Yeah, so that's not good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Madame de Stelle, who adored Napoleon at the beginning of
Speaker 2: his reign, and wrote in letters saying that she should
Speaker 2: be his mistress rather than this insignificant woman Josephine, which
Speaker 2: Napoleon was very uninterested and he despised intellectual women.
Speaker 1: Really. Oh yes, yeah uh.
Speaker 2: Her move with men was to ask them who their
Speaker 2: favorite woman in history was, so I have a lively
Speaker 2: conversation with them.
Speaker 1: My favorite Madame de Stele quote that I feel like
Speaker 1: I come back to a lot is and I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but the one must in life choose between boredom and suffering.
Speaker 1: That's very depressed, I know. And as to adult what
Speaker 1: am I called it? Contentment? Contentment is better than boredon.
Speaker 1: But isn't that just like very insightful?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a very insightful woman who when she
Speaker 1: asked Napoleon that had human reply, whichever woman bore the
Speaker 1: most children? Madame de still you shortly after this going
Speaker 1: up to flee the country. The censorship put that heads
Speaker 1: so horrified. But Pompadour is back in full force. The
Speaker 1: Marquis de Sade is imprisoned shortly after the publishing of
Speaker 1: juliet which we have an episode on you doing an
Speaker 1: episode on Juliette. No, you're doing Justine Angeliat. We've done
Speaker 1: the Marquis de Sade, so if you are a listener,
Speaker 1: you know all about the Marquis Decoud's imprisonment and his
Speaker 1: long suffering wife got his poor wife. You read much?
Speaker 1: Merchi De said, not on purpose. I read some for
Speaker 1: that episode and I was I literally, I think I
Speaker 1: said in the episode. I was like, I'm not quoting
Speaker 1: any of this. I'm not recommending it. I don't find
Speaker 1: it pleasant. I think it's like a the equivalent of
Speaker 1: like a shock comic. It's a shot comic. I actually
Speaker 1: loved Juliet as a proto feminist piece about who comes
Speaker 1: out on top. But it's pornography. It's nothing I would
Speaker 1: recommend any any esteemed listeners of this show.
Speaker 2: But this is basically the end of female intellectuals in France,
Speaker 2: where Louis the fifteenth had consulted with Madame Pompadour all
Speaker 2: through the seven years, or what Napoleon liked was for
Speaker 2: Josephine to sit in front of him in total silence
Speaker 2: while he thought about military matters.
Speaker 1: She was a gilded statue.
Speaker 2: She was a beautiful statue for him, and at the coronation,
Speaker 2: Napoleon obviously oh, the Catholic Church is back too. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: we've rolled back everything the Revolution tried to accomplish. So
Speaker 2: the Pope is there for Napoleon's coronation. But Napoleon crowns himself,
Speaker 2: we assume all listeners know, and he also crowns Josephine.
Speaker 2: And one of my small comforts of this is that
Speaker 2: there was one spectator the coronation that saw Josephine walking
Speaker 2: down the aisle in her finery and said, oh, look
Speaker 2: there's barasis whore. Oh sorry, I don't love Josephine that much.
Speaker 1: No, she's not interesting, but she's also not I think
Speaker 1: the important thing about history is you don't have to
Speaker 1: like everyone any feel the fierce loyalty to her, but
Speaker 1: I do to some female historical figures. I think she
Speaker 1: is an amazing survivor. Well, to fast forward again a
Speaker 1: little bit, Obviously, Josephine probably in part thanks to her
Speaker 1: age and also the toxic makeup she was wearing, and
Speaker 1: also the fact that she had been using contracept contraceptive
Speaker 1: douches for years and she had broken her pelvis. So
Speaker 1: for all of these factors combine, and she can't bear children.
Speaker 1: She can't bear Napoleon in air, and so reluctantly they divorce.
Speaker 2: They divorce. She Napoleon Mary's nineteen year old Marie Louise
Speaker 2: in eighteen ten. They're nice Catholic princess, a nice Catholic princess.
Speaker 2: The first meeting was arranged at the Chateau de Compienne,
Speaker 2: where Louis the sixteens met Marie Antoinette for the first time.
Speaker 1: Like Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise had to because he really
Speaker 1: just wants to be Louis the sixteenth at this point
Speaker 1: had to get rid of all of her French clothing
Speaker 1: before Austrian Austrian clothing before crossing.
Speaker 2: Into France, and she had to get rid of her dog,
Speaker 2: just like Marie Antoinette. And she hated this and was
Speaker 2: mad about it.
Speaker 1: And as soon as Napoleon was exiled to Elbas, she
Speaker 1: never wrote him again. I went off Garla. She's like,
Speaker 1: this isn't my bargain. She did her job, she gave
Speaker 1: him a son.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Josephine retires to Malmaison, her house. She is given
Speaker 2: an allowance of three million francs as well as four
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to go exclusively to her garden. Now, Josephine
Speaker 2: got really into plants at one point. It's one of
Speaker 2: her main accomplishments. She introdusing the concept of English gardens
Speaker 2: to Versailles and malnabels On became an incredibly beautiful home.
Speaker 2: Her granddaughter recalls wandering around eating sugarcane on a rounds,
Speaker 2: just like a nice grandmother. But Josephine was inconsolable. She
Speaker 2: said that sometimes it seems as though I am dead
Speaker 2: and that all that is left is a faint sensation
Speaker 2: of knowing that I no longer exists.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, imagine feeling. I mean it's literally redundancy,
Speaker 1: but it's the moment. It's like if you get laid
Speaker 1: off and they're like it's not personal, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's the most personal thing of her. All I done and.
Speaker 2: Eighties a crippling redundance, I think because she was not valued.
Speaker 2: And again we're coming back to Pompadoor. Pandadar also has
Speaker 2: to stop being the king's mistress, but her retirement was
Speaker 2: getting to still retirement is instead of having sex nine
Speaker 2: times a day, I'm just gonna talk about politics and
Speaker 2: all of the enlightened mind writers are going to come
Speaker 2: and read me their drafts and I'll.
Speaker 1: Give them advice. I mean, that's the horrible thing where
Speaker 1: it's like, if you're a woman and your only value
Speaker 1: is child bearing or being sexually attractive, then you go
Speaker 1: to jobulate out.
Speaker 2: And Josephine was still seen as a treasure to some
Speaker 2: of the Allies. The Czar of Russia came to visit
Speaker 2: her at Malmaison frequently, and but she was never happy again.
Speaker 2: Josephine's overriding emotions seems to be despair at this point
Speaker 2: in her life, and in eighteen fourteen, she caught a
Speaker 2: cold and lapsed into a delirium. Supposedly she could be
Speaker 2: heard muttering Napoleon Elba, King of Rome. Just before she died,
Speaker 2: she insisted on being dressed in her pink sat morning
Speaker 2: gown and rubies in case anyone important came in to
Speaker 2: visit Ah, and she likely died pneumonia, though her maid
Speaker 2: said that she died of grief at the age of
Speaker 2: fifty one.
Speaker 1: Fifty one very young. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of
Speaker 1: this tragic life. And I'm so glad you brought up
Speaker 1: Madame de Pompadour in comparison. Well, I think it is
Speaker 1: such an interesting commentary on the revolution that they did
Speaker 1: it and now everything is the same, but everything is worse.
Speaker 1: And I think that when people view Napoleon and Josephine
Speaker 1: as this like great romance, like, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: a false image. I don't even think it works well
Speaker 1: in the movie. Now.
Speaker 2: I think you can take so many creative liberties when
Speaker 2: you're making a movie. But I also think I think
Speaker 2: a lot about the fact that these people didn't read.
Speaker 2: And I think one thing that does come out of
Speaker 2: reading a great deal, at least hopefully, is a kind
Speaker 2: of healthy self awareness and a sense of humor above yourself.
Speaker 1: And Josephina and Napoleon had absolutely no senses of humor.
Speaker 1: Very is here. Yeah, they were deeply serious people, I
Speaker 1: do think in terms of a noble Blood epilogue. The
Speaker 1: one weird detail about her life that I always find
Speaker 1: sort of morbidly fascinating is that when she felt her
Speaker 1: position with Napoleon slipping a little, she had her daughter
Speaker 1: Hortense marry Napoleon's brother Louis, who she hated. It's just
Speaker 1: everybody agreed. Louis was all, yeah, that's exactly why people
Speaker 1: needed Napoleon to divorce Josephine because we're like, we can't
Speaker 1: have the power going to his awful brother exactly. Nobody
Speaker 1: wanted Louis to be emperor, so like imagine Napoleon's stepdaughter
Speaker 1: then becoming his sister in law. It's just wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of inter family marriage at
Speaker 2: this point, just in some desperate attempt to preserve power,
Speaker 2: even with Josephine. Oh but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I.
Speaker 2: Feel the impressive Josephine was able to survive at all.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting that she was able to use
Speaker 2: her sexuality in that way, and that her sexuality was
Speaker 2: a thing that was very much created and not innate
Speaker 2: to her. She was not born incredibly beautiful the way
Speaker 2: we hear about some of the powerful women from this period.
Speaker 1: Were, and.
Speaker 2: That's you know, that's obviously something that is worthy of
Speaker 2: respect and such a survival tool, and that's very very interesting.
Speaker 2: I think because Napoleon hated intellectual women, it's a little
Speaker 2: unsatisfying to try to look at more of Josephine's accomplishments.
Speaker 2: But I could also be wrong. As Ridley Scott said,
Speaker 2: were you there, then you don't fucking know.
Speaker 1: I was not there. And I am sure there are
Speaker 1: scholars of Josephine who would uh set me.
Speaker 2: Set me to rights, and tell me that she had
Speaker 2: a fascinating and rich inner life. He just wasn't as
Speaker 2: evident as it might have been with some other historical women.
Speaker 2: And one theme that I've found always so fascinating in
Speaker 2: Noble Blood is this stark juxtaposition, this like tragic juxtaposition
Speaker 2: I've found between incredible glamour, like these people spending exorbitant
Speaker 2: amount of money, spent eight hundred dollars a year on
Speaker 2: eight hundred francs a year on perfume when the average
Speaker 2: Parisian families income was six hundred francs.
Speaker 1: So this just like extraordinary glamour in concert with these
Speaker 1: tragic mechanisms and feeling trapped. I just find it very interesting.
Speaker 1: Is this reinforcing idea where it's like it's a cliche
Speaker 1: that money doesn't buy you happiness and power doesn't buy
Speaker 1: you happiness. But it's like I think we as audience
Speaker 1: members and podcast listeners and writers are drawn to power
Speaker 1: and money and glamour, and then all the more interesting
Speaker 1: when there's this like deeply tragic undercurrent to it. It
Speaker 1: is a deeply tragic under curid. Yeah, no, we see her.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 2: I think, at least by the standards of the time,
Speaker 2: Josephine could count herself as someone who was deeply loved. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she obviously ended this a millionaire many many times over.
Speaker 2: She had a very beautiful home, and she had two
Speaker 2: children who seemed very devoted to her. This isn't a
Speaker 2: tragic story. It's just a story about the limitations that
Speaker 2: were placed on women at that time, which to me
Speaker 2: do feel especially tragic if you believe that the revolution
Speaker 2: was supposed to create some kind of a quality.
Speaker 1: I think that is a beautiful note to end on, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: Where can the good people find you?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: They should find me on threads because I don't so well,
Speaker 1: No one should. Nobody should. It's Jen Ashley Wright on Threads,
Speaker 1: of course, pund oh as. My most recent book is
Speaker 1: Madame Ristelle, a History of New York's most fabulous, fearless,
Speaker 1: and infamous abortionists and you can let it perver book
Speaker 1: sourceld fantastic, Thank you so much, thank you. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild
Speaker 1: from Aaron mank. Noble Blood is created and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The
Speaker 1: show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima
Speaker 1: Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers
Speaker 1: Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.