Valeria Dubkovskaya - Nectar for Your Soul

Las Cases, who had been an officer in Napoleon’s entourage and a faithful servant, had agreed to voluntarily share in his vanquished emperor’s exile. He was Napoleon’s most regular companion on his short daily walks, during which he meticulously recorded all Napoleon’s remarks in his notebook.

“Nevertheless, it is so,” Napoleon sighed sadly.

“But even Alexander the Great did not achieve fame such as yours!” objected Las Cases “and his glory burned brightly for many years!”

“If you consider the essence of fame, you will come to the conclusion that it amounts to very little,” responded Napoleon, “It is no reason for pride, no matter the words of the ignorant, praises of fools, or the approval or vilification of the crowd.”

“I remember well what honors you were given by your soldiers and the people after your great victories. Were you then not happy?”

“Such honors were pleasing only at the beginning of my successes,” Napoleon sadly shook his head, “Those who strive for honors are like lovers: the conquest devaluates the prize.”

“But you were the richest monarch in Europe, your wealth was envied by kings!” Las Cases refused to yield.

“Those who search for happiness in luxury and extravagance are like people who prefer the glow of candles to the light of the Sun,” Napoleon noted philosophically.

Waiting for Las Cases to finish writing this phrase, Napoleon uttered the following:

“The strong-willed avoid indulgence like ship’s navigators avoid rocks.”

It is difficult to suspect Napoleon of insincerity. All suspicions that the abased emperor was lying when he admitted the unhappiness of his famous life disappear once one has read all his dictums that Las Cases scrupulously recorded in his notebook for posterity. Now anybody can read his words; after Napoleon’s death, Las Cases’s notebook was published in France under the title Maximes et pensées du prisonnier de Sainte-Hélène. Manuscrit trouvé dans les papiers de Las Casas [1].

What did Napoleon lack that he needed for happiness? He achieved all those things which people usually strive to attain: fame, power and wealth. Perhaps love? In the letters of Las Cases there is not a word about this, but history has been preserved in Napoleon’s letters to Joséphine, which were written twenty years before his exile and which shine a bright light on their relationship. There were many such letters, but two are sufficient to understand who loved and who was loved in their marriage.

Letter of April 3, 1796:

“My one and only Jos é phine, apart from you there is no joy; away from you, the world is a desert where I am alone and cannot open my heart. You have taken more than my soul; you are the one thought of my life. When I am tired of the worry of work, when I feel the outcome, when men annoy me, when I am ready to curse being alive, I put my hand on my heart; your portrait hangs there, I look at it, and love brings me perfect happiness, and all is miling except the time I must spend away from my mistress. By what art have you captivated all my facilities and concentrated my whole being in you? It is a sweet friend, that will die only when I do. To live for Jos é phine, that is the history of my life I long….

“To die not loved by you, to die without knowing, would be the torment of Hell, the living image of utter desolation. I feel I am suffocating.My one companion, you whom fate has destined to travel the sorry road of life beside me, the day I lose your heart will be the day Nature loses warmth and life for me.”

There were many such letters, but few replies.

Napoleon’s letter from November 13, 1796:

“I don’t love you, not at all; on the contrary, I detest you – you’re a naughty, gawky, foolish Cinderella. You never write me; you don’t love your own husband; you know what pleasures your letters give him, and yet you haven’t written him six lines, dashed off so casually!

“What do you do all day, Madam? What is the affair so important as to leave you no time to write to your devoted lover? What affection stifles and puts to one side the love, the tender constant love you promised him?

Of what sort can be that marvelous being, that new lover that tyrannizes over your days, and prevents your giving any attention to your husband? Jos é phine, take care! Some fine night, the doors will be broken open and there I’ll be.

“Indeed, I am very uneasy, my love, at receiving no news of you; write me quickly four pages, pages full of agreeable things which shall fill my heart with the pleasantest feelings.

“I hope before long to crush you in my arms and cover you with a million kisses as though beneath the equator” [2].

We will return to Napoleon later, but for now let’s return to one of the phrases from his letter to Joséphine, dated June 8, 1796: “I never believed in happiness.”

Two more of Napoleon’s phrases, recorded by Las Cases in his notebook, will be useful to us later:

“It seems to me that the ability to think is tied to the soul: the more reason achieves perfection, the greater the perfection of the soul.”

“Great foolishness is written concerning the soul. We must strive to know not what others say about it, but what our own reason can reveal to us, regardless of others’ opinions.”

Do you believe that Napoleon ever had a chance to find happiness in his marriage to Josephine? We maintain that he did, and after having read this book, you will find the reason for our certainty. We are convinced that every person who has the ability to reject false notions and to open themselves to new knowledge can become happy, regardless of the circumstances of his or her life at the present moment. In this book we will set forth this new knowledge, but for the moment, let us acquaint ourselves with the story of one more great person: Abraham Lincoln(1809—1865) the sixteenth president of the United States. He was a man possessed both of a great mind and great masculinity, who made massive contributions to the unity of his country. He earned the respect of both his friends and enemies, of everyone but his wife, who was a great source of suffering for Lincoln. American psychologist Dale Carnegie speaks of them in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People :

“The great tragedy of Abraham Lincoln’s life also was his marriage. Not his assassination, mind you, but his marriage. When Booth fired, Lincoln never realized he had been shot; but he reaped almost daily, for twenty-three years, what Herndon, his law partner, described as “the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity.” “Conjugal infelicity?” That is putting it mildly. For almost a quarter of a century, Mrs Lincoln nagged and harassed the life out of him.

“She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband; nothing about him was ever right. He was stoop-shouldered, he walked awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down like an Indian.

“She complained that there was no spring in his step, no grace to his movement; and she mimicked his gait and nagged at him to walk with his toes pointed down, as she had been taught at Madame Mentelle’s boarding school in Lexington.

“She didn’t like the way his huge ears stood out at right angles from his head. She even told him that his nose wasn’t straight, that his lower lip stuck out, and he looked consumptive, that his feet and hands were too large, his head too small.

“Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were opposites in every way: in training, in background, in temperament, in tastes, in mental outlook. They irritated each other constantly.