you not agree with me that love vanishes with the absence of the lover?"
Are women silly?!
"In my life I have met a good number of silly women; indeed, that led me to believe, for a time, that all women are so... But when I conversed with them, I would be astonished to find them capable of conscious argument, and of taking a definite position which they knew how to defend. Women are better than men at understanding certain things. And I would notice that there were matters and facts which men shrank from mentioning before me, while women mentioned them and took them up."
Divorce
On the subject of his divorce from Josephine, Napoleon declared:
"The divorce was a step of the utmost political importance, and so it was no problem for me. I was certain that I could easily win Josephine's consent.
When I had resolved upon it, I persuaded the Empress that the divorce was for her own good. I made her feel that I was crowning her head with a crown in divorcing her... and I said to her: What is the best way for me to secure for you, and for the future, the lofty station you have enjoyed? Is it not by strengthening my government and my dynasty? Hence it was necessary that I should have children, and it was for Josephine's good that the divorce should take place... She was convinced by all this, and all parties agreed upon this view."
His second wife
Napoleon confided one day to the Marshal:
"When I took the Empress Marie Louise as my wife, she was an innocent child who knew nothing of
life. When she arrived, I asked her what instructions they had given her before she left Vienna. She said: To do whatever you want me to do! I said: Very well, then — I want you to spend this night with me!
He continued speaking of her, and said:
"She had one great, singular merit: she always told the truth, and she behaved in a way that proved she concealed nothing. In this she was the opposite of the Empress Josephine, who was made for lying...
The Empress Marie Louise always refused to read novels, for she believed that reading them corrupted her mind, and that she had no need of books to pass the time; she had occupations enough to fill her leisure: she had music, painting, and women's handiwork..."
Children
In exile Napoleon was fond of the children who played around him. He would invite them to visit him, especially on Sundays, and would sometimes seat them with him at table, where he offered them sweets and gifts. He followed their news and what happened to them at school, and encouraged them to study by giving prizes to the outstanding. The author of the memoirs says:
"Tonight the Emperor decided to give a prize to whoever came first in reciting the multiplication table. Little Hortense, eight years old, won. But the Emperor was at a loss what prize to give her, so he chose a prize he knew would win her pleasure: he bestowed on her his red coat, which had been the emblem of his first consulship, which had come to him as a gift from the city of Lyon, and in which the artist Ingres had painted his portrait. As he handed it to her he said: Take this, and make yourself a smart frock out of it!"