The year is 1798. The twenty-nine-year-old General Bonaparte, crowned with the glory of victories from the campaign in Italy, is sent by the Directory ruling in Paris to conquer Egypt in order to create a continental barrier between Europe and the British who rule in India, and some say in order to keep this rising star as far away as possible from the European arena. He crosses the Mediterranean, conquers Malta on his way , barely escapes the eyes of the British fleet under the command of Admiral Nelson, lands in Egypt but there things start to get complicated…
The road from Alexandria to Cairo is extremely difficult. The uniforms of the French soldiers are not suitable for the scorching heat of the summer in the Egyptian desert. The water wells have been poisoned. Soldiers are drying up and falling in droves. And the Bedouins are following the stragglers. And this is the time that General Zonot, Napoleon's friend since the days of the siege of Toulon, finds to listen to something that all of Paris already knows - about Josephine's betrayal. Napoleon is seething with rage and swears that he will divorce Josephine as soon as he returns to France. And he will write in his diary:
You are no longer bound to me, at all, Josephine. If you were bound to me, you would have told me beforehand everything I learned from Juno. That is what a friend would call it! Besides, I am six hundred miles away. You should have told me, Josephine. To betray me with such deceit? Damn them! I will destroy them! These white-faced,
And as for her? The divorce, yes the divorce! A public divorce that will cause a stir. It's your fault, Josephine. You should have finished it for me. My glory? She's a joke! What wouldn't I give to discover that Juno lied. That's how much I love this woman. If it's your fault, Josephine! Let divorce separate us once and for all!. I'm not willing to be the laughingstock and the scoundrel of every rich and famous person in Paris.
Can Pauline Belize replace Josephine?
At this moment, Napoleon's loyalty to Josephine was broken and he allowed himself to have any woman he desired in his bed. He rejected the Egyptian women offered to him because of their fatness, but he set his sights on a Frenchwoman, Margurite Pauline Bellise, the wife of Lieutenant Foure's, a handsome officer of the 22nd Light Cavalry. Madame Foure was one of the women smuggled into Egypt, disguised as men's uniforms, to join their lovers.
Then Napoleon does something reminiscent of David of Uriah the Hittite. He sends Lieutenant Faure to France on a supposedly important mission – to deliver a letter to the Directory in Paris. Then, when Lieutenant Faure leaves Cairo in a hurry for Alexandria, where he will board a ship bound for France, Napoleon arranges a dance at the Tivoli Club in the Azbekiya district of Cairo, which was established by the army as an imitation of the original club in Paris. Madame Faure will sit next to him, and then, out of mock arrogance, Napoleon will pour a jug of water on her dress. Apologizing, he accompanies Madame Faure to a side room to help her get settled. The two will return after a long hour with a smile on Madame Faure’s face from ear to ear.
Meanwhile, the British capture Lieutenant Foure's ship, and knowing what is happening in Cairo, they decide to play a trick on Napoleon and return Lieutenant Foure to Egypt. General Marmond, the military commander in Alexandria, tries to delay him, but Lieutenant Foure's heart goes out to his wife, and he rushes to Cairo only to find her in the arms of the commander-in-chief.
The two divorce and Madame Béliz will now be seen openly in Napoleon's company. And will live with him in the palace of Alfie-Bey, which Napoleon has adopted as his residence. She also wears his uniform and the soldiers joke and say: "Here comes our general." She also calls them Cleopatra. All this to the dismay of Eugène de Beauharnais, Josephine's son, who accompanied Napoleon on his journey to Egypt.
Napoleon even intended to marry Madame Bliss if she bore him a child. However, she did not become pregnant. Napoleon was heard to say: “The little idiot does not even know how to bear a child” and when the words were whispered to Madame Bliss she would say: “Who knows who the idiot is?”
The end of the matter
Although marriage did not result from this relationship, Napoleon would take care of her throughout his life as he did with most of his loves. He would marry her off to a wealthy man, who would leave her a handsome inheritance, and Madame Bliz would emerge as a successful businesswoman in her own right. She would double and triple her fortune. She would also emerge as a talented writer and publish several novels. Madame Bliz would die in 1869, at the age of 92, completely lucid, and to the chagrin of historians, she would burn Napoleon's letters before her death in order to maintain discretion.
A few words about Erez Lebanon and the Israeli Association for the Study of Napoleon
I am a Jerusalemite by birth (1950). I am a lawyer by profession, and studying Napoleon is one of my hobbies, along with other favorites like Heinrich Heine, who lived in Paris for 26 years until his death (buried in Montmartre).
A big fan of nineteenth-century French literature – that's where I got stuck. I haven't reached the twentieth century yet.
The Israeli Association for the Study of Napoleon and His Period was founded in Israel in 1997 by the late Prof. Mordechai Gihon of Tel Aviv University.
Since then, it has miraculously existed and maintains regular annual activities, mainly in the form of monthly lectures on Napoleon and his period, alongside tours following Napoleon's campaign in the Land of Israel.
Among the association's members were one of Israel's leading nuclear scientists, a former Chief of Staff, and one of Israel's greatest brain surgeons (names withheld, of course).
In addition, the association has held international conferences in Israel with the participation of renowned scholars from abroad. So far, conferences have been held on the following topics: “Bicentennial of Napoleon’s Campaign in Palestine” (in 1999), “Napoleon and the Jews – Bicentennial of the Sanhedrin in Paris” (in 2006), “Bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo” (2015)…
The association is affiliated with the International Napoleonic Society, founded by the late Ben-Vider, a Canadian Jew, who contributed his inexhaustible energy and money to the advancement of the subject. He also published several books on the subject, including: “The Assassination of Napoleon,” which was translated into Hebrew.
The international association holds a conference every year in one of the countries of the world. So far, conferences have been held in Italy, France (of course), Malta, Corsica, Georgia, Russia, Spain, Ireland, Cuba (where one of the most important Napoleonic museums in the world is located, founded before the revolution by a Jew named Wolf), Germany, the Netherlands, and countless others.
We would be happy to add new members, and those interested can contact my email address (erez@erez-law.co.il).
And I would like to emphasize that my interest in Napoleon is just a hobby for me and not an illness.
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