J R Army Med Corps 2003; 149: 344-358 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from

CLASSIC PAPER

Froelich, Fertility And A French Emperor JP Garner Commentary on ‘’s Sex Life By Maj Gen FM Richardson

Introduction This article with its gloriously inviting title, hinting at libidinous scandal and debauchery is actually an attempt to unravel some of the inconsistencies and intriguing by-lines regarding the great man’s sexuality that are contained within the plethora of Napoleonic biographies. Originally published over two editions of the journal in 1961, it is reprinted here in an abridged format, leaving some of the original author’s anecdote, whimsy and French quotations aside. I found this is a highly enjoyable paper, not least because it is something of a rarity in the modern medical journal, because of both its subject matter and narrative style. One can only assume that the then editor had a keen eye for the entertaining article and bon mots, offering the following quotation as a footnote after the first part, perhaps by way of justification! : Fig 2.The Empress Josephine. “For all journals, above all, should convey excitement and the delight of the people making them” Alan Hatch in About Town. eight children. After training at the Ecole Militaire in Paris he was commissioned into A Short Biography of Napoleon the Artillery and rose rapidly to the rank of For those who aren’t scholars of French Brigadier, ousting the British from http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ history, a resume of life will mainland France at the siege of and allow these articles to be read within some achieving military prominence. In 1795 he frame of context. was appointed commander of the French Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 on Armies in Italy, and married Josephine de the French island of Corsica, the second of Beauharnais, the following year. She was the widow of a Vicomte executed during the revolution, mother of two children and mistress to many of the leading political figures of the time. After

sweepingly successful campaigns through on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. Italy and Austria, he took charge of further French Armies, departing for Egypt to confront the British and their trading alliances. After initial success at the Battle of the Pyramids he was defeated by Nelson at the , losing three quarters of his fleet. On his return to Paris, he and two others seized power from the Maj JP Garner RAMC ‘Directory’ in the Coup Specialist Registrar in d’etat de Brumaire and became consuls, General Surgery soon after which Napoleon manoeuvred to become First (and only) Consul. His ever- c/o Editorial Office, Journal of The Royal increasing popularity with the masses and Army Medical Corps, rapprochement with the Catholic Church Former Army Staff after the strictures of the Revolution meant College, he was able to crown himself Emperor in Slim Road, 1804. His campaigns and wars continued, Camberley, Fig 1. Portrait in oils of Emperor Napoleon wearing both generally successfully, if trifling details such GU15 4NP. the Légion d’Honneur and the Iron Cross. as Trafalgar are ignored, and spread the 345 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from influence of the French Empire across Launois-Cleret syndrome or the more much of mainland Europe. Relations with useful descriptor adiposogenital dystrophy, the powerful Austrians were cemented is a rare disease affecting boys more than when Napoleon married Marie-Louisa of girls. Characteristic features are short Austria in 1809, having divorced Josephine stature with early onset obesity, small testis as he remained without an heir. Tensions and pubertal delay. There is an increased between Tsar Alexander of Russia and risk of diabetes mellitus and sufferers may Napoleon, for many years cordial and have mental retardation and visual defects. cooperative, now degenerated and The underlying pathology is either a Napoleon led over half a million French hypothalamic or anterior pituitary lesion soldiers to march on Moscow. In a tiring with many of the outlined symptoms being and bloody campaign with major battles at secondary to alterations in the regulation of Smolensk and Borodino along the way, he Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and eventually arrived in Moscow in 1812 to Luteinising Hormone (LH) that occurs at find it burning, as the Russians infinitely puberty. The physiology of puberty is not preferred ashes to the French, and provided well understood, given that pre-pubertal Tchaikovsky with his inspiration. A series of levels of FSH and LH are low, as are the defeats and reversals over the following 2 levels of the gonadal hormones that act as years drove his Marshals and Generals to the negative feedback mechanism. It is force his abdication in 1814 and he went suspected that at the onset of puberty there into exile on Elba, but for less than a year. is maturation of the hypothalamic neurons Eleven months after leaving the soils of with increased excretion of gonadotrophin France he returned to depose the recently releasing hormone to increase FSH and LH re-installed King Louis XVIII, and begin a secretion. The exact mechanism by which further series of military campaigns. Initially Froelich’s syndrome supervenes is unknown successful, he was finally crushed by the but is probably due to a further resetting of Duke of Wellington at Waterloo on June the level of feedback inhibition. The 18th 1815, and returned to exile on the pituitary lesion may be caused by tumour or distant island of St Helena in the South destruction of the gland from tuberculosis Atlantic where he died in 1821. His remains or encephalitis or there may be a direct were eventually repatriated and have lain in hypothalamic lesion; indeed in modern the mausoleum of Les Invalides in Paris terms the eponymous syndrome is applied since 1840. only to those children with the typical features and a hypothalamic lesion. Froelich’s syndrome Whilst actually first described by Joseph Froelich’s syndrome (1), often known by a Babinski (2) in 1900, the definitive descrip- variety of synonyms including Babinski- tion from which it takes its most common

Froleich syndrome, the further eponymous name was made by Alfred Froelich, an http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ Austrian neurologist, one year later when he outlined a case of tumour of the anterior pituitary gland with marked obesity and infantilism but without acromegaly. The differential diagnosis is said to include Prader-Willi syndrome and the vanishingly rare Bardet-Biedl and Borjeson Syndromes, whilst Richardson raises the possibility of Klinefelter’s syndrome being the correct

diagnosis, given that there appears to have on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. been a change in Napoleon’s appearance in his mid-thirties, which would mitigate against a disease with an onset at puberty. This cornerstone of General Richardson’s discourse, namely the diagnosis of Froelich’s syndrome, is attributed to Raoul Brice, a French military surgeon who was apparently present at the Emperor’s post- mortem, which revealed a short obese man with the genitals of a boy. In addition, numerous ante mortem comments report on his feminine hands and downy hair, and even Napoleon himself was known to pass comment on his feminine appearance and splendid breasts! It is on this combination of features that the diagnosis was made, and on which all subsequent supposition is Fig 3.A detail from a painting of the coronation of Emperor Napoleon in December 1804; it is fascinating to realise that founded. Richardson’s rider that an Napoleon is actually crowning himself! “authoritative medical textbook states that the 346 Classic Paper J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from syndrome is often associated with intellectual Relationships ability ‘above normal”’, avoids scrutiny as Napoleon’s numerous amorous liaisons, modern authoritative textbooks of both imaginary and actual, are summarised endocrinology barely mention this within the article and great effort is made to condition and such a statement is not draw out those strands that may give lie to replicated. his reputation as a great lover and producer of offspring, even to the point of suggesting The Napoleonic Legend that his heir by Maria Louisa of Austria was General Richardson writes as an unabashed conceived by artificial insemination as he ‘Wellingtonian’ and despite his protest- was not up to the job. The multitude of ations to the contrary, the main thrust of the women with whom he is supposed to have articles seem to be to sully the stature of the lain is a reflection partly upon the times Napoleonic legend and ascribe to him many when such male promiscuity was common- physical, psychological and sexual charact- place, and also, according to Richardson, an eristics that whilst potentially explaining attempt to prove his ardent heterosexuality. some of his behaviour, cannot be looked on If, as the article alludes, Napoleon was as desirable. As part of his justification for indeed infertile and even impotent, truly a doing so he invokes the great French ‘bon-a-rien . . . able to do nothing’, then it tradition, which began during Napoleon’s is difficult to imagine how anyone, with own lifetime, of vilifying him, and claims even the power of Napoleon can create an that his reputation is probably incapable of edifice of illusion such that it may stand the being further blackened beyond what his test of two centuries of inquisition without own countrymen have already achieved. this fact becoming common knowledge and Whilst to some degree that may be true, the the list of sexual achievements being assertion that the integrity of the summarily edited. Napoleonic legend is a NATO asset is probably stretching the grounds of Sexuality credibility a little too far! Some of the This is General Richardson’s major tilt at opening remarks about the sanctity of the the Napoleonic legend, namely that he was Napoleonic memory being relatively safe an undisclosed homosexual. As one might from ‘the modern sport of knocking down imagine the evidence for this is largely popular idols’ reminds us that the current circumstantial, but the author takes epidemic of ‘knocking down’ and media considerable pain to assemble a variety of assassination is perhaps not so modern as comments and observations that support we would make out. Perhaps the Press his supposition with the overriding premise Complaints Commission should take note! being that like many homosexual men, he sought to be promiscuous with women to On Leadership rid himself of doubts about his true sexual http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ By mere virtue of the fact that Napoleon nature. commanded his armies for as long as he Napoleon is arbitrarily given a score of 3 did, in as many battles as he did, he must on the Kinsey rating, which is a seven point have been an able leader; however, his style scale devised and published by Alfred Kinsey of leadership, it would seem, leaves a lot to in 1948 (4), which views male sexuality as a be desired by modern standards. His pre- continuum from the exclusively heterosexual occupation with the dead, and unfeeling male (scoring 0) to the exclusively homo- pride in the mountains of corpses of his own sexual male who scores 6. This mid-range soldiers who died at the likes of Borrodino* score of three is defined as ‘equally

reflect badly on the man. Such brutality can heterosexual and homosexual’. But on what on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. have done nothing to endear him to his ‘evidence’ does General Richardson make Generals, who all seem to have suffered such a judgement. Aside from his alleged under his leadership.This callousness is but promiscuity with women, he was known to one reflection, so Richardson says, of his be fond of young men, often sparing them cold-heartedness which precluded him the torrid trials that older and more being able to make friends or indulge in respected men received, his generals amongst cordial relationships with either sex. His them. Interestingly this has in part been aggressiveness could be explained by what attributed to a desire for legend-making by the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler praising those who were likely to live longest termed ‘organ inferiority’ (3), a concept that and extol Napoleons virtues the better. He describes the development of ones drives in was notoriously tactile with his younger a reaction to perceived inferiority of an soldiers, even to the extent of pulling their organ. Such a concept seems plausible; ears and noses, a further attribute of the certainly the realisation that ones genitals closet homosexual according to the quoted are small, imperfectly formed and dysfun- article from the British Medical Journal ctional would engender feelings of entitled “A Factual Study of Male aggressiveness in most males. Homosexuality”. When discussing his ex- * Borrodino was a particularly bloody battle in the Russian campaign of 1812 in which 33,000 Napoleonic troops and over 40,000 Russians died. 347 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from wife Josephine he decried that he had ever The fact that a medical condition can loved her nor did he respect her, but she had tentatively be put forward as a mitigating ‘the prettiest little tail imaginable’, a circumstance against his less laudable comment described by Richardson as behaviours, is of interest more for the value ‘slightly significant’. The circumstantial of the medical detective work that was evidence for his homosexuality culminates involved, than the expunging of the with the saga of Gourgaud, his devoted blemishes from his legend. As a testament to follower who fled his exile in St Helena the breadth of interest portrayed by the saying that Napoleon had wished him to do Journal all those years ago I feel it is a things “contrary to his honour”. Napoleon’s splendid reminder that articles other than reply that he “was not his wife and cannot randomised controlled trials or evidence sleep with him” does little to damn such based guidelines still make for enjoyable, if theories of his sexuality. not directly practical, relevant reading. Summary This article, some forty-odd years old now References sheds an interesting light on one of the great 1. www.rarediseases.org/nord. 2002. men of history; whether he was homosexual 2. www.whonamedit.com. 2001. 3. www.educ.southern.edu/tour/who/pioneers/ or not I think matters little, as he will be adler.html. 2000. remembered for his Empire building and 4. Kinsey AC et al. Sexual behaviour in the human battles far more than his penis and prowess. male. WB Saunders. 1948.

RAMC Journal 1961 Vol 107. 219-223 RAMC Journal 1962 Vol 108. 81-86 NAPOLEON’S SEX LIFE Major-General F M Richardson CB DSO OBE Md (Retired)

Napoleon has less to fear than most great says that in 1809 he was “already names of the past from the modern sport of succumbing to the defect which eventually knocking down popular idols. The brought him to ruin, namely a tendency to humiliation of defeat was soothed by the confound assumptions with facts.” His memories of past glories, and Napoleonic categorical orders from France to his literature grew into a mountain. The failure marshals in the distant peninsula, without in 1870 of “Napoléon le Petit” merely regard for the facts as they knew them to be, increased the glory of “Napoléon Le Grand.” must have been maddening. Lord Algernon

The Napoleonic legend is essential to French Cecil, in his book Metternich, describes how http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ national morale, and is thus a NATO asset on the way into his celebrated interview with which should be approached with caution, Napoleon in 1813 Metternich was stopped though it is obviously indestructible, having by Berthier, Napoleon’s chief of staff, whose survived the undoubted fact that millions of grave disquiet was evident. “Do not forget’ Frenchmen execrated his name when he was the marshal pleaded, ‘that Europe requires alive and at the peak of his fame. This is well peace, and especially France which will have illustrated in a book by a Dutch writer, Pieter nothing but peace.’ Metternich passed in Geyl (translated into English) in which the without a word, his hands, however, so much anti- and pro-Napoleon literature is the stronger for the knowledge that the analysed. Jacques Bainville is slightly hostile, schism, of which Talleyrand and Fouché had on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. and Jean Savant (1954) positively venomous apprised him as much as four years before, in his Napoleon in his Time, which is a between France and Napoleon had spread miscellany of quotations from those who even to the Emperor’s very chief of staff. His knew him best. policy, not Napoleon’s was that of the French It is not difficult to see why he eventually people.” It was at that interview that lost the confidence and affection of many of Napoleon made his celebrated remark, “I his marshals and his staff, as his was brought up in the field and a man such megalomania and disregard for human life as I does not concern himself about the lives became more evident. Marmont, in excusing of a million men.” He put his foot in it in his so-called betrayal of Napoleon, which many other ways, and it was not long of gave to the French language for Bonapartists course after that interview that the marshals a new word, “raguser,” but which Wellington were compelling him, in Fontainebleau, to always denied was any betrayal, summed it sign his abdication, and Ney was replying to all up like this: “When Napoleon said ‘All for his remark that the army would obey him, France’ I served with enthusiasm; when he with the statement that the army would said ‘France and I’ I served with zeal; when rather obey its generals. he said ‘I and France’ I served obediently; There is a great deal of evidence, apart but when he said ‘I without France’ I felt from the well-known remark, that his called upon to leave him.” Sir John Fortescue attitude to casualties was calculating and 348 Classic Paper J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from

brutally callous, and in marked contrast to For a start it is profitable to have a look at that of Wellington, who wept over the his physical characteristics, beginning at the casualties, and said to Lady Shelley, “I am end with a highly-significant post-mortem wretched even at the moment of victory, report. “The body was found enormously and I always say that next to a battle lost, fat” with “a coat of fat an inch and a half the greatest misery is a battle gained,” thick” over the breast bone. This helps to Napoleon’s morbid curiosity in looking at dispel the popular fallacy that the cruel the casualties on a battlefield has been British let him die of cancer, and indeed a frequently described, and S. J.Watson in By surgeon lieutenant-general of the French Command of the Emperor (1957) suggested Army, Raoul Brice, in his big work The that “it reinforced his sense of power to see Riddle of Napoleon diagnoses the cause of how many of his own troops had met with death as the perforation into the stomach of death and mutilation in doing his will.” an amoebic liver abscess, with subsequent Viewing the ghastly slaughter at Borodino gastric perforation and peritonitis. The “red he said it was the most beautiful battlefield spittle” which Bertrand describes as he had ever seen, and he described the piles covering his vest towards the end, could of corpses on the dreadful field of Eylau as have come from such an abscess. So much “small change” actually turning some of for cancer. them over with his foot; and it was perhaps Walter Henry, surgeon of the 66th Foot, there that the affection of his adoring troops who was present, thus describes his external first began to waver. genital organs, “Partes viriles exiguitatis J. G. Lockhart, writing in 1829, quoted insignis, sicut pueri, videbantur,” and from Bourrienne, an old school companion of this and other evidence Brice concludes that Napoleon and later his secretary, that, “his Napoleon suffered from a condition called heart was naturally cold,” and even in youth Fröhlich’s syndrome (dystrophia adipsos- he was “very little disposed to form genitalis) which makes paternity highly friendships” (tres peu aimant); and improbable. His later portraits amply Lockhart says, “The most wonderful part of corroborate this diagnosis, though it may be his story is the intensity of sway which he a little harder to reconcile it with those early exerted over the minds of those in whom he portraits of the hawk-like young general with so seldom permitted himself to contemplate spaniel ears and hair down to his shoulders. anything more than the tools of his own In several of them that hair is fine and silky ambition.” It will surely not rock the NATO as it is in Fröhlich’s syndrome. By the time boat to attempt to understand how he that he was famous enough for achieved this sway, but taking a peep into contemporaries to describe his appearance some of the corners of that astounding he seems to have been plump, with mind, in all human beings there are “beautiful little pink hands” (Duchess of

elements of maleness and of femaleness in Abrantes), “delicate and plump with taper http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ varying proportions; and just as variations fingers” (Meneval), which are characteristic in the proportions of male and female of the condition, and help to produce the hormones result in wide variations of rather feminine appearance in these people. physical types, so do psychological Captain Maitland of Bellerophon said, “His mechanisms of great complexity growing hands were also very small, and had the within our minds from childhood influences plumpness of a woman’s rather than the and experiences, and from the conscious or robustness of a man’s.” Now this condition unconscious interpretations which we put usually occurs at or before puberty, but may upon these, combine to produce variations begin later from a number of causes, which in our emotional attitude to sex as many- include syphilis.Without probing too deeply hued as the rainbow, with, at opposite ends it may be said that Napoleon seems to have on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. of the spectrum, the strongly heterosexual incurred the risk of this, and one of the and the strongly homosexual. A good deal commissioners taking him to Elba remarked of unhappiness results from people not that he was suffering from an “amatory knowing just where they fit into the complaint” for which he applied treatment spectrum. Many unhappy marriages result in their presence without reserve. Other from failure to realise the complexity of this possible symptoms need not be detailed. range of colour; from one or other partner Incidentally an authoritive medical text- feeling deprived because the other does not book states that the syndrome is often perhaps live up to their imagined type of the associated with intellectual ability “above perfect lover, founded upon romantic normal.” literature, the stage, or the screen. If, as Ludwig suggests, Napoleon’s whole Having read only an infinitesimal fraction outlook on life, his destiny, and the history of of the massive Napoleonic literature I can the world were profoundly affected by early present only a few symptoms, in attempting mortification and affronts “suffered at the a diagnosis of where Napoleon fits into the hands of a few silly young marquises”; and sexual spectrum, but I suspect that a if, as so often happens, feelings of inferiority diligent search, and especially access to aroused by his small stature encouraged secret state papers, would yield a lot more. aggressive impulses, his poor sexual 349 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from endowment may well have intensified such experienced Josephine. Indeed he more or feelings by what Adler calls a sense of “organ less admitted this to Bertrand at St. inferiority.”This would certainly account for Helena, saying, “To tell the truth I only his rather aggressive attitude towards sex, married Josephine because I believed her the interest he took in that part of other to possess a considerable fortune. Also I people’s private lives, and particularly for the wished to make myself appear more besetting anxiety about his inability to mature.” He claimed to have loved her, but produce an heir by which he is well known to have had no respect for her, and he to have been tormented. Perhaps it also made the slightly significant comment that helped to drive him into the arms of “she had the prettiest little tail Josephine, an experienced and loose-living imaginable.” He often treated Josephine widow whom he took off the very knee of most unkindly long before the final cruelty Barras. Josephine had little cause for of the divorce, but she had her revenge in complaint, for if Barras is to be believed, her the way she spoke of him on what, as I have bargainings for a husband were just as hinted, may have been the tenderest point. blatant, and she seems to have been, like She spread the mot that “Bon-a-parte est Napoleon’s sister Pauline, a nymphomaniac bon-a-rien” and described his incapacity in who was ready to have affairs with generals, crude and indecent terms. When she knew their aides-de-camp or their grooms. that he was contemplating a second Josephine had not much money, but the marriage to get an heir she made to Mme. “dowry” was enough–for it was command of Duchatel and others such statements as the army in Italy. Both of them confided in “that the Emperor was no use at all, that Barras before marriage was proposed, and she had had children by her first husband, Napoleon’s remarks included, “I’ve not been and that whilst she was still a trying to seduce a virgin. I am the kind of comparatively young woman she had man who would rather find love ready-made married the Emperor who had been able to than have to make it.” do nothing.” Savant mentions altogether five women Napoleon’s doubts of his fertility are with whom Napoleon contemplated reflected in the coarse remark he made marriage before he asked Josephine. The when choosing his second wife. When told best known is his attractive young sister-in- that her mother had had thirteen children law Desirée Clary from whose marriage to he said “That’s the kind of womb I want to Bernadotte the Swedish royal family are marry.” descended. Savant says that she was his Napoleon in his will acknowledged only mistress but gives no authority for this. two illegitimate children. The first, Florian- Napoleon at St. Helena described her as his Alexander-Joseph, born on 4th May, 1810, first love, and said she was most upset by was the illegitimate son of Maria Walewska, his marriage to Josephine. He said to the widow of Count Walewska, who had a http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ Bertrand that she once hid under his bed, number of other children. The verdict on and he claimed that “it was because he had this child can be left to the Russian taken her maidenhead that he created Emperor. After Napoleon’s divorce a Bernadotte a marshal, prince and king.” marriage with a Russian princess was But it was certainly not he who made proposed, but the Dowager Empress would Bernadotte a prince or a king, and it is not hear of it, and told the Emperor probable that his claim to have seduced her Alexander about Josephine’s statements on sprang partly from a desire to hurt Napoleon’s impotence. Incredible though it Bernadotte for whom he had long had a may seem, Josephine had been interviewed jealous hatred, which was cordially on this subject by a Prince de M. (believed reciprocated, and partly from his habit of to be Mecklenburg-Schwerin) who had on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. boasting of his successes with women, to carried out the task with so little finesse that which he often gave way in St. Helena. Talleyrand had advised Napoleon to dismiss Much earlier Caulaincourt had noticed him from court. Alexander mentioned the that he took great pleasure in talking of Prince de M’s. report to the French early love affairs, and of “the preference a Ambassador, “who objected that the number of society women had given him Emperor already had a child by Mme. over some of his comrades then more Walewska. ‘Yes yes’ exclaimed Alexander, prominent than himself.” People who talk a ‘but everyone knows what young Polish lot of their love affairs have not necessarily women are like. She probably had other had any; indeed they may feel the need to lovers.’” (Quoted in Bertrand’s memoirs). bolster up their self-esteem in this way if The second child to be considered is they are a bit doubtful of their prowess in Charles, called Count Leon, born on 6th this sphere. It seems far more likely, December, 1806, to Eleonore Denuelle de considering his physical handicap, that he la Plaigne. Here is what Bertrand says “As it felt doubtful of his ability to satisfy an was Murat who had introduced the mother attractive young bride, and sought not only to him, Napoleon had at first assumed the material advantages but sexual help and child to have been his. But upon seeing the encouragement from the only too child the Emperor had been so struck by its 350 Classic Paper J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from

resemblance to himself, while Queen No one who has studied it in any detail Hortense, to whom he had shown the child, could possibly claim that, even with had found that it bore such a striking Josephine, Napoleon’s family life was very resemblance to the Emperor, that he had normal or happy. The undoubted fact that acknowledged it to be his own son.” This Napoleon for long feared that he was sterile, would hardly be accepted as evidence in a supported by the inference that Josephine’s paternity case today, and there were remarks were intended to imply as clearly as widespread doubts about it at the time, as possible that he was also impotent, and by indeed there were about the paternity of the strong evidence that physically he could Napoleon’s one legitimate child, the King of be defined as “sexually deprived”, by no Rome. It was common gossip at the means prove that he was not psychologically Schönbrunn that whoever was the father of heterosexual, still less that he was that child it certainly was not Napoleon. homosexual. There is evidence to suggest The obvious candidate is Neipperg, whom that he had such leanings, even if not to a Chateaubriand called “the man who dared marked degree, though I have not so far to lay his eggs in the eagle’s nest.” There is heard of this suggestion being made. It is abundant evidence of his rudeness and very well known that he liked to have unpleasantness to women, and Bourrienne physical contact with his soldiers. He used sums it up: “Politeness to women was not to embrace them, to grasp the buttons on one of Napoleon’s habitual traits. He rarely their tunics, pull their ears and hold on to found anything pleasant to say to them, or their noses. The latter gesture may be would say the most outrageous things.” significant. In the Factual Study just Though he seems to have been fond of mentioned a man is recorded who “was children, he thought it amusing to accuse attracted by boys’ noses; they were sexual wrongly a little five-year-old niece of objects, and if he grasped a boy’s nose he wetting the bed; and to snatch away little had an orgasm.” Pulling a man’s nose was Betsy Balcombe’s first party dress, and let not an uncommon insult or incitement to a her cry herself to sleep. Bourrienne says, “It duel; but rubbing noses as a greeting is was one of Bonaparte’s greatest misfortunes practiced in places like Polynesia where not to believe in friendship or experience homosexuality is common. The Mameluke the need to love. How often I have heard Roustam, a young Armenian who until he him say ‘Friendship is only a word. I care deserted Napoleon just before Elba was his for nobody.’” Lord Rosebery in Napoleon, constant personal attendant from the day The Last Phase wrote “He wonders if he ever when Napoleon picked him up in Egypt at really loved anybody. If so it was Josephine the age of seventeen, has described their – a little . . . Had she had a child of his she first meeting. “First thing he does to me he would never have left him.” pulls my ears,” and later whilst on board

He is said to have “taken liberties” with ship returning to France, “still pulling my http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ his sister Pauline; to have been the father of ears, as every day.” the elder child of his step-daughter In the pamphlet Advice on Sex in use in Hortense, married to his brother Louis; to B.A.O.R. I have explained how young men have had a daughter by Mme. de through misunderstanding may linger in the Montholon at St. Helena. He does not seem normal homosexual period, a phase through to have wasted much time making love to which many pass unknowingly. It would not any of them, except perhaps to Desirée, and be at all surprising if Napoleon’s “organ Masson describes him as being “unfamiliar inferiority,” small stature, and slightly with courteous phrases and not hiding feminine build, and other influences all sufficiently the contempt he felt for women reinforced this tendency to linger. It has who came to him on the message of a valet.” been said that if all males were exclusively on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. There was nothing very unusual in a heterosexual (Kinsey rating 0) normal public figure of his age having mistresses social life in clubs and messes would be and making little effort to conceal the fact. impossible, since we would all behave like Our own King George II, urged by his wife stags, rounding up as big a share as our on her death-bed to marry again, said strength allowed of the available hinds. It is between sobs, “No, I shall have mistresses.” the “continuity of the gradations between But Napoleon’s apparently relentless search exclusively heterosexual and exclusively for sexual adventures when he seems to homosexual behaviour” which makes male have cared so little for women in every other friendships possible, but gives them such a way may well point to an urge to reassure varied nature, from David and Jonathan or himself and to exorcise his deep-seated Alexander and Hephaestion to what we doubts of his own masculinity. Three would regard as normal friendship. psychiatrists in A Factual Study of Male Napoleon when he chose could be Homosexuality (1) emphasise that many completely charming, compelling, and homosexuals are sexually promiscuous with magnetic. When he was a captive, Admiral women. Presumably they cannot settle Keith was determined not to let him meet down to family life based on true love for the Prince Regent, as he was sure they one woman, of which they are incapable. would soon be the best of friends. Things 351 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from might have gone better for Napoleon in and be, as it seems many homosexuals are, 1813 if he had tried on Metternich the promiscuous with women. tactics which so charmed the strange Postscript impressionable young Tsar Alexander on More thousands of millions of words have the raft at Tilsit. The spell was still strong been written about Napoleon than about more than a year later at Erfurt, when they any other character in history. Many kissed each other before the assembled thousands of them were dictated or inspired grandees, who were “struck by their show of by the man himself in the process of affection for each other.” Alexander, a diligently creating and fostering what came handsome bachelor most attractive to to be known as the Napoleonic Legend. His women, was himself most strange and unique character was so many-sided that, by sought more for a “soul mate” than for what assiduous and partisan reading, one could his mistresses expected. He became more probably “prove” almost any theory about and more of a mystic, almost a hermit, and him which one cared to adopt. Doctors have died a bachelor. A Scots soldier recounted differed about him ever since those present that the Tsar’s interest in the perennial at his post-mortem examination quarrelled question of what is worn under the kilt furiously about whether his liver was or was would not be satisfied short of actual not enlarged and diseased. But it is with inspection, and that even then to be sure Napoleon’s psychological make-up that I that there were no pink silk tights he am concerned. Another book published actually pinched the indignant Highlander’s since I wrote my essay (The Last Years of behind. Napoleon by Ralph Korngold) has some odd I must here say clearly that I am not things to tell about the relations between suggesting that there was anything overtly Napoleon and Gourgaud, who is said to or even consciously homosexual in have “conceived an affection for Napoleon Napoleon’s approaches to men, though it is which bordered on the pathological”.When significant that they were made almost relations became strained and Gourgaud entirely to the younger set. He was decided to leave St. Helena, he said to the positively horrid to many senior officers, Governor that Napoleon wished him to do including his marshals, even to Berthier, a things “contrary to his honour,” and later man 16 years older than himself, to whom wrote that he was troubled by dysentery, to he owed so much. which had recently been added afflictions of If his methods of wooing the affections of a “moral nature.” Napoleon himself after the young and impressionable contributed Gourgaud had left, said “Speak to me no greatly to his magnetic sway as a military more of that man. He is mad. He was leader, it certainly also helped to establish jealous, in love with me. What the devil! I the Napoleonic Legend. These were the am not his wife and can’t sleep with him. I men who survived him long enough to know he will write libels about me, but I http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ foster it.The elder ones, many of whom had don’t care.”What are we to make of all this? won titles and riches under his rule, knew It may well have been all Gourgaud’s fault. him better but had a vested interest in Nobody could really be negative about silence or consent. A psychiatric diagnosis Napoleon and Lord Rosebery said that made without examining the patient must Gourgaud was “devoted to his master with be slightly suspect, though these are made an unreasonable, petulant jealousy, which every week when coroners and their juries made his devotion intolerable.” record verdicts “of unsound mind” in cases I do not want to seem eager to blacken of suicide. To sum up I would say that Napoleon’s character. Whatever may have although Mme. Mère was certainly not the been the many springs which fed his desire kind of mother who makes homosexual to dominate, one can hardly fail to be sorry on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. sons, Napoleon’s physical disability and for so domineering a man, whose attitude to somewhat feminine appearance, and men and women alike was so masculine and various early influences, combined to give overbearing in his lust for power, when one him homosexual tendencies, with a Kinsey realises how he must have been tortured by rating of about 3; compared with Alexander his fears of sterility, and probably also of the Great at about 3.5, and Frederick the impotence, and have seen his body Great and Richard Coeur de Lion between becoming more and more feminine in 5 and 6. If the last name causes surprise, appearance. What were his real feelings read The Lute Player, the theme of which is when, as de Ménèval says, he “loved to joke Richard’s homosexual friendship with about the fatness of his breasts”? More than Blondel. Berengaria’s married life was a one contemporary writer spoke of a complete fraud, and if Napoleon had known “roundness of figure, not of our own sex”; about this he might have been displeased and he was once taken for “an elderly with the German scholar Ritterstein who governess.” He himself saw in his body a claimed to have proved that Blondel’s real resemblance to a young female beauty, and name was Buonaparte, and that he was made an often-quoted remark to Napoleon’s ancestor. Napoleon, being Antommarchi, differently translated in Napoleon, had to have a finger in every pie, different books, but on these lines “See 352 Classic Paper J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-149-04-17 on 1 December 2003. Downloaded from

Doctor, what lovely arms, what smooth In a book called Personality and Power white skin without a single hair! what there is to be found this surprising remark rounded breasts – any beauty would be about Napoleon. “He ...was without proud of a bosom like mine.” A great religious feeling in the Christian sense, and, military leader could hardly have liked finding himself incapable of giving her a looking like that, and there is something child to be his heir, caused his wife, Maria pathetic in his drawing attention to it, and Lousia of Austria, to be articifically even boasting about it. I should like to hear inseminated, and successfully.” the views of someone with a good Unfortunately the author, the late Mr. Shaw knowledge of endocrinology, or even of Desmond, who says that, “the love genetics. Would a physician of today amend personality of Napoleon is one of the most Brice’s diagnosis to Klinefelter’s syndrome? elusive phenomena in history,” does not If, as is suggested by some writers, a marked give us a clue as to where he found his change in his physical appearance began at information about the method of securing about the age of 38, could this account for an heir to the throne of France. the infantile external genital organs, or must they have been more or less in that Reference condition all his life? 1. Brit Med J (1958) 2, 1317-1323. http://militaryhealth.bmj.com/ on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright.