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SITTING on a throne in Notre Dame cathedral, Napoleon Bonaparte held a golden laurel wreath crown like Caesar’s aloft as he declared himself Emperor of France. But as new blockbuster film Napoleon from Gladiator director Sir Ridley Scott will show, this “lover, tyrant, legend” who inspired a swathe of remarkable victories across Europe was ultimately defeated when it came to the woman he loved. Joaquin Phoenix will play Napoleon Bonaparte in Sir Ridley Scott‘s upcoming blockbuster film
The power-mad dictator’s first wife Josephine de Beauharnais cheated on him within weeks of their wedding, yet Napoleon refused to give her up. Even while he was leading his men into battle, his lust for the society beauty barely waned, and he wrote her a stream of “dirty letters”, at one point urging her not to wash for three days until he returned from one campaign. He talked about Josephine’s talent for an undefined sex act called zig-zags, and had a pet name for her private parts, which he dubbed the Baron de Kepen. Vanessa Kirby, 35, plays Josephine in the risque epic and says she was the power behind the throne and an “incredible force of nature”. The couple “were deeply attached to each other”, she explains. Vanessa, who also portrayed Princess Margaret in The Crown, found “compassion” for Josephine “because it was a brutal time and he was brutal to be with”. The film does not shy away from depicting the tumultuous, sex-fuelled love affair, with some scenes already courting controversy. Lead actor Joaquin Phoenix, 49, came under fire after it emerged he spontaneously slapped Vanessa during a fight scene because he wanted to “surprise her”. She insists she felt “safe” and the passion between Napoleon and his wife meant the actors went to “dark places together”. Napoleon was certainly not born to be a leader of France. He came from Italian nobility and French was his third language — after Italian and Corsican. At 5ft 6in he was also bullied at school. But his dislike for the monarchy put him on the right side of history when there was a revolution against the king at the end of the 18th century. Napoleon distinguished himself against royalist forces at the Siege of Toulon in 1793 and, two years later, on the streets of Paris. Seeing off the king’s supporters earned him fame and the attention of Josephine, six years his senior and previously married. Mission: Impossible actress Vanessa says: “She was not a person anyone wanted to marry. “She was a widow with two children and six years older than he was.
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