Love and Ambition

His reward was command of the Army of Italy and introduction to Parisian society. At the salon of Barras, Napoleon met Rose de Beauharnais, who preferred to be called Josephine. Six years his senior, widowed with two children, Josephine embodied the sophistication of the old regime combined with revolutionary connections. Their whirlwind courtship—he was obsessed, she was calculating—resulted in marriage in March 1796.

Two days after the wedding, Napoleon left for Italy. Josephine had provided emotional stability and social connections, but military glory would make his fortune. The Army of Italy he found was demoralized, unpaid, and poorly supplied. Within a year, he would transform it into the most effective fighting force in Europe and himself into a legend.