Dude, guess what? Napoleon, the guy who conquered half of Europe, actually wrote his own romance novel called "Clisson and Eugénie" when he was young. And it's as dramatic as it gets! So, this story is about Clisson (totally a self-insert character), who's a genius on the battlefield but also craves a perfect love. He meets Eugénie, falls head over heels, and they promise each other forever before moving to the countryside.
But then, duty calls, and Clisson has to go to war. While he's winning battles, Eugénie starts liking another officer, leaving Clisson all heartbroken. The climax? Clisson lets "thousands of merciless bullets" hit him (like, seriously, thousands?) and dies a hero. This whole plot kinda mirrors Napoleon’s real life, with his relationships falling apart due to cheating. It’s like he predicted his own life, man!
Napoleon's writing style was pretty cringe-worthy, though. It's full of awkward and clunky lines that make middle-school fanfic look good. Maybe that's why he hated novels, calling them "servants' reading material." Funny enough, he read Goethe’s romantic tragedy "The Sorrows of Young Werther" seven times and even criticized it! Imagine Napoleon, now ruling Europe, discussing plot points with Goethe himself.
Despite his bad writing, Napoleon actually lived like a fictional hero. It's cringy to imagine yourself as perfect, but becoming that in real life? That’s emperor stuff. If he had married his first love, Désirée, and lived a simple life, we might not know him as the great conqueror he became. Also, he seemed to have a thing for unfaithful wives, like his obsession with the charming Josephine.
And just picture this: Talleyrand, his advisor, reading this embarrassing novel out loud in front of him. Bet Napoleon wished the ground would swallow him whole! Even though he thought novels were for maidservants, he read them anyway. Maybe, deep down, he felt like one.
