“[Napoleon Bonaparte] believed he was the centre of the world and for a long time there was nothing to change him from this belief…He was in love with himself and France joined in. It was a romance. Perhaps all romance is like that […].”  (2)

“July 20^th, 1804. Bonaparte arrives in a couple of hours to watch us put out to sea. He wants to launch 25,000 men in fifteen minutes. He will. This weather is unexpected. If it worsens it will be impossible to risk the Channel. Patrick says the Channel is full of mermaids. He says it’s the mermaids lonely for a man that pull so many of us down.

“July 20^th, 1804. Two thousand men were drowned today. Bonaparte stood on the dockside and told his officers that no storm could defeat us. ‘Why, if the heavens fell down we would hold them up on the points of our lances.’ The mermaids won’t be lonely anymore.

“I had to serve him that night and his smile pushed away the madness of arms and legs that pushed in at my ears and mouth. I was covered in dead men.” (3)

Empress Josephine Lounging in a Glass Menagerie (Pt. I of II)

Women Polishing Josephine’s Crystal Glasses (Pt. II of II)

“When our horses died of the cold we slit their bellies and slept with our feet inside the guts. One man’s horse froze around him; in the morning when he tried to take his feet out they were stuck, entombed in the brittle entrails. We couldn’t free him, we had to leave him. He wouldn’t stop screaming.

“Watching my comrades die was not the worst thing about that war, it was watching them live. I had heard stories about the human body and the human mind, the conditions it can adapt to, the ways it chooses to survive. I had heard tales of people who were burnt in the sun and grew another skin, thick and black like the top of overcooked porridge. Others who learned not to sleep so that they wouldn’t be eaten by wild animals. The body clings to life at any cost. It even eats itself. When there’s no food it turns cannibal and devours its fat, then its muscle then its bones. I’ve seen soldiers, mad with hunger and cold, chop off their own arms and cook them. how long could you go on chopping? Both arms. Both legs. Ears. Slices from the trunk. You could chop yourself down to the very end and leave your heart to beat in its ransacked palace.” (4)

“What a strange thing is [wo]man! How mysterious are the workings of [hir] sensibility! I had commanded in battles that were to decide the fate of a whole army, and I had felt no emotion. I had watched the execution of maneuvers that were bound to cost the lives of many among us, and my eyes had remained dry. And suddenly I was shaken, turned inside out, by a dog howling in pain!” -Bonaparte (5)

Napoleon Bonaparte, George W. Bush, and Kanye West Pt. I.

Napoleon Bonaparte, George W. Bush, and Kanye West Pt. II

My Ego, Draw’n: A Premade Beehive with Pollen mise en place (Pt. I) 

My Ego, Draw’n: A Premade Beehive with Pollen mise en place.

My Ego, Draw’n: Identical Twins with a Peculiar Public Repulsion for One Another/ Rat Traps (Pt. I) 

My Ego, Draw’n: Identical Twins with a Peculiar Public Repulsion toward One Another/ Rat Traps (Pt. II)

A popular lithograph depicting Josephine’s reaction to the news of their divorce, against a painting of the Battle of the Nile.

“Bloodletting is among the ingredients of political medicine.” (Bonaparte) (7)

(8) 

Napoleon Wound up in his own hair by French Peasants

The Whole World is Watching 

“What would you do if you were emperor? Would soldiers become numbers? Would battles become diagrams? Would intellectuals become a threat?” (9)

Napoleon’s Death Mask.