Not tonight, Josephine

[Romeo]

Did Napoleon ever really say this? If so, when and why? Where does it come from?

[Artful]

Apparently not and ever since learning that I have been profoundly upset! If one can be profoundly upset of course!

[Artful]

A site for Napo's letters to Josephine is here. But be warned it's all in the original version, i.e. French. Can't find anything worth posting from yahoo.co.uk but believe me he never said "Pas ce soir, Joos�phine" and if neither QuizMonster nor Clanad have answered yet it didn't pass his lips!

[chazza]

i read somewhere that it was because he suffered from terrible piles and the pain made him unable to make love to his wife. Going to bed he used to say "not tonight josephine"!!

[Artful]

Did he marry Josephine, chazza? I thought he was just a short stumped latin lover. No! I'm not talking about my husband!

[Quizmonster]

I prefer the story - probably equally apocryphal - that he wrote to her on one occasion, whilst away battling, to tell her that he was now only three days from home. His instructions to her were: "Don't wash!"
I'll leave you all to interpret that how you will.

[Romeo]

Thanks everyone for your answers, but I remain puzzled. This really is a tricky one. I've done Google and internet searches and it is a mystery. I once found a 'Phrasefinder' site and all it said was 'Origin: Believed to have been said by Napoleon when rejecting sex'. Well duhhhhh!!! I think I already knew that !!!

What I'm really wondering is where it actually came from in the first place, and is there any truth behind it?  Come to think of it, I can't even remember where I myself first heard it, yet it's widely known.

[Artful]

I'm going nuts trying to find anything about this, Romeo, but I won't give up. There must be something somewhere even if to say it's a load of cods!

[Artful]

Well, Ive continued to search, Romeo, but I find nothing. However I did find what he supposedly said when he bedded her for the first time at the Tuileries:

�Viens, petite cr�ole, te coucher dans le lit de tes ma�tres !�