Don’t wash
Long time ago I heard that Napoleon once wrote a letter to Josephine saying only “Home in three days — don’t wash.” I’ve been trying to find out if it’s true, and not having much luck. Nothing about it on Snopes or in the Wikipedia articles about them. Hmmm. Google doesn’t help much, either — there are mentions of the quotation, but nothing definitively saying “he said this.” At least nothing in the first few pages of links. Did find a link to a site that has the text of some of Napoleon’s letters to her. They made interesting reading. A strange mix of desperate passion and matter-of-fact news updates. It would be wonderful to see the letters in his handwriting. The “don’t wash” quotation didn’t turn up on that site, but surely all his letters aren’t posted there. Who knows if these are even authentic. So no luck there… but there was one interesting remark, more explicit than the others: “A kiss on the heart, and one lower down, much lower!” So perhaps he was not above the occasional racy innuendo.
In looking through the various articles and postings, I saw a reference to “9 Thermidor,” which seemed to be a date. Like a calendar date. But what kind of date is that? Back to Wikipedia! Turns out the French adopted a different calendar for a little while after the revolution. I never knew that! They made it mostly decimal — twelve months, but weeks are ten days, and days are ten hours, and hours and minutes are divided into hundredths. Crazy! Lovely old clock, though.