Napoleon and dogs: the pug, the battlefield, and the truth

Part 1

What Napoleon actually thought of dogs

There is no record of a dog in Napoleon's family home in Corsica, and none during his early military career. The first dog to enter his life came through his marriage to Josephine, whose pug Fortuné treated him as an unwelcome guest in her rooms. Fortuné was possessive of Josephine and hostile toward men who came near her, and Napoleon had little fondness for him afterward.

Even so, Napoleon did not turn against dogs in general. He once told the courtiers who had failed to follow him into exile that there are two kinds of fidelity, that of dogs and that of cats, and that they had only the fidelity of cats who never leave the house. He also said that if you do not like dogs, you do not like fidelity, and that you do not like those who are attached to you. If your own dog has ever stayed close to you through a hard stretch, you may recognize the loyalty Napoleon was describing.

Many of these anecdotes come from Napoleon's own words, recorded by people close to him. The wedding night story was told by Napoleon himself to his friend, the playwright Antoine-Vincent Arnault. The battlefield story was dictated by Napoleon to the Comte de Las Cases, the historian who helped him write his memoirs.

• This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment, yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog.
• There are two kinds of fidelity, that of dogs and that of cats.
• If you do not like dogs, you do not like fidelity.

Part 2

Josephine's pug Fortuné and the wedding night story

Fortuné was a pug, given to Josephine as a puppy by her friend Thérésa Cabarrus. He had a fawn-colored body, a black muzzle, and a curly tail, and he was not the calmest example of his breed. During the Reign of Terror, when Josephine was imprisoned at Les Carmes in 1794, Fortuné carried secret letters to her hidden under his collar. Josephine's husband Alexandre was guillotined that July, and she was released from prison five days after his death.

Two years later, Josephine married Napoleon, and Fortuné had no intention of giving up his place in her bed. On the night of the wedding in March 1796, Napoleon tried to remove the dog, and Fortuné bit him, leaving a scar on his leg. Napoleon later joked to Arnault that the pug was his rival, saying he had to share his bed with him because there was no other way. Napoleon left for Italy two days after the wedding, and he later wrote to Josephine complaining that she loved Fortuné more than she loved her husband.

By one account, Napoleon feared he was dying of rabies after the bite. Fortuné later died in Italy after a fight with a mastiff owned by Napoleon's cook, and Josephine was given a new pug named after him. If you have ever tried to move a small dog out of your own bed, you may find the scene easy to picture.

Part 3

The battlefield dog that reportedly guarded a fallen soldier

After a battle in Italy in 1796, Napoleon walked across a battlefield covered with the bodies of men who had been killed hours before. He later said that a dog leapt out from under a dead soldier's cloak, ran toward him, then rushed back to the body, licking the soldier's face and howling. Napoleon believed the dog was seeking both help and revenge for its master.

He said nothing on any other battlefield had affected him the way this dog did. In the fuller version of the story, Napoleon recalled that he had given orders that killed thousands without being moved, yet the grief of one dog stirred him to tears. He is said to have been haunted by the scene for the rest of his life.

The version dictated to Las Cases links the scene to the Battle of Bassano, during Napoleon's Italian campaign. If you have ever seen a dog stay beside someone it cannot help, the pull of this story is not hard to understand.

Part 4

Did Napoleon keep dogs of his own

There is no mention of Napoleon having a dog in childhood or during his early military career. The first dog connected to his household was Fortuné, and that dog belonged to Josephine, not to him. When Fortuné died, Josephine was given a second pug by Hippolyte Charles, a lieutenant of the household guard, and Napoleon was reportedly unhappy to share his bedroom with another dog.

Outside his own household, Napoleon's attitude toward dogs appeared to be much more favorable. During his escape from Elba in 1815, a fisherman's dog, thought to have been a Newfoundland, is said to have jumped into the sea and kept him afloat after he was thrown overboard. He also told the courtiers who had not followed him that there are two kinds of fidelity, that of dogs and that of cats.

Some claims about Napoleon and dogs are harder to confirm, such as the report that he passed a law banning anyone from naming a dog Napoleon. Treat such details with caution unless you can trace them to a firmer source.

Part 5

Why these stories about Napoleon and dogs endured

Napoleon dictated much of his own life story to the Comte de Las Cases, which is how the battlefield dog story survives in his own words. The wedding night story reached readers through Arnault's account and has since been retold in books and articles about Napoleon's private life.

These stories fit a familiar contrast in how Napoleon is remembered: a commander who ordered thousands of deaths without visible feeling, yet who wept at the grief of one dog. If you are curious about your own dog's loyalty, these two centuries-old scenes still speak plainly about what that loyalty can look like.