It was scandalous. Many men had “known” Rose (winkie winkie) before N.B. met her and determined that she would be good for his career. She brought him “gravitas,” and she wasn’t hard to look at, so four months after meeting her, he married her.

The wedding night had its bumps. Perhaps miffed that her groom had been hours late for their wedding ceremony, Rose refused to boot her dog, a Pug, out of the bed. Not enamored of strangers to begin with, the Pug gave the new husband a “love nip” at a most inopportune time (winkie winkie) and left a scar that would remain for life. It was a hint of things to come, and only cemented in N.B.’s mind that short dogs were trouble.

By the way, “Rose” was the bride’s real name, but her new husband changed it to something he was sure no one else had whispered in her ear before: Josephine. N.B. was Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Pug’s name was “Fortune.” Napoleon’s relationship with dogs was sketchy, if not odd, all of his life, so the footnote to his story is one we never tire of sharing. The last remaining descendant of the original Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in New York City in 1945 from injuries he sustained from a stumble over his dog’s leash during a walk in Central Park. The dog’s breed? A Pug.

Image: “Lady Marmalade Of Lydiard Pug” by Nan Wright
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