WI: Napoleon marries his sister Pauline

Iggies

This is a bit of a weird and rather improbable one...let me elaborate. It was long rumored that Napoleon was in an incestuous relationship with his little sister Pauline. Supposedly, Napoleon, who was always fascinated with the ancient east, fantasized about marrying her and ruling on the river Nile, like the old pharaohs. I think a few of his former courtier and marshals made the same charge in later years. It's almost certainly bullshit since "that guy is fucking his relatives" is one of the oldest political smears of all time.

But say it wasn't and all the power goes to Napoleon's head even more so than it did IOTL, to where he decides he really can do absolutely whatever he likes.

c. 1810, When he realizes he needs an heir and divorces Josephine, instead of going for a foreign princess he announces he's going to marry Pauline. His ministers and marshals all laugh at the awkward joke until they realize he's serious.

Basically I'm just curious whether he could get away with it. Obviously marrying your sibling was as big a no-no in this period as it is today. But Napoleon was at his most powerful around the time he married Marie-Louise OTL, and very likely the most powerful guy on earth. I don't know if even this would be enough to make much of a dent in his support base. Is anyone going to get off the Napoleonic gravy train just because the Emperor's a little touched in the head? Obviously the church isn't going to bless this marriage but then again Napoleon's already been excommunicated.
 
Jonathan

Jonathan

ASB.
The relationship between Napoleon and the Catholic Church was an important aspect of his rule.

Incest is a sin, Leviticus 18:9, prohibited a relationship with one's paternal or maternal sister.

Yes I know that Popes in the past have allows members of Royalty to marry their nieces and cousins, however this is a step to far for any pope.
 
Atterdag

Atterdag

Jonathan said:
ASB.
Click to expand...
Not asb, probably just requires Napoleon to go full out insane or become so megalomaniacal that he thinks he can do anything, with the logical consequences following. It wouldn’t require literal magic for it to happen.

I’ll agree though that no, he can’t get away with it.
 
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Jonathan

Jonathan

Atterdag said:
Not asb, probably just requires Napoleon to go full out insane or become so megalomaniacal that he thinks he can do anything, with the logical consequences following. It wouldn’t require literal magic for it to happen.

I’ll agree though that no, he can’t get away with it.
Click to expand...
Yes ASB regards alternate history scenarios that involve time travel, magic, alien intervention but it also regards alternate history scenarios that are completely implausible and going against everything without a reasonable explanation.

Napoleon would be arrested for crimes against the church, the second he contemplated marrying his sister, losing all power and staying locked away, which is completely out of character.
Using the excuse, the pagan Egyptians did it won’t stand as pharaohs did it to keep their “godly” blood pure.
 
Aluma

Aluma

Jonathan said:
Yes ASB regards alternate history scenarios that involve time travel, magic, alien intervention but it also regards alternate history scenarios that are completely implausible and going against everything without a reasonable explanation
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Are you sure?
The ASB forum rules say:
"ASB IS for alternate history scenarios that involve time travel, magic, alien intervention, anything in the sea of time, and other such weirdness.

Threads with evolution and geological PODs belong in ASB.

ASB is not for implausible historical scenarios.

"Challenge: German naval invasion of Britain in 1941" is very implausible, but not ASB. "Axis Forces from Russian border 21 June 1941 appear in South England instead" is ASB."
 

Lalli

Very, very implausible. Not ASB but still extremely implasuible. Napolon was surely powerhungry and quiet maalomanic but hardly stupid enough to do something like that. Catholic Church never owuld accept that and pope probably would excommunicate the couple.

And people and Napoleon's marshals wouldn't accept that. Hardly even Napoleon's borthers would are very happy. The emperor would be ousted pretty quickly and perhaps executed. Probably there would be earlier Bourbon restauration. A<nd if France ever becomes republic again, any other Bonaparte probably have not much if any chances to get power so no Second French Empire at least not under BOnaparte.
 
Aluma

Aluma

Could he organize a secret marriage on the Nile or some random pyramid and publically condemn "liars" for "inventing" such a thing while he oficially marries Marie-Louise?
I'm not sure if a guy like him could hide an affair with his own sister but I think he'd have better chances trying to do that stealthly rather than announcing it to the whole Europe
 
Jonathan

Jonathan

BrSonic said:
Are you sure?
The ASB forum rules say:
"ASB IS for alternate history scenarios that involve time travel, magic, alien intervention, anything in the sea of time, and other such weirdness.

Threads with evolution and geological PODs belong in ASB.

ASB is not for implausible historical scenarios.

"Challenge: German naval invasion of Britain in 1941" is very implausible, but not ASB. "Axis Forces from Russian border 21 June 1941 appear in South England instead" is ASB."
Click to expand...
Implausible is something like:
- Napoleon marrying Charlotte, Princess of Wales
- Napoleon marrying Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Madame Royale
- Napoleon marrying a common French woman.
- Napoleon marrying a minor royal French or foreign woman.

The reason in opinion that I believe this is ASB is because it is not an action that could be in the realms of reality.
I can see no public figure following the rules of Catholicism will perform a brother-sister liaison.
 
Nagisaki

Nagisaki

Jonathan said:
Yes I know that Popes in the past have allows members of Royalty to marry their nieces and cousins, however this is a step to far for any pope.
Click to expand...
cough

Pope Julius III did give dispensation to one of the Neo-Incan rulers to marry his sister. So it's, err, not exactly unheard of.
 

Lalli

Jonathan said:
Implausible is something like:
- Napoleon marrying Charlotte, Princess of Wales
- Napoleon marrying Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Madame Royale
- Napoleon marrying a common French woman.
- Napoleon marrying a minor royal French or foreign woman.

The reason in opinion that I believe this is ASB is because it is not an action that could be in the realms of reality.
I can see no public figure following the rules of Catholicism will perform a brother-sister liaison.
Click to expand...

Napoleon marrying his sister is extremelyu implasuible but not ASB. You don't need intervention of god/s, possession by demons or some other magical thins. You just need change bit someone behave. He would just violate common morale and laws but not laws of physics. It would be ASB if he would marry his great-great-grandmother, queen Cleopatra or whoever other woman who has been dead really long time before Napoleon's days.
 

Kellan Sullivan

Not to mention the comte d'Armagnac who married his sister with a forged papal dispensation. Which would suggest - that considering NOBODY questioned it until AFTER they were already married with four kids, would suggest that such things WERE possible
 

Falecius

First, when Napoleon was alive, nobody knew much of anything about Pharaohs, though the incestuous habits of the last dynasty (the Lagids) were of course well known, and generally despised. Incestuous customs were known (Voltaire references to those among the Mazdaean minority in Persia, with seeming approval).
But very obviously nobody in France was going to accept that. This is not ASB as in "physically impossible", but marriages are not a matter of physics. In France, in Napoleonic times, a brother-sister marriage was strictly impossible because it ran against the definition of marriage everyone agreed upon.
This would not, clearly, stop Napoleon and Pauline to have sex if they wanted to, but marriages are a matter of social and legal recognition from others, by definition, and that recognition was NEVER going to happen.
 
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ImperialxWarlord

ImperialxWarlord

I don’t see how this ain’t ASB. Making him marry his sister isn’t something that can happen based off of a realistic change in his behavior. This requires some major alterations to his character that just aren’t plausible. It’s not like saying “ITTL X didn’t commit his reserves so early in the battle meaning he wasn’t defeated and then killed in the retreat. Meaning the kingdom Y would rule the lands not kingdom Z like IOTL”. Such an action would require someone or something to totally change Napoleon’s rational in a way that wouldn’t happen normally.
 

isabella

I doubt who Napoleon ever thought to sleep with Pauline (rumors of that kind usually were totally untrue) but he would need to be fully crazy for only thinking to marry her… Such wedding would be totally unacceptable and he would lose all his supporters
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
Presumably this requires a change of religion, whether to Islam or some new amalgam he creates. He can't do it as a Catholic, but assuming that this is not the point, then the question really is HOW to make this plausible.

As you say, your premise is a new religion of the East, but after Acre the closest Napoleon got to the East was either his amalgamation of the Illyrian lands, or the invasion of Russia and occupation of Moscow, depending on how you define all this.

So. to make this work, we are looking at a situation where Nelson fails at Aboukir, or his army does not get defeated at Acre. Or, I guess, an alternate invasion of the East later, perhaps instead of Russia.
 
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