23rd June

'Ne ce soir, Josephine,' Napoleon is reputed to have said, which is a shame because Josephine de Beauharnais was a bit of a cracker. as a child of the West Indies, she was the subject of one of Elvis's best known films, Kid Creole, though I have to say I always thought he was a little miscast. Anyhoo, born today in 1763, she was dazzling, vivacious, funny and intelligent, as opposed to Napoleon's second wife, the terribly boring Marie-Louise. What possessed Napoleon to jilt Josephine for Marie-Louise? Josephine didn't provide him with an heir; Marie-Louise did.

Go, as our American cousins say for some ungrammatical reason, figure.

In other news ...
The British won a classic victory today over Suraj-od-Dowlah, the Namib of Bengal. Robert Clive (he of India) was a very strange man, haunted by rumours of cowardice. According to the incomparable Sellar and Yeatman of 1066 and All That fame, he was a typist in the East India Company. Actually of course he was a brilliant general who just happened to have a City and Guilds in keyboard skills.

Check out his victory at Plassey on this day in 1757.