Power. Destiny. Passion. 
The lives and loves of Napoleon and Josephine 

Napoleon once said ‘The word impossible is not in my dictionary’. This bold statement gives us a great insight into the headspace of this man whose life charted the extremes of victory and defeat. This was a man fuelled by an insatiable desire for power, but one also instilled with great abilities and immense powers of creativity. Napoleon is also famous for saying: ‘Imagination rules the world’. Both Napoleon – and his great love, Josephine – were highly innovative individuals whose talents were many and whose influence changed politics and science and the arts forever. They were trailblazers – this was a power couple with hyperbolic ambition but also extraordinary imagination. 
I’m Rachael Blake and welcome to the National Gallery of Victoria, and welcome to this years Melbourne Winter Masterpiece, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire
Napoleon and Josephine are hugely iconic figures in history. When people achieve such fame it is sometimes hard to get a sense of them as real people with real lives. But that is our focus for today – this story is about the private lives of Napoleon and Josephine. 
This is a tale of great love but also great loss; a tale of men triumphant but also defeated; a tale of extreme power and ambition but also of exile and execution. Along the way there will be heads on the chopping block and assassinations by the ‘infernal machine’; there will be jealous sisters and disapproving mothers; there will be kangaroos on ships and bees in Notre Dame Cathedral. 
And so our tale begins with a journey to the ends of the earth…