Orson Welles’ film “Citizen Kane” begins with Kane on his deathbed. As he expires he utters the word “rosebud”. It is only at the end of the film, after we have witnessed his ruthless rise to enormous wealth and power, that we find out that rosebud was the name of his favourite toy as a child, a simple wooden sledge. As he died, after a life of material success and glory, he chooses to think of a time of innocence and purity.
One evening in November 1787 a young French artillery officer, recently arrived from the provinces, decided to go to the galleries surrounding the Palais Royale in Paris. At that time the Palais Royale, in spite of its grand name, was an amalgam of contemporary shopping mall, amusement park and red light district. There, everything was for sale. The officer found what he was looking for, and escorted the young girl back to his lodgings. Afterwards he wrote about the evening in a notebook. What is clear from his words is that the event was more than a transaction. The young woman deeply impressed him. Less than 15 years later he became Emperor of France. He had 20 years of unparalleled fame, wealth and glory. When Napoleon Bonaparte died in 1821 the notebook was found among his belongings. Throughout his rise to power Bonaparte had kept and protected the account of his naive and nervous first sexual experience. The night at the Palais Royale was Napoleon’s “rosebud” moment. Is it going too far to speculate that had Welles made a film of Napoleon’s life, it would have started with him on his deathbed on St Helena uttering the words “Palais Royale”?