Joséphine Bonaparte (, born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie; 23 June 1763 – 29 May 1814) was the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I and as such Empress of the French from 18 May 1804 until their marriage was annulled on 10 January 1810. As Napoleon's consort, she was also Queen of Italy from 26 May 1805 until the 1810 annulment. She is widely known as Joséphine de Beauharnais () or Empress Joséphine.
Joséphine's marriage to Napoleon was her second. Her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she was imprisoned in the Carmes prison until five days after his execution. Through her children by Beauharnais, she was the grandmother of Emperor Napoleon III of France and Empress Amélie of Brazil. Members of the current royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway and the grand ducal family of Luxembourg also descend from her. Because she did not bear Napoleon any children, he had their marriage annulled and married Marie Louise of Austria. Joséphine was the recipient of numerous love letters written by Napoleon, many of which still exist.
A patron of art, Joséphine worked closely with sculptors, painters and interior decorators to establish a unique Consular and empire style at the Château de Malmaison. She became one of the leading collectors of different forms of art of her time, such as sculpture and painting.Delorme, Eleanor P. Josephine and the Arts of the Empire. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty museum, 2005, 1. The Château de Malmaison was noted for its rose garden, which she supervised closely.
Name Although she is often referred to as "Joséphine de Beauharnais", it is not a name she herself used. "Beauharnais" is the name of her first husband, which she ceased to use upon her marriage to Napoleon, taking the last name "Bonaparte". Her full first names were Marie-Josèphe-Rose. She did not use the name "Joséphine" before meeting Napoleon, who was the first to call her such. Before she met Napoleon, she went by the name of Rose, or Marie-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, later de Beauharnais. She sometimes reverted to using her maiden name in later life. After her marriage to then-General Bonaparte, she adopted the name Joséphine Bonaparte. The misnomer "Joséphine de Beauharnais" emerged during the restoration of the Bourbons, who were hesitant to refer to her by either Napoleon's surname or her imperial title.
Family background
The Taschers were an ancient French noble family of landed gentry, and Joséphine's grandfather, Gaspard-Joseph Tascher de La Pagerie (1705–1767) was the first to settle in Le Carbet on Martinique in 1726. He seems to have lived in poverty there, but secured a position for his son, Joseph-Gaspard Tascher de La Pagerie (5 July 1735 – 7 November 1790) as a page in the household of the Dauphine of France, Maria Josepha of Saxony.
After spending three years from 1752 in France, Joseph-Gaspard returned to Martinique and married on 9 November 1761 Marie Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois (27 August 1736 – 1 June 1807), whose maternal grandfather, Anthony Brown, may have been Irish. Rose-Claire was from one of the oldest European families on the island, and the Tascher family home near Les Trois-Îlets, a sugar plantation, which is now a museum, was part of her dowry.
On Martinique, Joseph-Gaspard had an income as a plantation owner and as a lieutenant of the Troupes de marine, and also a small pension for his previous work in the French royal household. He was almost always close to bankruptcy and suffered from ill health.
Disputed birthplace
Marie-Josèphe-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie was born in Paix Bouche, Babonneau, Saint Lucia on 23 June 1763. The church registry in Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique states that Joséphine was baptised there by Emmanuel Capuchin but does not say she was born there.
Joséphine's father owned an estate in Soufrière District on Saint Lucia, called Malmaison, which later was also the name of her famous French residence. In 1802, Dom Daviot, parish priest in Gros Islet on Saint Lucia, wrote a letter to one of his friends, stating that "it is in the vicinity of [my] parish that the wife of the first consul was born". He asserted that he was well acquainted with Joséphine's cousin, his parishioner.
In Henry H. Breen's 1844 The History of St. Lucia, he stated that he had met with "several well-informed persons" who were convinced that Empress Joséphine had been born there. Breen presented some evidence for this, including a newspaper clipping from 1831 which said that it was "alleged" that the de Taschers were among the first settlers of Saint Lucia, and that the future empress was born on a small estate on a hill then called La Cauzette, and later known as Morne Paix Bouche. According to this story, the family lived there until 1771, when the father went to serve as intendant of Martinique. Some people even claimed to have been among Joséphine's playmates, and one of them said that he had been "graciously received" by the empress in Château de Malmaison outside Paris. Breen received further confirmation from Joséphine's enslaved nanny, Dede, who said that she nursed Joséphine at La Cauzette.
According to those who believe that Joséphine was born on Saint Lucia, the de Tascher estate in Martinique was only a pied-à-terre, occasional lodging, for when they wanted to stay with his mother-in-law. Saint Lucia switched hands between Great Britain and France fourteen times, and there were no civil registers on the island when Joséphine was born. Saint Lucia's frequent change of ownership between Britain and France could be seen as the reason her birthplace was left out of her birth record, as it would have affected her nationality.
Regardless of where she was born, Joséphine was her parents' first child, and they had two more: Catherine-Désirée in 1764 and Marie-Françoise in 1766. At the ages of ten and nine, Joséphine and Catherine-Désirée were sent to a boarding school in Fort-Royal, run by the Bénédictines de la Providence. There, they learned to read, write, sing, dance, and embroider for four years. After the death of Catherine-Désirée, Joséphine returned to her parents' plantation. Joséphine's nurse was an enslaved person called Marion, whose freedom she would secure in 1807.
First marriage
Joséphine's paternal aunt, Marie Euphémie Désirée Tascher de la Pagerie (1739–1803), was at first the mistress, later became the second wife of a French naval officer, François de Beauharnais, Governor of Martinique, who came from a less ancient but richer noble Beauharnais family. While living on Martinique, de Beauharnais had a son, Alexandre, by his first wife, Marie Anne Henriette Françoise Pyvart de Chastullé (1722–1766). Soon, the parents returned to France, and left the infant with the Tascher family until 1766. When he had come of age, his father's mistress, who was also Alexandre's godmother, decided that it would be advantageous to her if he married one of her nieces. Aged seventeen, he judged fifteen-year-old Joséphine to be too close to him in age, and thus, Catherine-Désirée Tascher de la Pagerie (1764–1777) was chosen for him. As the bride's father was impoverished and the bridegroom was to become a wealthy man upon his marriage, he asked for no dowry.
By the time Alexandre's father had proposed in a letter, Catherine-Désirée had died in 1777. Not wanting to lose the rich suitor, her father offered his youngest daughter instead, which was accepted by Alexandre. Marie-Françoise was not yet twelve, however, and her mother and grandmother were not willing to let her go. In the end, Joséphine was engaged to Alexandre.
In October 1779, she went to France with her father. She married Alexandre on 13 December 1779, in Noisy-le-Grand. They had two children: a son, Eugène de Beauharnais, and a daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (who later married Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte in 1802). Alexandre assumed legal paternity of Hortense, but when Joséphine announced him the birth he wrote her that he knew for certain that baby was the result of adultery. p. 422 Joséphine and Alexandre's marriage was not a happy one. Alexandre abandoned his family for over a year to live with a mistress and frequented brothels, leading to a court-ordered separation during which Joséphine and the children lived at Alexandre's expense in the Pentemont Abbey.
On 2 March 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the arrest of her husband. He was jailed in the Carmes Prison in Paris. Considering Joséphine as being too close to the counter-revolutionary financial circles, the Committee ordered her arrest on 18 April 1794. A warrant of arrest was issued against her on 21 April 1794, and she was imprisoned in the Carmes Prison until 28 July. During this time, Joséphine was only allowed to communicate with her children by their scrawls on the laundry list, which the jailers soon prohibited.
Her husband was accused of having poorly defended Mainz in July 1793, and being considered an aristocratic suspect, was sentenced to death and guillotined with his cousin Augustin on 23 July 1794, on the Place de la Révolution (later Place de la Concorde) in Paris. Joséphine was freed five days later, thanks to the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre, which ended the Reign of Terror. On 27 July 1794 Tallien arranged the liberation of Thérèse Cabarrus, and soon after that of Joséphine. In June 1795, a new law allowed her to recover the possessions of Alexandre.
Marriage to Napoleon
Madame de Beauharnais had affairs with several leading political figures, including Paul Barras. In 1795, she met Napoleon Bonaparte, six years her junior, and became his mistress. In a letter to her in December, he wrote, "I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night's intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses." In January 1796, Napoleon proposed to her and they were married on 9 March. On the marriage certificate, Joséphine reduced her age by 4 years and increased Napoleon's by 18 months, making the newly-weds appear to be roughly the same age. Until meeting Bonaparte, she was known as Rose, but Bonaparte preferred to call her Joséphine, the name she adopted from then on.
The marriage was not well received by Napoleon's family, who were shocked that he had married an older widow with two children. His mother and sisters were especially resentful of Joséphine, as they felt clumsy and unsophisticated in her presence.Epton, Nina (1975). Josephine, the Empress and Her Children. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., pp. 54, 66–67.
Joséphine, left behind in Paris, in 1796 began an affair with a Hussar lieutenant, Hippolyte Charles. Rumors of the affair reached Napoleon; he was infuriated, and his love for her changed entirely.
Napoleon frequently wrote passionate letters to her from Italy, begging her to join him in Milan after he occupied the city on 10 May 1796. Under significant pressure, Joséphine finally agreed to travel to Italy and arrived in Milan on 10 July 1796, and Hippolyte was part of her entourage. She stayed in Italy for the next 18 months, based primarily in Milan and later at the nearby Château de Mombello, where she was joined by Napoleon's family.
Two days after the wedding, Bonaparte left Paris to lead the Army of Italy. During their separation, he sent her many love letters. In February 1797, he wrote: "You to whom nature has given spirit, sweetness, and beauty, you who alone can move and rule my heart, you who know all too well the absolute empire you exercise over it!"
In 1798, Napoleon led a French army to Egypt. During this campaign, Napoleon started an affair of his own with Pauline Fourès, the wife of a junior officer, who became known as "Napoleon's Cleopatra." The relationship between Joséphine and Napoleon was never the same after this.