Joséphine de Beauharnais

Biography

A famous fortune-teller, Marie-Anne Lenormand, would have one day predicted to him: “You will be more than one queen! ” .

Girl of Joseph Gaspard de Tascher (1735 - 1791), knight and lord of Pagerie, and Rose Claire of the Orchards of Sannois (1736 - 1807), it holds her first name of dauphine, daughter-in-law of Louis XV and mother of Louis XVI whose his/her father was page.

She married the December 13rd 1779 with Noisy-the-Large the Viscount Alexandre François Marie de Beauharnais (1760 - 1794), an officer of the French Army. This one was initially promised in Catherine Désirée, the sister of Joséphine. But when Catherine died, Alexandre agree to marry Joséphine in the place. The couple gave rise to two children:

Eugene Pink de Beauharnais (1781 - 1824), at the origin of the dukes of Leuchtenberg, and whose several descendants married European monarchs.
Hortense Eugenie Cecile de Beauharnais (1783 - 1837), which married in 1802 Louis Bonaparte, a brother of Napoleon and who was the mother of Napoleon III.

The Beauharnais were separate since many years when the Alexandre Viscount was guillotine, in 1794: they had always known money worries and during the Revolution, Joséphine placed his/her children in training. She escapes from little from the guillotine and valley an love affair with Lazare Hoche during his detention (her husband which had always been unsteady had also a mistress appointed in prison). It is almost by miracle that it avoided the scaffold so much it (enough naively) had been exposed to save royalists. It remained royalist all its life, which explains its loathing later to accept the crown of empress as well as the benevolence of Louis XVIII and its entourage. At its coming out of prison, its dependant beauty and its friendships during its detention open to him the doors of the living rooms to the mode. It is so poor that it is exempted, at the time them evenings, to bring its bread as that was done then.

It became one of the queens of the Directoire, tying a great friendship with Thérésa Tallien and became the mistress of Barras of which it was madly éprise and which it wanted to marry. Joséphine is then a maintained woman. But Barred, being detached from it, seeks to get rid some and presents to him Napoleon Bonaparte, supposed to bring financial stability to him and a good position in the world. Joséphine, even at the beginnings of its marriage, drew from substantial incomes thanks to rather doubtful supply contracts with the army. The agreement with its in-laws was catastrophic, Pauline Bonaparte calling it " the vieille" ; the things worsened when the marriage remained without child.

The " Beauharnais" widow; married civilly Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821) the March 9th 1796 with Paris. It is 27 years old, she has six of more of them. The two husbands cheated on their age and Napoleon feminized the second first name (Joseph) in Joséphine. It was mainly thanks to his wife that Bonaparte was named general-in-chief of the army of Italy. Their life of couple was stormy under the Directoire, because of the chronic inaccuracies of Joséphine, which refused to follow Napoleon in his campaigns. Thereafter, the situation was reversed, Napoleon, not very delicate, did not feel reluctant to take mistresses in the entourage of his wife, and Joséphine which was not unaware of it was to undergo the presence of its rivals. It is in the house of Joséphine, street Chantereine, that the coup d'etat of the 18 Brumaire prepared which led to the Consulat. While waiting, trying to reconcile its in-laws, she Marie her daughter with her brother-in-law, Louis Bonaparte.

The May 18th 1804, the Senate vote unanimously introduction of the imperial government, proclaiming hereditary Napoleon emperor of the French. Royalist in the heart, it will beg Napoleon to give up the throne ( " Please, Napoleon, am not made king! " ). After having married religieusement Joséphine the October 30th with the palate of Tileries believer to avoid divorce or repudiation, had skilfully benefitted from the presence of the Pope [[Black and white VII] to slip that they were not married religieusement] , that who is called from now on Napoleon i is it December 2nd 1804 - crowned emperor by the pope Pie VII with Notre-Dame de Paris. It is itself which posed the imperial crown on the head of his Joséphine wife and who proclaimed it empress.

Joséphine having already two children, Napoleon believed sterile being, until the day when following of his wife gave him a son, Charles Leon. He then decided to repudiate his wife to found a dynasty. The divorce was pronounced in 1809, and the church wedding was cancelled in 1810. Napoleon preserves nevertheless at Joséphine the title of empress. The latter was withdrawn with the Château of Malmaison which it had bought in 1799 and where all the crowned heads ravelled in spring 1814.

Extravagant, always involved in debt, extremely vain (it had hundreds of dresses), it continued after its divorce to profit from generosities of Napoleon; and Louis XVIII, returned on the throne, will agree even with dead of Joséphine to settle the last debts.

Impassioned of botany, it contributed to introduce many floral species in France, in particular in its hot greenhouses of the Petite Malmaison. It is wishto have wished to show to the tsar Alexandre I {{er}} its garden, vêtue of a simple summer dress, which it took cold and contracted the Pneumonie which was to carry it, on May 29th, 1814. It is buried in the church Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul of Rueil-Malmaison.

Among his grandchildren, one counts famous sovereigns. Indeed, by her daughter Hortense, it is large the mother of the emperor Napoleon III. But by her son Eugene, who knew well to marry his children, it is the grandmother of a queen of Sweden (the queen Joséphine), of a Prince Consort of Portugal (the prince Auguste), of an empress of the Brésil (the empress Amélie), of a large-duke of Russia (the large-duke Maximilien) and the ancestor by female way of much of current European crowned heads (current Kings of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Greece).

See too

Marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Joséphine de Beauharnais
Castle of Malmaison
Castle of Small Malmaison

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