Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763 - 1814)

Joséphine de Beauharnais

Joséphine de Beauharnais, born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, was Empress of France from 1804 to 1809, the first wife of Napoleon I.

At the age of 16, Rose came to France to marry a young officer, Alexandre de Beauharnais. However, after the birth of their two children, the couple separated but maintained a relationship. During the French Revolution, her husband, who served in the revolutionary army, was guillotined in June 1794. Rose herself was imprisoned, but after the coup d'état of July 27, which ended the terror, she was released.

She was soon introduced to General Napoleon Bonaparte, and although she was a poor widow with two children, he was charmed and married her in a civil marriage in 1796. He and began to call her Josephine. She was with him all the way from general to First Consul and in May 1804 to Emperor of France. However, Josephine failed to produce an heir, prompting Napoleon, in the interest of the country, to divorce her in 1809. Retaining the title of empress and queen, she went to live at Château Malmaison near Paris and then at her Château of Navarre in Normandy, where she died in 1814, a few weeks after Napoleon's abdication.