Part of the joy of history is how resonant it often is. Imagine an ambitious if dysfunctional family with some minor claim to nobility in some far off backwater rising to power – to the highest office in the land – on the strength of a charismatic son known as much for his professional acumen as his arrogant, sometimes outrageous behavior.
Welcome to revolutionary France! When the Italian-by-way-of-Corsica Bonaparte family arrived in France in 1779, when young Napoleon was 9, it set into motion a course of events that would change history. Trained in prestigious French military academies, Napoleon would become a military hero and an influential supporter of the French Revolution and the various governments that followed – including the ones that had nearly beheaded, and then released, Josephine de Beauharnais.
It is a historical irony that Josephine, Empress of France, was not even Josephine until her relationship with Napoleon, and Beauharnais was her first husband’s name. Napoleon didn’t like her given name of Rose, so he changed it, and Josephine’s first extremely unhappy marriage was ended by the revolutionaries’ guillotine to her husband’s neck. Born in colonial Martinique, Josephine made her way to France in place of her recently deceased sister, who had been betrothed to the Viscount of Beauharnais.
Napoleon and Josephine had a passionate, if rocky, marriage that his family always detested. His mother referred to his wife in highly derogatory terms, and his brothers turned themselves into the Hardy Boys of Gossip Against Josephine. Napoleon’s sisters hated Josephine as well, so it’s a wonder that the couple made it 14 years. Still, once you go from Republican-leaning military officer to Emperor, you have to give your country an heir, and while Josephine entered the marriage with two children from her first, Napoleon had been notably childless both with her and his many mistresses.
Then – like a miracle, and possibly through his own family’s trickery – one of his mistresses gave birth to a baby he believed was his own! Josephine’s time as his wife was clearly limited; they annulled their 14-year-long marriage in 1810, and Josephine lived out her days at the Chateau de Malmaison outside of Paris, tending a lavish garden of roses and remaining close to her former husband until her death in 1814.
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Sources
Napoleon: His Wives and Women, by Christopher Hibbert (Amazon.com)
Empress Josephine (en.wikipedia.org)
House of Bonaparte (en.wikipedia.org)
Napoleon (en.wikipedia.org)
Napoleon’s Mother, Letizia Bonaparte (shannonselin.com)
10 Interesting Facts About Napoleon’s Family (shannonselin.com)
