Josefina Bonaparte
(Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, called Josefina de Beauharnais or Josefina Bonaparte; Trois-Îlets, Martinique, 1763-Malmaison, France, 1814) Empress of France (1804-1809).Wife in second nuptials of Napoleon, Josefina Bonaparte lived linked in the first instance to the aristocracy to, after the revolutionary period, access the highest dignity of the French state as empress consort.
Josefina Bonaparte (detail of a portrait of François Gérard, 1801)
Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was born in Trois-Îlets, on the island of Martinique, on June 23, 1763.Daughter of a navy lieutenant, she married Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais in 1779, then moving her residence to Paris.However, the union between them was not a happy one, and after the birth of their two children, the marriage broke up because of Josefina's "provincial ways" in her eyes.During the French Revolution the Viscount de Beauharnais was guillotined (1794), and Josephine herself remained confined until 9 Thermidor.
After her release, Josefina became one of the most popular figures in Parisian society, and through the mediation of Viscount Paul Barras, a prominent member of the Directory, she met the then General Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom she would marry civil in 1796.His contacts served for Napoleon to be appointed general in chief of the army of Italy.However, Josefina's dissipated behavior, as well as her indifference towards her husband, led Napoleon to threaten her with divorce, a threat that was not carried out due to the intervention of Josefina's children.
Despite this, The discomfort caused by her disorderly life, Napoleon preserved his affection for her until 1809, the year in which, eager for an heir to his throne of emperor that Josephine seemed unable to give him, he disowned her.Lavishly compensated, Josephine Bonaparte then retired to her residence at Malmaison and kept in touch with the emperor until his abdication.The empress died in Malmaison, France, on May 29, 1814.
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