Josephine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was Napoleon's first wife and was divorced for failing to produce an heir. Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinique in 1763 on a sugar plantation worked by enslaved people, she was sent to France at sixteen for an arranged marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais, who found her provincial and neglected her. He was guillotined in July 1794. She was imprisoned in the Carmes for months and released days after Thermidor. She survived afterwards on her charm and on the protection of Paul Barras, and became a fixture of Directory society. She met Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795, six years her junior; he was obsessively in love, wrote her letters of extraordinary intensity from Italy, and renamed her Joséphine. She was unfaithful during that campaign, which he learned of and which permanently altered the balance between them. She was crowned empress in 1804 — the coronation picture shows Napoleon crowning her — and was an accomplished consort, managing the court, mediating for petitioners and softening his decisions. She was also a serious horticulturist. She assembled at Malmaison the finest rose collection in Europe, some 250 varieties, and imported plants and animals from around the world; the naturalists she employed and Redouté's paintings are a real contribution to botany. The marriage produced no children, and Napoleon needed a dynasty. They divorced in 1810 and he married Marie Louise of Austria. She kept the title, the estate and his affection, and died of pneumonia in 1814. He is said to have spoken her name at the end.
- Lived: 1763 CE – 1814 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: empress, consort, socialite
