This marriage would be highly beneficial for the Tascher family, because it kept the Beauharnais money in their hands however, 12-year-old Catherine died on 16 October 1777, before she could leave Martinique for France. When François's health began to fail, Edmée arranged the advantageous marriage of her niece, Catherine-Désirée, to François's son Alexandre. Edmée (French, Desirée), Joséphine's paternal aunt, had been the mistress of François, Marquis de Beauharnais, a French aristocrat. The family struggled financially after hurricanes destroyed their estate in 1766. She was the eldest daughter of Joseph-Gaspard Tascher (1735–1790), knight, Seigneur de (lord of) la Pagerie, lieutenant of Troupes de Marine, and his wife, the former Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois (1736–1807), whose maternal grandfather, Anthony Brown, may have been Irish. Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie was born in Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique, to a wealthy French family that owned a sugarcane plantation, which is now a museum. The misnomer "Joséphine de Beauharnais" first emerged during the restoration of the Bourbons, who were hesitant to refer to her by either Napoleon's surname or her Imperial title and settled instead on the surname of her late first husband. After her marriage to the then General Bonaparte, she adopted the name Joséphine Bonaparte and the name of "Rose" faded into her past.
In her life before Napoleon, the woman now known as Joséphine went by the name of Rose, or Marie-Rose, Tascher de la Pagerie, later de Beauharnais, and she sometimes reverted to using her maiden-name of Tascher de la Pagerie in later life. The Château de Malmaison was noted for its rose garden, which she supervised closely.Īlthough she is often referred to as "Joséphine de Beauharnais", it is not a name she ever used in her lifetime, as "Beauharnais" is the name of her first husband, which she ceased to use upon her marriage to Napoleon, taking the last name "Bonaparte" while she did not use the name "Joséphine" before meeting Napoleon, who was the first to begin calling her such, perhaps from a middle name of "Josèphe". She became one of the leading collectors of different forms of art of her time, such as sculpture and painting. Joséphine was the recipient of numerous love letters written by Napoleon, many of which still exist.Ī patron of art, Joséphine worked closely with sculptors, painters and interior decorators to establish a unique Consular and Empire style at the Château de Malmaison. Because she did not bear Napoleon any children, he had their marriage annulled in 1810 and married Marie Louise of Austria. Members of the current royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway and the grand ducal family of Luxembourg also descend from her. Through her children by Beauharnais, she was the grandmother of the French emperor Napoleon III and the Brazilian empress Amélie of Leuchtenberg.
Her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she was imprisoned in the Carmes Prison until five days after his execution. She is widely known as Joséphine de Beauharnais ( French: ). Joséphine Bonaparte ( French:, born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie 23 June 1763 – ) was the Empress of the French as the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I.
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