A woman of mythical allure and legendary charm, Joséphine, Napoleon's consort and empress of the French, was born on June 23, 1763, at her family's sugar plantation on the French Caribbean island of Martinique. Christened Marie-Joséphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, she was known as "Rose" from her birth until young General Bonaparte pronounced her his "sweet and incomparable Joséphine."      
 

By the time of their first meeting in 1795, Joséphine had lived through one of the most turbulent periods in French history.  Married at 16 to a young army officer, vicomte (viscount) Alexandre de Beauharnais, they had two gifted children,  Eugene and Hortense.  The marriage, however, was not happy and the couple separated.  Alexandre perished in the guillotine during the Reign of Terror and Joséphine barely escaped the same fate when Robespierre fell a few days later. 
 
Having experienced near starvation, Joséphine turned herself into an accomplished hostess who enjoyed the support of powerful patrons.  She was the mistress of Director Paul Barras when she first caught the eye of the young general Bonaparte. Six years younger than Josephine, he was struck by "her extraordinary grace and irresistibly sweet manner," as well as by her aristocratic bearing and political connections.  Joséphine was initially not impressed by the gauche, thin, and unkempt general, but his ardent wooing and her desire for security led her to accept his proposal of marriage.  
 
Two days after their wedding on March 9, 1796, Napoleon left Joséphine to lead the French army in Italy, from where he wrote reams of passionate love letters, pleading with his bride to join him. "Not one day has passed that I have not loved you, not one night that I have not clasped you in my arms.  I have not drunk so much as a cup of tea without cursing the call of glory and ambition which have wrenched me from you who are my life, my soul."  Joséphine, enjoying her new status as the wife of a celebrated hero, resisted.  She had also become infaturated with a dashing young officer, Hippolyte Charles. 
 
Napoleon learned of Joséphine's infidelity while in Egypt and was devastated.  He contemplated divorce, but her entreaties and his affection for her children led to reconciliation.  Their relationship, however, was inalterably changed.  Having been among the last to realize her husband's greatness, Joséphine fell in love with him and became a loyal and supportive consort.  Napoleon's numerous affairs were deeply hurtful, but the marriage proved a successful partnership in which Joséphine acted as a trusted confidante whose astute political sense and flawless social skills helped win over opponents, and whose exceptional esthetic sense set the tone of the Empire. Joséphine was an important patron of the arts and commissioned exquisite artworks that made the Empire style admired and copied throughout the western world.  A keen and knowledgeable horticulturalist, she spent huge sums in the gardens of her beloved Malmaison, outside Paris, and grew, for the first time in France, a large variety of new plants, flowers, and trees.  Many came from Australia, recently discovered by Captain Cook, as did a pair of black swans, that  became Josephine's favorite emblem.   
 

Napoleon reluctantly divorced her on January 10, 1810 when it became clear she could not produce an heir.  She retained the title of Empress and was granted extensive properties.  Josephine  remained popular among the French people and in good terms with Napoleon.  She died in 1814 and is buried in the small church of Rueil, not far from Malmaison.  During his last exile in St. Helena, Napoleon conceded that his policies and personal happiness would have been best served by a child with Josephine - and called her:  "grace personified...the most amiable and the best of women."  The name he had given her - Joséphine -  was the last word that passed his lips. 

 

Josephine's daughter Hortense married Napoleon's brother Louis and their son became Napoleon III of France. Her granddaughter Josephine, daughter of Eugène, married King Oscar I of Sweden, the son of Napoleon's one-time fiancée, Désirée Clary. Through her, Josephine is a direct ancestor of the present heads of the royal houses of Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden.