A Love For The Ages

Ah, what a story this one is!  It has been the subject of novels and movies, of course– as well as a couple of television programs—so you can tell it must be juicy stuff.

First of all, her name was not really Josephine.  It was Rose  (or, more specifically, Marie Josephe Rose) Tascher.  More on the name thing later.  Rose, as the family called her, was born in 1763, not in France but in Martinique, the daughter of a then-wealthy planter, Joseph Tascher.  The family plantation, named Trois Islets, fell on hard times when a hurricane swept through in 1766, leaving them not exactly penniless, but certainly no longer wealthy.  One of the few potentially valuable resources left to the family was their three daughters who, if they could manage to marry into wealth, might save the family’s fortune.

Hence, Joseph appealed to his sister Edmee, who was living in France in some luxury as the mistress of François de Beauharnais.  Edmee arranged a marriage between Catherine, Rose’s 12-year-old sister, and Alexandre, the son of François de Beauharnais.  Her cooperation might not have been given so readily in the making of this potential union except for the fact that François had become ill, and Edmee hoped that this marriage would ensure her own position as well as assist her brother.

Unfortunately, by the time the arrangements were more or less finalized, Catherine had died.  This placed Joseph in something of a dilemma.  After all, his sister had worked very hard to promote this marriage, and of course he was conscious of his own precarious financial position and his sister’s vulnerability.  So he held his breath and took a chance— he brought his older daughter Rose to France instead.

Apparently Alexandre was less than thrilled by the swap, but, being a good sport, he married Rose instead of sending her back.  After the marriage in 1779, two children arrived, a son Eugene and a daughter Hortense.  Understandably, the marriage was not ideal, and they were frequently apart.

Then came the French Revolution, which roared through their lives like a tornado, resulting in the death of Alexandre at the hands of Mme Guillotine.  Rose found herself imprisoned along with the children.  Evidently, Rose decided to use whatever means might be at her disposal to ensure her safety and that of the children, and although we do not know exactly what those means were, the reader is certainly free to draw his own conclusions.  In any event, she was quite successful, since she was one of the relatively few arrestees associated with the nobility who emerged from prison alive at the end of the Reign of Terror.

Josephine fascinated Napoleon and by 1795 they had become lovers. Napoleon, at least, had fallen hard. He wrote to her:

I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s
intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses… I yield to this passion
that rules me and drink a burning flame from your lips and your heart.

One historian has described Josephine at this time as a woman who possessed what we might call today a “sexy walk” and a voice to match, adding that she was a woman of much charm and great charisma, but not necessarily a classic beauty.  It is worth noting that the same type of description is frequently applied by historians to Cleopatra.

Napoleon, who was then a Major-General in the army, quickly proposed, and they were married in March 1796, just before he marched off to conquer Italy on behalf of France.  He called his wife Josephine, perhaps a slight revision of her own middle name, and for a wedding present gave her a medallion which said “To Destiny.” Little did she know!

And, after all, how could she have known?  By all accounts, Napoleon was not much to look at, and although he appeared to be intelligent he also seemed awkward and serious.  In fact, he seemed to be the opposite of a number of her previous lovers, many of whom had been, if important, also lighthearted and amusing.  She had hesitated before agreeing to the marriage, but finally gave in because she believed that at least Napoleon had promise.  Besides, marriage did not necessarily imply fidelity.  If this was a love match for Napoleon, Josephine herself probably reasoned that she would be able to pursue other interests.

Which she proceeded to do while Napoleon was fighting so successfully in Italy.
He sent frequent letters in which he asked her to join him, to come to Milan where they could be together as newlyweds.  He complained that she did not write to him every day.  Never one to mince words, he wrote:

But you are coming, aren’t you? You are going to be here beside me, in my arms, on my breast, on my mouth?  Take wing and come, come!  A kiss on your heart, and one much lower down, much lower!

Josephine, however, appears to have been otherwise occupied.  By late November, Napoleon began to grow suspicious when he arrived for a brief furlough at the apartment Josephine had finally agreed to set up in Milan, only to find that his wife was not there.  Although he had heard rumors about her conduct, he had refused to believe them.  Now, however, as he paced about the empty apartment for over a week, waiting for her to return, he began to grow uneasy, and when he left he was angry.  Increasingly he found himself faced with an onslaught of rumors and information from some of his close confidants, and by early spring of the next year, Napoleon had become convinced that his wife was having an affair with at least one young man.

When he confronted her, Josephine denied everything, certain that this revelation to her husband came from his family and that it was part of a plot by them to ruin her and destroy her marriage. Later in her life, Josephine always referred to this day as the “day of the catastrophe,” and it does appear that the relationship changed from that time on.  In one of life’s little ironies, after this confrontation Napoleon appeared to distance himself somewhat from his wife, while she, on the contrary, drew closer to her husband.  She became eager to show herself as a loving wife and sought out chances to be with him more often.  Some accounts claim that she had a great fear of riding in carriages, but in spite of that she now began to go with him on some of his military campaigns.  But Napoleon had lost his absolute trust in her, even if he still loved her.

Fate had yet a number of twists left for Josephine, however.  When, after nearly twelve months away from France, Napoleon was going to return in October of 1799, Josephine decided to show her devotion by riding out to meet him.  As luck would have it, they missed each other on the road, and Napoleon, who had spent hours looking forward to being greeted by his affectionate wife, instead was enraged to find her once again “not at home” when he arrived.  By the time she had figured out what must have happened and managed to return, he had ordered that his doors be locked against her.  She fell to the floor outside his rooms, weeping and pleading, trying to explain.  The servants said that, once he unlocked the door, the shouting went on for hours.  In the end, though, there was silence.  They had reached an accommodation:  Josephine, ever more genuinely in love with him, had convinced Napoleon of her love and sincerity, but they had established an understanding that, without recrimination, Napoleon might seek out other women as mistresses from that time forward.  Thus, in a way, their positions were reversed from what they had been at the start of the marriage.

Napoleon, of course, went on to become First Consul and then Emperor, and Josephine became his Empress.  But somehow they could not seem to produce children. As Emperor, Napoleon faced the old, old problem—he needed a male heir. Naturally, since Josephine already had two children, Napoleon was forced to seriously consider the possibility that the problem lay with himself.  He was disabused of that notion when he produced an illegitimate son by his mistress, Eleonore Denuelle, two years after he became Emperor. 

For a while, he thought that perhaps his heir might be his young namesake, who was Josephine’s grandson.  It is true that the boy was not a direct descendant of Napoleon himself, but that probably could be managed, he believed.  Then the young man died in 1807, and his death produced a crisis.

She pulled herself together for the divorce ceremony, which was quite civilized and also a bit touching.  Josephine used the occasion to reaffirm her devotion to Napoleon by reading a statement in which she said that since she could not bear him children, she was “pleased to offer him the greatest proof of attachment and devotion ever offered on this earth” by consenting to the divorce.  He graciously acknowledged their marriage by saying that Josephine had “adorned thirteen years of my life; the memory will always remain engraved on my heart.”

Napoleon married Marie Louise of Austria in March 1810, and one year later he was the father of the newly designated “King of Rome.”  The marriage appeared to be a happy one, but evidently his affection for Josephine could not be so easily forgotten.  On her part, Josephine continued to regret the divorce and mourn the loss of Napoleon.  When Napoleon’s son was born, Josephine told Napoleon that she would feel better if she could just get a glimpse of the child for whom she felt she had sacrificed her marriage.  Marie Louise was adamantly opposed to this, of course, but it bears testimony to Napoleon’s continuing love for Josephine that he agreed to her request.  He introduced her to his son at a brief emotional visit two years later.

Neither of them knew it, but the end was fast approaching. Following Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1814, armies of the nations allied against him entered Paris and forced the Emperor’s abdication.  He did attempt to abdicate in favor of his son, but his foreign opponents were not about to replace an aging Napoleon with a younger version.  Napoleon was sent into exile on Elba.

Josephine contracted pneumonia resulting from a cold she caught in the spring of 1814 and died late in May of that year.  We are told that when the news came to Napoleon on Elba, he locked himself up in solitude for several days, mourning for her.  When he managed to escape from Elba and return to France during the “Hundred Days,” he immediately headed for Malmaison, where he gathered violets, Josephine’s favorite flower, from her garden there. He had a locket made for the flowers, which he wore until he died on St. Helena in 1821.

Now THAT’S a love story.