Josephine de Beauharnais
She survived the Terror, remade herself in revolutionary Paris and became Empress beside Napoleon - but who was Josephine beyond the legend?
Born Rose Tascher de La Pagerie in Martinique, she crossed from the colonial planter world into revolutionary France, survived imprisonment at Carmes after her first husband went to the guillotine, and emerged as a socially gifted survivor of the Directory.
She married Napoleon in 1796. Their marriage mixed passion, infidelity, ambition and political partnership. At Malmaison she built a celebrated world of art, gardens and science; in 1804 Napoleon crowned her Empress. Five years later, the need for a dynastic heir ended their marriage.
This film asks how much of the familiar Josephine - adulteress, spendthrift, social climber, rose collector - is evidence and how much is later embroidery. Napoleon conquered kingdoms. Josephine survived revolution, scandal and empire.
Sources
Research anchors include the Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau, Fondation Napoléon, surviving correspondence, marriage and dissolution records, and modern scholarship on the Revolution, the Consulate and Empire. Claims about Josephine's lovers, the famous fortune-teller story, and her alleged responsibility for Napoleon's colonial policy are treated as evidence questions rather than repeated as certainty.
Companion Study
Key facts, timeline, evidence questions, source notes and a visual route through Josephine's extraordinary life.
Open Companion PDF