Women of the French Empire: Power Behind Napoleon's Throne

Joséphine de Beauharnais was not born to be an empress, but she became one through resilience, charm, and the art of adaptation. Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie in Martinique, she came to France as a young woman to marry into the aristocracy. Her early years were shaped by the privileges of colonial life and the trauma of revolutionary upheaval. Her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was executed during the Reign of Terror. Joséphine herself narrowly escaped death, imprisoned and awaiting a fate that never came. From those ashes, she would rise—not just to survive, but to ascend.

Her relationship with Napoleon Bonaparte was not love at first sight. The passionate young general was entranced by her sophistication and poise, while she at first viewed him with cautious calculation. Yet their marriage in 1796 would become one of the most complex and strategic unions in French history. While Napoleon marched across Europe building an empire, Joséphine held court in Paris, hosting influential salons and carefully managing relationships with the elite and political class. She became a master of social navigation, offering Napoleon legitimacy in aristocratic circles and presenting a stable image of power and elegance.

What made Joséphine powerful was not dominance, but flexibility. She knew how to bend without breaking. She weathered scandals, infidelities, political tension, and even infertility—which ultimately led to her divorce. Napoleon, obsessed with producing an heir, annulled their marriage in 1810. But the divorce was not the end of Joséphine’s influence. In fact, it secured her a unique place in history: as a beloved, if displaced, matriarch of the Bonaparte legacy.