page_title: Empress Joséphine
section_title: Marriage to Napoleon
hierarchical_section_title: Empress Joséphine / Marriage to Napoleon
caption_attribution_description: Madame Bonaparte at Malmaison (Gérard)
context_page_description: Joséphine Bonaparte was the Empress consort of the French as the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I. She is often called Joséphine de Beauharnais, a name not used during her lifetime.
  Throughout Joséphine's lifetime she was a great lover of the arts. She worked closely with sculptors, painters and interior decorators to establish a unique Consular style at the Château de Malmaison that is well known. She helped establish the popularity of the Empire and Consular styles. Through her knowledge she became, in her time, one of the leading collectors of different forms of art, such as sculpture and painting. The Château de Malmaison was noted for its magnificent rose garden, which she supervised closely, owing to her passionate interest in roses, collected from all over the world.
  Her marriage to Napoleon was her second; 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. Her two children by Beauharnais became significant to royal lineage. Through her daughter Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoleon III.
context_section_description: Madame de Beauharnais had affairs with several leading political figures, including Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras. In 1795, she met Napoleon Bonaparte, six years her junior, and became his mistress. In a letter to her in December, he wrote, "I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses."  In January 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte proposed to her and they were married on 9 March. Until meeting Bonaparte, she was known as Rose, but Bonaparte preferred to call her Joséphine, the name she adopted from then on.
  The marriage was not well received by Napoleon's family, who were shocked that he had married an older widow with two children. His mother and sisters were especially resentful of Joséphine, as they felt clumsy and unsophisticated in her presence.  Two days after the wedding, Bonaparte left Paris to lead a French army into Italy. During their separation, he sent her many love letters. In February 1797, he wrote: “You to whom nature has given spirit, sweetness, and beauty, you who alone can move and rule my heart, you who know all too well the absolute empire you exercise over it!” However, Josephine rarely wrote back and when she did, her letters were dry and often tepid. It is known that Josephine did not love Napoleon as much as he loved her, and that it took her years before she warmed to his affections. After their marriage, Napoleon was said to have kept a picture of her in his pocket which he would plant many kisses on every passing hour. Josephine, however, never even looked at the picture of her new husband that Napoleon gave her.
  Joséphine, left behind in Paris, in 1796 began an affair with a handsome Hussar lieutenant, Hippolyte Charles. Rumors of the affair reached Napoleon; he was infuriated, and his love for her changed entirely.
  In 1798, Napoleon led a French army to Egypt. During this campaign, Napoleon started an affair of his own with Pauline Fourès, the wife of a junior officer, who became known as "Napoleon's Cleopatra." The relationship between Joséphine and Napoleon was never the same after this. His letters became less loving. No subsequent lovers of Joséphine are recorded, but Napoleon had sexual affairs with several other women. In 1804, he said, "Power is my mistress."
  In December 1800, Joséphine was nearly killed in the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, an attempt on Napoleon's life with a bomb planted in a parked cart. On  December 24, she and Napoleon went to see a performance of Joseph Haydn's Creation at the Opéra, accompanied by several friends and family. The party travelled in two carriages. Joséphine was in the second, with her daughter, Hortense; her pregnant sister-in-law, Caroline Murat; and General Jean Rapp. Joséphine had delayed the party while getting a new silk shawl draped correctly, and Napoleon went ahead in the first carriage. The bomb exploded as her carriage was passing. The bomb killed several bystanders and one of the carriage horses, and blew out the carriage's windows; Hortense was struck in the hand by flying glass. There were no other injuries and the party proceeded to the Opéra.
caption: Joséphine at Malmaison in 1801 by François Gérard
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