Joséphine de Beauharnais facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Joséphine |
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Portrait by Antoine-Jean Gros, c. 1809
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| Empress consort of the French | |||||
| Tenure | 18 May 1804 – 10 January 1810 | ||||
| Coronation | 2 December 1804 | ||||
| Queen consort of Italy | |||||
| Tenure | 26 May 1805 – 10 January 1810 | ||||
| Born | Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie 23 June 1763 Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique, French Antilles |
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| Died | 29 May 1814 (aged 50) Rueil-Malmaison, Kingdom of France |
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| Burial | Church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul, Rueil-Malmaison, France | ||||
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Alexandre, Viscount of Beauharnais
(m. 1779; died 1794)Napoleon I, Emperor of the French
(m. 1796; ann. 1810) |
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| House | Tascher de La Pagerie | ||||
| Father | Joseph Gaspard Tascher de La Pagerie | ||||
| Mother | Rose Claire des Vergers de Sannois | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||
| Signature |  |
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Joséphine Bonaparte (French: [ʒozefin bɔnapaʁt], born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie; 23 June 1763 – 29 May 1814) was Empress of the French as the first wife of Emperor Napoleon I from 18 May 1804 until their marriage was annulled on 10 January 1810. As Napoleon's consort, she was also Queen of Italy from 26 May 1805 until the 1810 annulment. She is widely known as Joséphine de Beauharnais (French: [ʒozefin də boaʁnɛ]).
Joséphine's 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. Through her children by Beauharnais, she was the grandmother of the French emperor Napoleon III and the Brazilian empress Amélie of Leuchtenberg. Members of the current royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway and the grand ducal family of Luxembourg also descend from her. Because she did not bear Napoleon any children, he had their marriage annulled and married Marie Louise of Austria. Joséphine was the recipient of numerous love letters written by Napoleon, many of which still exist.
A patron of art, Joséphine worked closely with sculptors, painters and interior decorators to establish a unique Consular and Empire style at the Château de Malmaison. She became one of the leading collectors of different forms of art of her time, such as sculpture and painting. The Château de Malmaison was noted for its rose garden, which she supervised closely.
Contents
Name
Although she is often referred to as "Joséphine de Beauharnais", it is not a name she used in her lifetime. "Beauharnais" is the name of her first husband, which she ceased to use upon her marriage to Napoleon, taking the last name "Bonaparte". And she did not use the name "Joséphine" before meeting Napoleon, who was the first to call her such, perhaps from her middle name, Josèphe. In her life before Napoleon, she went by the name of Rose, or Marie-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, later de Beauharnais. She sometimes reverted to using her maiden name in later life. After her marriage to then-General Bonaparte, she adopted the name Joséphine Bonaparte. The misnomer "Joséphine de Beauharnais" emerged during the Bourbon restoration, who were hesitant to refer to her by either Napoleon's surname or her imperial title.
Disputed birthplace
In Henry H. Breen's 1844 The History of St. Lucia, he stated that he had met with "several well-informed persons" who were convinced that Empress Joséphine had been born there. Breen presented some evidence for this, inclusing a newspaper clipping from 1831 which said that it was "alleged" that the de Taschers were among the first settlers of Saint Lucia, and that the future empress was born on a small estate on a hill then called La Cauzette, and later known as Morne Paix Bouche. According to this story, the family lived there until 1771, when the father went to serve as intendant of Martinique. Some people even claimed to have been among Joséphine's playmates, and one of them said that he had been "graciously received" by the widowed empress in Malmaison Breen received further confirmation from Joséphine's enslaved nanny, Dede, who said that she nursed Joséphine at La Cauzette.
Joséphine's baptism was administered by Emmanuel Capuchin at Les Trois-Îlets, but the registry only stated she had been baptised there, not born. Dom Daviot, parish priest in Gros Islet, wrote a letter to one of his friends in 1802 stating that "it is in the vicinity of [his] parish that the wife of the first consul was born". He asserted that he was well acquainted with Joséphine's cousin, his parishioner.
Joséphine's father owned an estate in Soufrière District called Malmaison, the name of her famous French residence. It is also assumed that the de Tascher estate in Martinique was a pied-à-terre, occasional lodging, for when they wanted to stay with his mother-in-law. Saint Lucia switched hands between Great-Britain and France fourteen times, and there were no civil registers on the island when Joséphine was born. Saint Lucia's frequent change of ownership between Britain and France could be seen as the reason her birthplace was left out of her birth record as it would have affected her nationality.
Early life
Childhood
Marie-Josèphe-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie was born in Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique, to a wealthy French family who owned a sugarcane plantation, which is now a museum. The Taschers were an ancient French family of country gentry, and Joséphine's grandfather, Gaspard-Joseph was the first to settle in Le Carbet on Martinique in 1726. He seems to have lived in poverty there, but secured a position as a page for his son, Joseph-Gaspard (1735–1790) in the household of the Dauphine of France, Maria Josepha of Saxony.
After spending three years from 1752 in France, Joseph-Gaspard returned to Martinique and married Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois (1735–1807), whose maternal grandfather, Anthony Brown, may have been Irish. Rose-Claire was from one of the oldest European families on the plantation, and the Tascher family home near Les Trois-Îlets was part of her dowry. Joséphine was their first child, and they had two more: Catherine-Désirée in 1764 and Marie-Françoise in 1766. Joseph-Gaspard earned his living as a plantation owner and a lieutenant of the Troupes de marine, apart from a small pension for his work in the royal household. He was almost always close to bankruptcy and suffered from ill health.
Joséphine was raised by an enslaved nurse called Marion, whose freedom she would secure in 1807. At the age of ten, she and Catherine-Désirée were sent to a boarding school in Fort-Royal, run by the Bénédictines de la Providence. There, they learned to read, write, sing, dance, and embroider for four years. After the death of Catherine-Désirée, Joséphine returned to her parents' plantation.
First marriage
Background
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Joséphine's paternal aunt, Marie-Euphémie-Désirée Renaudin, was the mistress of a French naval officer, François de Beauharnais, from a less ancient but richer noble family. While living on Martinique, de Beauharnais had a son, Alexandre, by his wife. Soon, the parents returned to France, and left the infant with the Tascher family until 1766. When he had come of age, his father's mistress, who was also Alexandre's godmother, decided that it would be advantageous to her if he married one of her nieces. Aged seventeen, he judged fifteen-year-old Joséphine to be too close to him in age, and thus, Catherine-Désirée was chosen for him. As the bride's father was impoverished and the bridegroom was to become a wealthy man upon his marriage, he asked for no dowry.
By the time Alexandre's father had proposed in a letter, however, Catherine-Désirée had died. Not wanting to lose the rich suitor, her father offered his youngest daughter instead, which was accepted by Alexandre. Marie-Françoise was not yet twelve, however, and her mother and grandmother were not willing to let her go. In the end, Joséphine was engaged to Alexandre.
In October 1779, she went to France with her father. She married Alexandre on 13 December 1779, in Noisy-le-Grand. They had two children: a son, Eugène de Beauharnais, and a daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (who later married Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte in 1802). Joséphine and Alexandre's marriage was not a happy one. Alexandre abandoned his family for over a year, leading to a court-ordered separation during which Joséphine and the children lived at Alexandre's expense in the Pentemont Abbey.
During the Reign of Terror
On 2 March 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the arrest of her husband. He was jailed in the Carmes prison in Paris. Considering Joséphine as too close to the counter-revolutionary financial circles, the Committee ordered her arrest on 18 April 1794. A warrant of arrest was issued against her on 21 April 1794, and she was imprisoned in the Carmes prison until 28 July. During this time, Joséphine was only allowed to communicate with her children by their scrawls on the laundry list, which the jailers soon prohibited.
Her husband was accused of having poorly defended Mainz in July 1793, and being considered an aristocratic suspect, was sentenced to death and guillotined with his cousin Augustin on 23 July 1794, on the Place de la Révolution (today Place de la Concorde) in Paris. Joséphine was freed five days later, thanks to the fall and execution of Robespierre, which ended the Reign of Terror. On 27 July 1794 Tallien arranged the liberation of Thérèse Cabarrus, and soon after that of Joséphine. In June 1795, a new law allowed her to recover the possessions of Alexandre.
Marriage to Napoleon
Madame de Beauharnais was romantically involved with several leading political figures, including Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras. In 1795, she met Napoleon Bonaparte, six years her junior. In January 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte proposed to her and they were married on 9 March. On the marriage certificate, Joséphine reduced her age by 4 years and increased Napoleon's by 18 months, making the newly-weds appear to be roughly the same age. 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.
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.
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 24 December, 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.
Empress of the French
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Napoleon was elected Emperor of the French in 1804, making Joséphine empress. The coronation ceremony, officiated by Pope Pius VII, took place at Notre-Dame de Paris, on December 2. Napoleon first crowned himself, then put the crown on Joséphine's head, proclaiming her empress. This showed his rejection of the clergy as the power of Europe.
In her role as empress, Napoleon had a court appointed to her and reinstated the offices which composed the household of the queen before the French revolution, with Adélaïde de La Rochefoucauld as Première dame d'honneur, Émilie de Beauharnais as Dame d'atour, and the wives of his own officials and generals, Jeanne Charlotte du Lucay, Madame de Rémusat, Elisabeth Baude de Talhouët, Lauriston, d'Arberg, Marie Antoinette Duchâtel, Sophie de Segur, Séran, Colbert, Savary and Aglaé Louise Auguié Ney, as Dame de Palais.
Shortly before their coronation, there was an incident at the Château de Saint-Cloud that nearly sundered the marriage between the two. Joséphine caught Napoleon in the bedroom of her lady-in-waiting, Élisabeth de Vaudey, and Napoleon threatened to divorce her as she had not produced an heir. Eventually, however, through the efforts of her daughter Hortense, the two were reconciled.
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When after a few years it became clear she could not have a child, Napoleon, while still loving Joséphine, began to think about the possibility of an annulment. The final die was cast when Napoleon’s nephew Napoléon Charles Bonaparte, who had been declared his heir, died of croup in 1807. Napoleon began to create lists of eligible princesses. At dinner on 30 November 1809, he let Joséphine know that—in the interest of France—he must find a wife who could produce an heir. Joséphine agreed to the divorce so the Emperor could remarry in the hope of having an heir. The divorce ceremony took place on 10 January 1810 and was a grand but solemn social occasion, and each read a statement of devotion to the other.
On 11 March, Napoleon married Marie-Louise of Austria by proxy; the formal ceremony took place at the Louvre in April. Napoleon once remarked that despite her quick infatuation with him "It is a womb that I am marrying". Even after their separation, Napoleon insisted Joséphine retain the title of empress. "It is my will that she retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she never doubt my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and dearest friend."
Later life and death
After the divorce, Joséphine lived at the Château de Malmaison, near Paris. She remained on good terms with Napoleon, who once said that the only thing to come between them was her debts. (Joséphine remarked privately, "The only thing that ever came between us was my debts; certainly not his manhood."—Andrew Roberts, Napoleon.) In April 1810, by letters patent, Napoleon created her Duchess of Navarre. Some claim Napoleon and Josephine were still secretly in love, though it is impossible to verify this.
In March 1811, Marie Louise was delivered of a long-awaited heir, Napoleon II, to whom Napoleon gave the title "King of Rome". Two years later Napoleon arranged for Joséphine to meet the young prince "who had cost her so many tears".
Death
Joséphine died of pneumonia in Rueil-Malmaison on 29 May 1814, soon after walking with Emperor Alexander I of Russia in the gardens of Malmaison, where she allegedly begged to join Napoleon in exile. She was buried in the nearby church of Saint Pierre-Saint Paul in Rueil. Her daughter Hortense is interred near her.
Napoleon learned of her death via a French journal while in exile on Elba, and stayed locked in his room for two days, refusing to see anyone. He claimed to a friend, while in exile on Saint Helena, that "I truly loved my Joséphine, but I did not respect her." Despite her numerous affairs, eventual marriage annulment, and his remarriage, the Emperor's last words on his death bed at St. Helena were: "France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Joséphine."("France, l'armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine").
Descendants
Hortense's son, Napoleon III, became Emperor of the French. Eugène's son Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg married into the Russian Imperial family, was granted the style of Imperial Highness and founded the Russian line of the Beauharnais family, while Eugene's daughter Joséphine married King Oscar I of Sweden, the son of Napoleon's one-time fiancée, Désirée Clary. Through her, Joséphine is a direct ancestor of the present heads of the royal houses of Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden and of the grandducal house of Baden.
A number of jewels worn by modern-day royals are often said to have been worn by Joséphine. Through the Leuchtenberg inheritance, the Norwegian royal family possesses an emerald and diamond parure said to have been Joséphine's. The Swedish royal family owns several pieces of jewelry frequently linked to Joséphine, including the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure, a suite of amethyst jewels, and the Cameo Parure, worn by Sweden's royal brides. However, a number of these jewels were probably never a part of Joséphine's collection at all, but instead belonged to other members of her family.
Another of Eugène's daughters, Amélie of Leuchtenberg, married Emperor Pedro I of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, and became Empress of Brazil, and they had one surviving daughter, Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil, who was briefly engaged to Archduke Maximilian of Austria, before he became Maximilian I of Mexico, before her early death.
Personality and appearance
Her biographer Carolly Erickson wrote, “In choosing her lovers [Joséphine] followed her head first, then her heart”, meaning that she was adept in terms of identifying the men who were most capable of fulfilling her financial and social needs. She was not unaware of Napoleon's potential. Joséphine was a renowned spendthrift and Barras may have encouraged the relationship with Général Bonaparte in order to get her off his hands. Joséphine was naturally full of kindness, generosity and charm, and was praised as an engaging hostess.
Joséphine was described as being of average height, svelte, shapely, with silky, long, chestnut-brown hair, hazel eyes, and a rather sallow complexion. Her nose was small and straight, and her mouth was well-formed; however she kept it closed most of the time so as not to reveal her bad teeth. She was praised for her elegance, style, and low, "silvery", beautifully modulated voice.
Patroness of roses
In 1799 while Napoleon was in Egypt, Josephine purchased the Chateau de Malmaison. She had it landscaped in an “English” style, hiring landscapers and horticulturalists from the United Kingdom. These included Thomas Blaikie, a Scottish horticultural expert, another Scottish gardener, Alexander Howatson, the botanist, Ventenat, and the horticulturist, Andre Dupont. The rose garden was begun soon after purchase; inspired by Dupont's love of roses. Josephine took a personal interest in the gardens and the roses, and learned a great deal about botany and horticulture from her staff. Josephine wanted to collect all known roses so Napoleon ordered his warship commanders to search all seized vessels for plants to be forwarded to Malmaison.
Pierre-Joseph Redouté was commissioned by her to paint the flowers from her gardens. Les Roses was published 1817–20 with 168 plates of roses; 75–80 of the roses grew at Malmaison. The English nurseryman Kennedy was a major supplier, despite England and France being at war, his shipments were allowed to cross blockades. Specifically, when Hume's Blush Tea-Scented China was imported to England from China, the British and French Admiralties made arrangements in 1810 for specimens to cross naval blockades for Josephine's garden. Sir Joseph Banks, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, also sent her roses.
The general assumption is that she had about 250 roses in her garden when she died in 1814. Unfortunately the roses were not catalogued during her tenure. There may have been only 197 rose varieties in existence in 1814, according to calculations by Jules Gravereaux of Roseraie de l’Haye. There were 12 species, about 40 centifolias, mosses and damasks, 20 Bengals, and about 100 gallicas. The botanist Claude Antoine Thory, who wrote the descriptions for Redouté's paintings in Les Roses, noted that Josephine's Bengal rose R. indica had black spots on it. She produced the first written history of the cultivation of roses, and is believed to have hosted the first rose exhibition, in 1810.
Modern hybridization of roses through artificial, controlled pollination began with Josephine's horticulturalist Andre Dupont. Prior to this, most new rose cultivars were spontaneous mutations or accidental, bee-induced hybrids, and appeared rarely. With controlled pollination, the appearance of new cultivars grew exponentially. Of the roughly 200 types of roses known to Josephine, Dupont had created 25 while in her employ. Subsequent French hybridizers created over 1000 new rose cultivars in the 30 years following Josephine's death. In 1910, less than 100 years after her death, there were about 8000 rose types in Gravereaux's garden. Bechtel also feels that the popularity of roses as garden plants was boosted by Josephine's patronage. She was a popular ruler and fashionable people copied her.
Brenner and Scanniello call her the "Godmother of modern rosomaniacs" and attribute her with our modern style of vernacular cultivar names as opposed to Latinized, pseudo-scientific cultivar names. For instance, R. alba incarnata became "Cuisse de Nymphe Emue" in her garden. After Josephine's death in 1814 the house was vacant at times, the garden and house ransacked and vandalised, and the garden's remains were destroyed in a battle in 1870.
Jacques-Louis Descemet dedicated Impératrice Joséphine to her sometime before 1815. Similarly, Jean-Pierre Vibert dedicated Joséphine Beauharnais in her honor in 1823. The rose 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' appeared in 1844, 30 years after her death, named in her honor by a Russian Grand Duke planting one of the first specimens in the Imperial Garden in St. Petersburg.
Art patronage
Empress Josephine was a great lover of all art. Her great interest in horticulture is well-known, but she also liked all things artistic. She surrounded herself with creative people whose work ranged from paintings and sculpture to furniture and the architecture all around her. Josephine always had an interest in art but it was with her marriage to her first husband that she would gain more access to art and artists. Due to her husband's high position in society she was often able to frequent many influential people's homes and learned from the works that were in their houses. After marrying Napoleon and becoming Empress she was surrounded by the works of the time, however Josephine also appreciated the works of old masters. She was also drawn to artists and styles that were not widely used in her time, searching for artists that challenged the accepted standards. She visited the Salon to build relationships with contemporary artists. Josephine became a patron to several different artists, helping to build their careers though their connection to her. After buying the Château de Malmaison, Josephine had a blank canvas to showpiece her art and style and used it to create salons, galleries, a theater and her famous garden. The Malmaison and Tuileries Palace became centers for Napoleon's government but was recognized as an important place for the arts in any forms. Josephine's court became the leading court in Europe for the arts. She became the first French female royal collector of this scale, leading in the Consular and Empire Style.
Paintings
Josephine worked with and sought out the works of many artists throughout her lifetime. In the area of painters she mainly was a collector of paintings but she was painted by and worked with several artists such as Jacques-Louis David and Francois Gerard. However, there was one painter whom Josephine favored and commissioned more often than others, Antoine-Jean Gros. Gros, upon hearing that Josephine would be visiting Genoa, worked to get an introduction knowing that the association with Josephine would help him become more well-known.
Upon meeting with Gros and seeing his work, Josephine asked him to come back to Milan with her and to live in her residences. Josephine then commissioned him to create a portrait of her husband, the then General Napoleon. The work took several sittings between Gros and Napoleon and would be named "General Bonaparte at the Bridge of Arcole, November 17th,1796." This painting would become a big part of Napoleon's propaganda and iconography. Gros would go on to paint other portraits of Napoleon, which always portrayed him as a fierce conqueror, propagating the image of Napoleon as powerful and unstoppable. Josephine as a supporter and patron of Gros, aided him in becoming a central conduit for the message that the government was trying to disseminate about the rule of the Emperor in that time.
Sculpture
Over her lifetime Josephine commissioned four major pieces from the Italian Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. The Empress was given a copy of Canova's work Psyche and Cupid, which was originally promised to Colonel John Campbell, but because of unforeseen circumstances it was gifted to Josephine. She would commission Canova to create a sculpture and the result would be Dancer with Hands on Hips. The work commissioned in 1802 but was not finished until 1812, Josephine allowed him to create on his own terms, which were based on the classics but with a more relaxed and joyful appearance. He would create several sculptures based on dancing. Dancer with Hands on Hips was praised by the art community because it was not based on any specific ancient sculpture, but with a classical spin, making it a completely original sculpture.
Josephine would commission Canova again for another sculpture called Paris. The work's plaster cast was completed in 1807 but the marble statue was not finished until 1812. arriving in Malmaison in 1813 a year before Josephine's death. The final sculpture that the Empress would commission was The Three Graces. This work would not be completed until after Josephine's death in 1816. All four works were eventually sold to Tsar Alexander of Russia.
Furniture/Design
The architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine essentially became the decorators for Josephine and Napoleon. Many of Josephine's most well-known furnishings were created especially for her by Percier and/or Fontaine. The two architects worked within many of the Empire's residences, creating spaces for the Empress to feel at home in. Percier and Fontaine had their own unique style and created pieces for both the Emperor and his Empress, which can be easily identified as their work, even when they were not stamped as created by Percier or Fontaine. Percier and Fontaine are known for their use of cheval glass and the use of a feminine, softer feel for the pieces used in the boudoir of the Empress. These pieces were unique for the time and appreciated for their creativity. The architects Percier and Fontaine are connected to the Empire style associated with the time period.
Arms
 Empress of the French (1804–1809) |
 Monogram of the Empress of the French (1804–1809) |
 Duchess of Navarre (1810–1814) |
See also
In Spanish: Josefina de Beauharnais para niños
