Josephine: a life of the empress

Josephine: A Life of the Empress

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and analyze the book "Josephine: A Life of the Empress" by Carolly Erickson. Specifically it will contain a book review and summary of the book. "Josephine" covers the life of de Beauharnais Bonaparte, the Empress of France and wife of Napoleon. She was born Yeyette Tascher in Martinique, and she grew to be one of the most well-known and powerful women on earth. It was not an easy journey, which is one of the things that makes this central character so important and so interesting. How she got to be Empress is almost a fairy tale story, but her fall from grace makes it more of a melodrama and tragic tale of woe. The author handles both quite well, for the most part.

The major character, Josephine, began life in Martinique as the daughter of a sugar planter with financial woes. The author describes her at the age of eight as "especially promising, a sturdy, smiling little girls with wide dark eyes and a musical voice whose sweet nature and natural kindness were very appealing" (Erickson 8). It is clear the author thinks a lot of the character (why else would she commit the time and energy to writing a book about her?), and this affection seems to rub off on the reader before the book is through. Yeyette is educated in Martinique, because her father cannot afford to send her to France to be educated.

When she was sixteen, she married Alexandre Beauharnais, a nineteen-year-old French officer who had spent his first nine years living with the Tascher family in Martinique. However, the marriage was not a love match. For Yeyette, it was a marriage that could shore up her family's sagging finances, and for Alexandre, it was a marriage of convenience. When he married, he would receive his inheritance, and he was already in love with another, older woman who had given him a child. When she married Alexandre, her name became Marie-Josephe-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, or Rose, the Viscountess de Beauharnais. She and Alexandre had two children, Eugene and Hortense, but their marriage was never happy or without contention. In fact, his lover's husband had died shortly after he married Josephine, and he probably resented his marriage to this "country" girl who had not been educated in France, and was not traditionally beautiful. However, they were bound for life, as France did not condone or allow divorce. The author makes it quite clear that her husband could not tolerate her. She writes, "Rose and Alexandre were mismatched; that was clear. Alexandre was a sensualist and a sophisticated freethinker in need of reassurance and approbation. Volatile and precipitate, he could find nothing in Rose to gratify his desires or his intellectual tastes" (Erickson 34). In fact, when Rose was pregnant with their second child, Alexandre abandoned the family, traveled to Martinique with his lover, and began working as an aide-de-camp to the governor there. He accused Rose of being unfaithful to him, and denied that Hortense was his daughter, dragging Rose and her family's name through the mud.

This early bad marriage strengthened Rose's character and gave her the ability to become stronger with adversity, which she would need as her life continued. She left Alexandre's home, and took the children to a convent in Paris, Penthemont, that specialized in helping women and children in crisis. She returned to Martinique for a time, during the French Revolution, and then returned to Paris. Alexandre had risen to prominence in the Assembly, and was a well-known political supporter of the Revolution. However, the political climate changed, the Assembly was dissolved, and Alexandre and his wife were suddenly considered traitors to France. They were imprisoned, and Alexandre was executed. Rose thought she would be too, but at the last moment, the Commune under Robespierre was overthrown, and she was spared. She began to prosper after her release from prison, and the author writes of her, "She danced well, her figure was enviably full, and she retained the fine manners of the old regime, the manners she had studied so carefully at Penthemont" (Erickson 119). She was at the prime of life, and it was at this time that her fortunes would drastically change again.

In 1795, through a mutual "male friend," Rose met Nabuleone Buonaparte, an Italian officer trying to make his fortune in Paris. The author writes of him, "He was lively and passionate, with arrestingly antique features, piercing grey-blue eyes, and a broad forehead that was often creased in anxious thought" (Erickson 122). Napoleon Bonaparte (he changed his name so it sounded more French), became the military defender of a new Parisian government, and lusted for even more power and prestige. Rose also cultivated his friendship after he gained power and a fortune, and he fell madly in love with her. Erickson writes of their love affair, "He was erotically stirred as never before, awakened to ecstasy, led by Rose into dimensions of emotion and sensation he had not known existed" (Erickson 130). She married Bonaparte in March 1796, and on that day, she became Josephine Bonaparte, but her name was not the only change in her life.

After her marriage to Bonaparte, they spent some time in Italy while he led the French Army to victory over the Austrians. Josephine did not captivate his relatives, but she was still at the apex of beauty, and her husband adored her. The author writes, "Her first youth was long gone, but it had left in its wake an elusive resplendence, a sort of Vaporous aspect that set her apart and made her seem a creature out of a fairytale" (Erickson 165). Indeed, her life would soon turn into a fairytale. In 1799, Napoleon initiated a coup d'etat and made himself the First Consul of France, and then five years later he named himself Emperor, all with his beloved Josephine at his side. Josephine became the Empress of France, a position of power and prestige, and she supported Napoleon through victory, defeat, banishment, and recovery. However, she took lovers while she was married to him, and when he learned of this, he almost divorced her. The author notes, "Now that deep and lasting love underwent an irreversible change. It did not wither away, but it became corroded by bitterness and resentment" (Erickson 188). Napoleon and Josephine would remain together, but many believe Josephine never loved Napoleon at all; she was as hungry for power as he was, and she stayed with him because of his power, wealth, and position.

Later, Napoleon would try to rid himself of her, and take a new wife, and finally, in 1809, he did just that, divorcing her but saying he would remain her "friend." The author writes, "Pathetically, she clung to him. Having become distant and estranged during the latter years of their marriage, now that they were divorced she became for the first time emotionally dependent on him as she had never been before" (Erickson 293). She died on May 29, 1814, after Napoleon had been exiled to Elba.

In fact, when he returned to Paris after a sojourn in Egypt, and shortly before he took control of the government, he was determined to remove Josephine from his life. However, they reconciled, largely as a result of her children, whom he had come to love, and Josephine moved with him to the Tuileries Palace in February 1800. The author notes, "Following Bonaparte's elevation his wife was on view, subjected to public scrutiny, as never before. She was judged, criticized, and not infrequently condemned for her shallowness" (Erickson 200). Josephine was Empress, but Napoleon never trusted her or loved her completely again. She gave up her lover, but he was still bitter, and he often treated her with cruelty or patronization. He took mistresses, treated her harshly, and criticized her for aging after she turned forty. As Napoleon gained more power, he became more ambitious, more dictatorial, and crueler, certainly to his wife.

Josephine discovered him with another woman, and he became so furious he struck her and threatened to ban her from his homes. He actually told her that when she was no longer politically suitable for him, he would abandon her, and because she had nowhere else to go, now that she had abandoned her lovers, she stayed on. It was a low point in her life, and in their relationship. There was not much further down it could go. In 1804, Napoleon was elevated to Emperor, becoming Emperor Napoleon I, and Josephine was still beside him as his Empress. He no longer slept with her, he flaunted his mistresses, and she knew there was little she could do to stop him.

Personally, this story was sad, even though it sounded like it should be a fairy tale. Josephine was greatly loved, and had the opportunity to wield great power. However, she turned her husband against her and actually spent her middle and old age an unhappy and tortured woman. She did not have a lover or a husband who loved her, and she spent much of her time as Empress being treated badly by her husband. In fact, she lived an unhappy adult life for many years, and her story is sad and a bit depressing. She never regained the happiness and gay abandon of her youth, and at a time when she should have been enjoying her power and position, she really only wanted to escape the palace and spend time with her children and grandchildren. She is not a pathetic figure, but she is certainly sad, and that shows in the haunted look in some of the portraits the author chose to include in the book. She ended up living alone, unhappy, and in poor health, after Napoleon divorced her for a younger woman who could give him royal blood and an heir to the throne, which he of course lost and then retook.

It is not surprising that this strong and vital woman resorted to staying with a dictatorial and judgmental husband, because there was little choice for women in those times. She had few options to support herself, and certainly not in the style that she had become accustomed to. She would have to take another lover, and at her age, in her mid-forties, she would have difficulty finding a man to support her. The author makes it clear throughout the book that Josephine was no "beauty," and she often mentions her black teeth, which she desperately attempted to hide, so her prospects in love were no longer a viable means of support. Thus, she had to rely on Napoleon for everything, and because of that, she was reduced from being a vibrant and interesting woman into a dependent and very unhappy Empress. Finally, she simply becomes a dependent old woman, who must beg the Senate for continued monetary support after her husband is exiled, and she seems like a pathetic figure who will never regain her former status. In truth, she will not, and she lives the rest of her days alone and unhealthy.

The author's presentation of her research is both interesting and arresting. She writes the story as if it were a novel, which gives the reader a chance to learn more about an historic figure in a much more readable and enjoyable way. She presents the characters in great detail, and by using letters, journals, and memoirs, she often includes their own words to indicate what they were thinking and feeling at the time. She also gives vivid details of the cities and locations where the action of this book takes place, so the reader gets a feeling for the surroundings and life at the time. In general, this is a very good account of Josephine's life and rise to power, and it gives a more intimate look into her thoughts, her lovers, and her own motivations. It is an interesting book, and yes, I believe it is objective and to the point. The author certainly does not promote Josephine as a saint. Far from it. She shows her as strong-willed, power-hungry, and extremely selfish at times. And yet, there is something likable about her, and perhaps that is why the author chose to write about her. She is an engaging and complex figure, and her life is filled with ups and downs. Her life has many aspects of a good novel, and by writing this book almost as if it is a novel, the author makes it more engaging and informative at the same time.

However, it seems, from her notes, that many of the situations she places the family in are more conjecture, on her part, rather than founded in concrete facts. For example, in the opening chapter she places the family in a wind-house to weather a terrible storm. She writes, "No trees were left standing. The two-story plantation house, with its wide veranda and its straggle of outbuildings, had vanished, along with the rose garden and the wide courtyard with its fine avenue of tamarisks" (Erickson 5). However, in the notes section, she writes that all of this, including the description of the house, is conjecture based on her research into the family, although she finds the practice of sheltering in a wind-house "customary," and it is "reasonable conjecture" to believe the family lived in the sugar refinery after the storm because their house was completely destroyed (Erickson 352). All of this may be true, and it is clear the author has done a great deal of research in writing this book. However, to begin it with conjecture seems to say there will be a great deal more of that in the pages to come, and that makes the reader immediately question just what they are reading.