Napoleon and Josephine: Their Marriage and 1809 Divorce

Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais married in Paris in 1796, when he was a rising general, and divorced on 15 December 1809, when he was Emperor of the French. Their passionate and often stormy relationship is one of the best-known romances in European history. Napoleon ended the marriage because Josephine had given him no heir, and within months he married Marie Louise, daughter of the Austrian emperor.

Josephine before Napoleon

Josephine was born Marie-Josèphe-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie on 23 June 1763 on the Caribbean island of Martinique, into a family of planters. In 1779 she married Alexandre de Beauharnais, a French aristocrat, in an unhappy match that produced two children, Eugène (born 1781) and Hortense (born 1783).

During the Reign of Terror both Alexandre and Rose were imprisoned. Alexandre was guillotined in July 1794, but she was released after the fall of Robespierre. She became a well-known figure in Parisian society under the Directory.

The marriage

Napoleon met her in 1795. He was six years younger and still relatively unknown, and he called her Josephine, the name history remembers her by. They married in a civil ceremony on 9 March 1796. Two days later he left Paris to command the French army in Italy.

His letters to her from the Italian campaign are famously ardent, while her replies were far less frequent. She had an affair with a young officer, Hippolyte Charles, which Napoleon learned of during the Egyptian campaign of 1798. He considered divorce then, but the couple were reconciled after his return in 1799.

When Napoleon became emperor, Josephine became empress. At the request of Pope Pius VII, the couple married in a religious ceremony on 1 December 1804, the eve of the coronation of Napoleon in Notre-Dame, where he crowned her himself.

Why the marriage ended

The central problem was the succession. Josephine was in her forties and had no children with Napoleon. He had considered making his nephew Napoléon-Charles, the son of Hortense and Louis Bonaparte, his heir, but the boy died in 1807.

The birth of an illegitimate son, Charles Léon, in 1806, and the pregnancy of his Polish mistress Marie Walewska in 1809, showed Napoleon that he could father children. After the Battle of Wagram and the peace with Austria, he decided to seek a young wife from a ruling dynasty who could give him a son and strengthen the legitimacy of his new empire.

The divorce of 1809

On 15 December 1809 the imperial family gathered in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Napoleon and Josephine each made a statement agreeing to dissolve their marriage for the good of France. The Senate confirmed the divorce by decree the next day.

The church marriage posed a separate problem. In January 1810 the diocesan court of Paris declared it null, on the grounds that the 1804 ceremony had lacked the parish priest and witnesses required by church law. The decision was controversial, but it allowed Napoleon to remarry in church.

Josephine kept the title of empress, a large annual allowance and her country house at Malmaison, west of Paris. Napoleon continued to visit and write to her.

Marie Louise and the heir

Napoleon first explored a marriage to a sister of Tsar Alexander I of Russia, but the negotiations stalled. He turned to Austria, where Metternich favoured an alliance. Napoleon married Archduchess Marie Louise, the 18-year-old daughter of Emperor Francis I, by proxy in Vienna on 11 March 1810 and in person on 1–2 April, in a civil ceremony at Saint-Cloud followed by a religious one at the Louvre in Paris. Their son, Napoléon François, titled King of Rome, was born on 20 March 1811.

Key people

• Josephine (1763–1814) – first Empress of the French, famous for her gardens and collections at Malmaison.
• Napoleon (1769–1821) – Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814 and briefly in 1815.
• Eugène de Beauharnais – Josephine’s son, Napoleon’s adopted son and Viceroy of Italy.
• Hortense de Beauharnais – Josephine’s daughter, Queen of Holland and mother of Napoleon III.
• Marie Louise (1791–1847) – Napoleon’s second wife and mother of his only legitimate child.

Myths and facts

The phrase “Not tonight, Josephine” has no historical basis; it is a later joke. It is also often assumed that Napoleon simply abandoned Josephine. In fact, the divorce was handled formally and generously, and the couple remained on friendly terms until her death.

Timeline

• 1763, 23 June: Josephine born on Martinique.
• 1794, 23 July: Alexandre de Beauharnais guillotined.
• 1796, 9 March: Civil marriage of Napoleon and Josephine in Paris.
• 1804, 1–2 December: Religious wedding, then coronation in Notre-Dame.
• 1809, 15 December: Divorce ceremony at the Tuileries.
• 1810, 1–2 April: Napoleon marries Marie Louise at Saint-Cloud and in Paris.
• 1811, 20 March: Birth of the King of Rome.
• 1814, 29 May: Josephine dies at Malmaison, weeks after Napoleon’s exile to Elba.

Why it matters

The divorce shows how dynastic politics shaped Napoleon’s empire: he sacrificed a marriage he valued to found a hereditary dynasty and to bind Austria to France. The Austrian marriage did not prevent war in 1813, but Josephine’s line endured, and her grandson became Emperor Napoleon III.