The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine [Hardcover]

Andrea Stuart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2004

Josephine Bonaparte was one of the most remarkable women of the modern era. In this acclaimed biography, Andrea Stuart brings her so utterly to life that we finally understand why Napoleon's last word before dying was the name he had given her, Josephine. Using diaries and letters, Stuart expertly re-creates Josephine's whirlwind of a life that began with an isolated Caribbean childhood and led to a marriage that would usher her onto the world stage and crown her empress of France. Josephine's life gives us a picture of the terrible vicissitudes of the times. She managed to be in the forefront of every important episode of her era's turbulent history. After the Terror in Paris, the brilliant corrupt director Paul Barras rescued her from near-starvation. She epitomized post revolutionary Paris with its wild decadence and love of all things exotic, and it was there as its star that she first caught the eye of a young Corsican general who was to become the colossus of the age, Napoleon Bonaparte. A true partner to Napoleon, she was a political adviser, hostess par excellence, his confidante, and passionate lover.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Born in Martinique, her name was Rose when she arrived in France at age 15 to marry her first husband, a handsome man-about-court who quickly neglected his disappointingly provincial wife. Rose matured and built alliances in unlikely places, including the convent where her husband forced her to retire and the prison where she spent the last months of the French Revolution. It was after this period and her husband's execution that she became one of Paris's great hostesses and attracted the attention of an awkward but rising military hero named Napoleon Bonaparte. Stuart (Showgirls) captures the tentativeness of their first years of marriage, when letters of the often-absent, sexually inexperienced Napoleon raged with jealousy while Rose, whom he renamed Josephine, continued to have the affairs common in her social circle. Sources provide a challenge to the biographer, who must wade through material written much later when writers were fully aware of the importance of the actors and scenes they described. The twin dangers of contemporary romanticization and criticism haunt Stuart's text, yet the shifting sands of identity they create seem appropriate, for Rose and Napoleon were both remaking themselves. The almost pathological ways they complemented each other remain painfully clear as Stuart traces the denouements of their lives. It was hardly a happy marriage, and Stuart's argument that the emperor's harsh treatment of women in the Code Napoléon reflected the dynamics and frustrations of his own marriage seems quite convincing in this context. 16 pages of color illus. not seen by PW.
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From Booklist

Even though the lives of lovely Josephine and her insanely ambitious second husband, Napoleon Bonaparte, have become legendary, Stuart takes a fresh and revelatory approach to portraying the Creole from Martinique who became empress of France by emphasizing both Josephine and Napoleon's outsider status as emigres from small islands. She was from a lush Caribbean wonderland poisoned by slavery, and he hailed from Corsica, and both were greatly underestimated when they first arrived in Paris. Writing with magnetic animation and vivid specificity, Stuart tracks the astonishing vicissitudes of Rose's life (Napoleon called her Josephine) as she evolved from a gauche country girl into a "seasoned voluptuary," a "high priestess of style," and the famously kind, poised, and diplomatic wife of the most powerful man in Europe. Part and parcel of this gripping tale of love, adversity, loss, and survival is the story of the rapidly fluctuating status of women in France and the terrors of the French Revolution, harsh realities Stuart chronicles with acumen and finesse. But what makes this altogether moving biography truly unforgettable are Stuart's deep insights into Josephine's devotion to beauty, adaptability, compassion, and capacity for joy and love. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (March 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802117708
• ISBN-13: 978-0802117700
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,270,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good research, August 2, 2004

By 

L. Cooper "history major" (Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine (Hardcover)

Andrea Stuart's telling of the life of the Empress Josephine is wonderfully entertaining and very telling. I have been fascinated by the story of Napoleon and Josephine since I was 13 years old am always looking for new information on the subjects and their lives. As a history major at UK I very much appreciated the research that Ms. Stuart obviously did on the times and circumstances in which Josephine lived. Especially in regards to the issue of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. She obviously cares deeply for the memory of the Empress and has done Her Majesty a superb honor with this work.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning life, March 15, 2004

By 

ilmk "ilmk" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine (Hardcover)

Andrea Stuart's new biography on the life of Napoleon's most famous mistress, Josephine, is a complete and captivating story of one of France most powerful women at a time of social and political upheaval as France sought to reestablish its identity at the heart of Europe and the New World. It is a rich biography, expanding to discuss in depth the political and social reality of the time and the nature and actions of those personages that influenced Josephine the greatest.
The story commences with the birth of Marie-Josephe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie on the island of Martinque, After delving into her childhood, Rose's life truly commenced with her enagagement and subsequent marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais - often pointed to as the galant, de Valmont, of Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses. After a rocky marriage as her overly florid and highly unsuited to marriage husband took a multitude of lovers, charmed his way through Parisien society and ended up accusing the innocent Rose of adultery whilst he on a trip back to Martinque and she in Paris, Rose found herself with two children, separated and in a the convent of Panthemont. It was to prove a turning point as, just before the French Revolution ignited she returned from new new home at Fontainbleu to Martinque. Whilst there she did not escape the violence of it as Martinque was one of the first colonies to follow the mainland and she was forced to flee the island of her birth forever.
She returned to a Paris where republicanism was the new `word' . In the meantime her husband, Alexandre, had risen to prominence amongst the new wave of political power and was actually President of the National Assembly the month Rose returned. As a result of her husband's fame, so Rose grew in recognition by association. As Alexandre presided over the capture of the fleeing King the event polarized the camps into the Feuillant party against the Girondists and Jacobins and Alexandre, for a time became the de facto ruler of France.
It was a fortunate time for Rose as her husband's position enabled her to make friendships with France's new elite and to find time for amorous pursuits. However, come Louis XVI's execution and England's declaration of war, Alexandre's ineptitude in his new position as commander of the Rhine armies and his libertine nature led to his downfall under the Law of Suspects and Rose's subsequent arrest. After several months of imprisonment at Les Carmes Alexandre died at the guillotine days before Robespierre and days after Rose was released.
By 1795 she had come to meet the man who would eclipse her - Napoleon.
At his point Stuart digresses onto a quick recount of Napoleon's life and career before Rose engaged on her relationship. Napoleon was smitted and proposed, Rose only accepting after realising Hoche was no longer available to her. It was at this point Napoleon renamed her Josephine. What follows is a period as Napoleon swept all before him in Italy whilst all the time writing letter upon letter to her in fits of passion alternating between over-eloquent expressions of love and frustration at her seeming coldness. It was a reversal of roles from Josephine's first marriage, but as Napoleon's fame and power grew, so did hers. Stuart does well here to interpose love letter text with historical action and emotional frenzy, sweeping the reader along on the tides created by the future emperor.
As Napoleon aged and his power increased there came the inevitable shift in power each held in their personal relationship forced along by Josephine's relationship with Hippolyte Charles eventually culminating in the very public knowledge of the problematic state of their marriage while Napoleon was in Eygpt and the now somewhat embellished episode at the house at rue de la Victoire.
What follows is a recount of Napoleon's rise to fame, Josephine's active participation in the conspiracy that secured his position within the Consulate and her transformation from `decadent Directoire godess into virtuous, restrained statesman's wife" (p270). Josephine's social skills soon translated into the highest political weapon as she presided from her Yellow Salon providing support for the emigres but not yet extending to the exiled Louis XVIII. However, she retained a loving family atmosphere with her two children and Napoleon despite their lack of children together.
Eventually, Napoleon acclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1894 and Stuart treats us to a lengthy discourse on Josephine's battle with Napoleon's family, her final spiritual marriage to him and their coronation.
As Empress of the French the rest of her life was played against the tumult of several legendary European battles with conquests of great nations, yet done in a manner that meant she retained her regality. As Empress her life was rigorously dictated, protocol dominating her every move, her life peripatetic. Stuart illustrates this with a detailed look at a typical day following with how she influenced French society, patronaging the arts and acting as the gentle foil to Napoloeon's rudeness.
However, it all fell apart when Napoleon divorced her on Dec 15, 1809 and she spent the rest of her life either touring France or at Malmaison. Acclaimed as a generous host she spent four years playing this part as Napoleon's Grnad Empire began to fall apart and it all ended suddenly in 1813 with Napoleon's exile on Elba and Josephine succumbing, aged 51, to her final moments.
Andrea Stuart's biography of France's most celebrated Empress is effortlessly written, evoking an emotional reponse full of admiration for this woman who transformed from the rose of Martinque to one of the most powerful and loved women of the time. Whilst popular history may relegate her to the boudoir with the infamous phrase of `Not tonight, Josephine' from Napoleon, what this effort has done is draw attention to a woman who place in history is very much assured.

Highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Forget about Erickson, this is the only good English biography about Empress Josephine., October 17, 2008

By 

JB "MeanCreek" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine (Paperback)

Luminous skin, dark blue eyes, heavy chestnut hair, harmonious features, Josephine was a charming young lady even when her mouth was too small and one of her teeth was stained from eating too much sugar as a child.

Married to the Viscount of Beauharnais, a relative of hers, the young "creole" had to endure her husband's infidelities and humiliations. Just when she thought she was finally getting some stability in her life, the "Terror" takes place and she nearly lost her head. Indeed, unlike other Aristocrats of her time, the little "creole" proved to have an amazing sense of adaptability and cleverness which allowed her to survive the most hostile situations.

Unlike Carolly Erickson, Andrea Stuart has done a lot of serious research on the days of the Ancient Regime and the Revolution. This research enables us to understand Josephine and the reasons behind her actions. For example, Stuart reveals that Josephine was most likely faking when "she fainted" upon hearing about Napoleon's wishes for divorce. The Empress was a product of XVIII Century theatrics but she always managed to make the best of each situation. She even charmed Napoleon's enemy, Tzar Alexander of Russia in order to secure the protection of her children.

A woman of true style and beauty, she helped define European fashion during the early XIX Century. This didn't keep her from becoming an accomplished biologist, conducting valuable research on the nature of many exotic animals and plants.

This book brings light to the life of a remarkable woman whom perhaps died too young...