March 29, 1814. Josephine leaves Malmaison to go to Évreux.
April 1, 1814. Hortense and her two boys arrive at Évreux with the news that Paris has capitulated.
April 6, 1814. Napoleon abdicates.
April 16, 1814. Tsar Alexandre visits Josephine at Malmaison.
May 14, 1814. Tsar Alexandre visits Josephine, Hortense and Eugène at Saint-Leu. Josephine catches a chill.
May 29, 1814. Josephine dies at noon.
February 26, 1815. Napoleon escapes Elba.
March 21, 1815. Napoleon returns to Paris
June 18, 1815. Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo.
June 22, 1815. Napoleon abdicates a second time.
October 15, 1815. Napoleon arrives at Jamestown, St. Helena.
May 5, 1821. Napoleon dies.
Characters
Agathe: Josephine’s scullery maid.
Arberg, Countess d’: Josephine’s second lady of honour, replacing Chastulé.
Auguié, Adèle: Madame Campan’s niece and Hortense’s closest friend, as well as her maid.
Avrillion, Mademoiselle: Josephine’s mistress of the wardrobe.
Bacchiochi, Elisa Bonaparte (Princess of Piombino, Grand Duchess): Napoleon’s eldest sister; married to Félix.
Beauharnais, Eugène (Viceroy of Italy): Josephine’s son by her first husband; married Princess Auguste-Amélie of Bavaria and had six children.
Beauharnais, Fanny: Josephine’s aunt through her first husband; poet and eccentric.
Beauharnais, Marquis de: the father of Alexandre, Josephine’s first husband; married to Josephine’s Aunt Désirée.
Bonaparte, Hortense Beauharnais (Queen of Holland): Josephine’s daughter by her first husband; married Napoleon’s brother Louis and had four sons (little Napoleon, Petit and Oui-Oui by her husband; Charles Auguste Demorny by Charles Flahaut).
Bonaparte, Jérôme (King of Westphalia): Napoleon’s youngest sibling; first married Elizabeth Patterson (annulled), then Princess Catherine of Württemberg; one child by his first wife, four by his second.
Bonaparte, Joseph (King of Naples, King of Spain): Napoleon’s older brother; married to Julie Clary, by whom he had two daughters.
Bonaparte, Letizia (Signora Letizia, Madame Mère): Napoleon’s mother.
Bonaparte, Louis (King of Holland): Napoleon’s brother; married Hortense and had three sons.
Bonaparte, Lucien: Napoleon’s brother; disowned by him; first married Christine, with whom he had two children; widowed, he married Alexandrine, with whom he had eleven.
Bonaparte, Napoleon (Emperor of the French, King of Italy): first wife, Josephine; second wife, Marie-Louise, by whom he had one son, Napoleon-François-Charles-Joseph.
Borghèse, Pauline Bonaparte (Princess Borghèse): Napoleon’s sister, renowned for her beauty; first married to Victor Lederc, then widowed; subsequently married Prince Camillo Borghèse. Dermide, her son by Leclerc, died at the age of six.
Bourrienne, Fauvelet: Napoleon’s first secretary.
Cadoudal, Georges: Royalist agent, convicted of conspiracy.
Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques de: Second Consul, Arch-Chancellor.
Campan, Madame: schoolmistress and former lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette.
Caulaincourt, Armand de: French Ambassador to Russia, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Josephine had known his family since before the Revolution and had helped them during the Terror.
Chimay, Thérèse Tallien (Princess de Chimay): Josephine’s close friend. Divorced from Tallien (who died indigent, likely suffering from venereal disease) and the mother of a number of illegitimate children by the financier Ouvrard. Ostracized by the court and polite society, she nevertheless married Prince de Chimay. One of her sons by Chimay married a woman whose biological father is believed to have been Napoleon.
Constant: Napoleon’s valet.
Corvisart, Dr. Jean: Imperial doctor to Napoleon and Josephine for many years, then doctor to Empress Marie-Louise. He conspired with the Austrians to help keep Marie-Louise and her son from joining Napoleon on Elba by telling her that her health was not strong enough for such a voyage.
Denuelle, Eleonore: Caroline’s reader, Napoleon’s mistress. Her claim that Napoleon was the father of her son, Léon, was later substantiated.
Désirée, Aunt: see Montardat.
Despréaux, Monsieur: dance master.
Duchâtel, Adèle: Josephine’s lady-in-waiting; mistress to Napoleon, courted by Eugène.
Duplan, Monsieur: hairdresser.
Duroc, Christophe: Napoleon’s aide and Hortense’s first love.
Fesch, Joseph (Archbishop of Lyons, Cardinal): Napoleon’s uncle by marriage.
Flahaut, Charles: Hortense’s lover and father of her son Charles Auguste Demorny (raised by Flahaut’s mother, the romance novelist Madame de Souza, with financial help from Hortense).
Fouché: Minister of Police, at various times; intriguer.
Frangeau, Madame: midwife.
Gazzani, Carlotta: Josephine’s reader and Napoleon’s mistress (briefly).
Georges, Mademoiselle: actress, Napoleon’s mistress.
Gontier: Josephine’s elderly manservant.
Grassini: Italian singer, Napoleon’s mistress.
Horeau, Dr.: Dr. Corvisart’s student; Josephine’s physician at the time of her death.
Isabey: portrait artist, art teacher, Josephine’s make-up artist.
Junot, Andoche: Napoleon’s aide; Governor of Paris; Caroline’s lover.
Lavalette, Émilie Beauharnais: Josephine’s niece by her first husband; married to Lavalette. After Napoleon’s second and final defeat, Émilie disguised herself as a man and took her husband’s place in prison (where he’d been condemned to death), allowing him to escape to Bavaria. Tragically, while in prison, she suffered a miscarriage and lost her sanity. Pardoned in 1822, Lavalette returned to his wife in France, but she did not recognize him. However, his attentive care partially restored her memory and their last years together were happy ones.
Leroy, Monsieur: fashion designer.
Méneval: Napoleon’s secretary, replacing Fauvelet Bourrienne.
Mimi: Josephine’s childhood maid; a mulatto from Martinique, formerly a slave. She married one of Napoleon’s cabinet guards and during the Hundred Days gave refuge to Hortense.
Montardat, Désirée: Josephine’s godmother and aunt; first married to Monsieur Renaudin;-, who was suspected of trying to murder her. Her second husband was Marquis de Beauharnais, the father of Josephine’s first husband. Shortly after the Marquis’s death, she married Pierre Danès de Montardat (“Monsieur Pierre”), the mayor of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Moreau: popular general convicted of conspiracy; exiled to America but returned from exile to join the Russian forces. He was killed by a French cannonball at the Battle of Dresden in 1813.
Moustache: Napoleon’s courier.
Murat, Caroline Bonaparte (Duchess de Berg, Queen of Naples): Napoleon’s youngest sister; married to Joachim Murat, with whom she had four children.
Murat, Joachim (Duke de Berg, King of Naples): Caroline Bonaparte’s husband.
Rémusat, Claire (“Clari”): lady-in-waiting to Josephine.
Rochefoucauld, Chastulé, Countess de la: Josephine’s distant cousin and lady of honour.
Roustam: Napoleon’s Mameluke bodyguard.
Talleyrand: Minister of Foreign Affairs and traitor.
Talma: the most renowned actor of his day.
Tascher, Stéphanie: Josephine’s niece and goddaughter.
Thérèse: see Chimay.
Walewska, Countess Marie: Napoleon’s Polish mistress, the mother of his son Alexandre.
P.S. Ideas, interviews & features
About the author
Author Biography
About the book
In the Author’s Own Words
• Was Josephine the Key to Napoleon’s Power?
An Interview with Sandra Gulland
Read on
Recommended Reading
Web Detective
About the author
Author Biography
SANDRA GULLAND was born in Florida in 1944. Her father was an airline pilot, so the family moved often, living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then Florida again before settling in Berkeley, California.
In the fall of 1970, Gulland moved to Canada to teach Grade 2 in an Inuit village in northern Labrador, an experience she describes as “amazing.” Later, she worked as a book editor in Toronto, and in 1977 she married Richard Gulland. She gave birth to a daughter and son, and in 1980 the family moved to a log cabin near Killaloe (population 600), in northern Ontario. Gulland started an editorial and writing service, and became the principal of a parent-run alternative school. All the while, she grew vegetables (or “tried to grow vegetables,” as she puts it), raised chickens and pigs, and developed a lifelong fascination with horses. Meanwhile, and always, she was writing.
Gulland’s consuming interest in Josephine Bonaparte was sparked in 1972 when she read a biography about her. Decades of in-depth research followed, which included investigative trips to France, Italy and Martinique, consultations with period scholars and learning French.
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. was published in 1995. It was followed in 1998 by Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe and The Last Great Dance on Earth in 2000. The Josephine B. Trilogy is now published in thirteen languages. Napoleon said that he “conquered countries but that Josephine conquered hearts,” Gulland says. “It’s astonishing. She continues to do so.”
Gulland added to this hugely successful trilogy in 2008 with Mistress of the Sun, a novel based on the life of Louise de la Vallière, extraordinary horsewoman and consort to King Louis XIV.
Gulland and her husband now live half the year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and half in northern Ontario.
About the book
“If Josephine, as the chosen one, was destined to be queen, would her partner not then become king?”
In the Author’s Own Words
Was Josephine the Key to Napoleon’s Power?
From an article by Sandra Gulland, originally published in The Independent, January 26, 1999
The first mystery concerned destiny. When she was just a girl on Martinique, Josephine was told that she would become queen of France—”more than a queen.” As the unmarriageable daughter of impoverished nobility, she was an unlikely candidate. However, as we all know, the prediction came true.
There are many who accept that there is such a thing as destiny and that destiny can, by mysterious means, be foretold. I, however, am not one of these people. I find it difficult to believe that there might have been a master plan in which a girl on the island of Martinique is tagged to become empress of the French.
Was it true? I knew I could not believe all that I read. The history of the Napoleonic era is rife with myth: Josephine enjoyed a good story, and Napoleon knew the value of propaganda. In later years, historians and biographers explained the “facts” with sometimes rather creative interpretations. Yet the evidence indicated that there was truth to the story. A number of references to this prediction were made before it ever came to pass. Once I accepted the fact of this prediction, other questions arose. If Josephine, as the chosen one, was destined to be queen, would her partner not then become king? Of course, we answer, thinking of Bonaparte (always Bonaparte).
Yet there were other men in Josephine’s life, and each became—after aligning himself with her—a candidate for a crown. Her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was, for a brief two weeks during the Revolution, considered the man who ruled France. And then there was Paul Barras, the man who ran the fledgling Republic—with Josephine as his partner, a platonic one, in my estimation, but a partner nonetheless. And then, of course, there was Napoleon, an unemployed Corsican officer. A little over four years after he marries Josephine, he takes control of France. The rest, as they say, is history: he crowns himself and Josephine as well. As empress of the French, she is indeed “more than a queen.” Six years after becoming empress, Napoleon divorces her and his downfall begins.
Coincidence? Was Josephine the key to Napoleon’s power? Napoleon’s power was indeed great and very much his own, yet most historians will acknowledge that Josephine was a significant—and even essential—part of Napoleon’s rise. Yet not only Napoleon but other men in her life came to power after aligning themselves with her. Was she destined to be queen, her partner a king? I resist this interpretation of history, yet I cannot ignore the fact that both Josephine and Napoleon—and to a great extent the public at the time—believed it to be true. Napoleon claimed that Josephine was his lucky star. Many soldiers held that Josephine was the key to Napoleon’s extraordinary good luck on the battlefield. After Napoleon divorced her, he was plagued by bad luck; people said that it was because Josephine was no longer with him.
“After Napoleon divorced Josephine, he was plagued by bad luck; people said that it was because she was no longer with him.”
But the question remains: why Josephine? She was a fairly simple woman of great heart. Although quite intelligent, she was not a great intellect. Her virtues were simple ones: she was an exceptional mother, a good friend, a caring employer, a loving wife. She knew how to be a good hostess. She had a weakness for hats. But somehow, too, she knew how to be an empress. How does one go about such a thing? There are no “How-to” books on the subject, not many classes one can take. Yet she stepped into the role easily, with tremendous grace and humanity. It was, it was said, as if she had been born to the role: and the truth was, she believed it. She believed it was her destiny.
An Interview with Sandra Gulland
The book opens with Napoleon presenting Josephine with the Regent diamond. Where is the diamond now?
When Napoleon went into exile in Elba, his second wife, Marie-Louise, fled, taking the Regent diamond with her. Her father, Emperor Francis I of Austria, later returned it to France, where it became part of the crown jewels. In 1887, France sold many of the Crown Jewels at auction, but kept the Regent. When the Germans invaded Paris in 1940, the diamond was hidden behind a stone panel in Chambord, a royal château near Blois in the Loire Valley. The Regent diamond is now displayed in the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre in Paris.
Can you describe the dances that are illustrated and where these illustrations came from?
I found the illustrations of minuet notation in The Art of Dancing by Kellom Tomlinson, and those of how to bow from Chironomia, by Gilbert Austin. Dance manuals published in that era are excellent sources of information as well. Some of them are now available online, along with video clips.
Additionally, I took a class in 18th-century dance, learning first-hand how complex and how like ballet a minuet was—very slow, measured and controlled, full of nuance. An impatient, clumsy man such as Napoleon would have been hopeless!
“I took a class in 18th-century dance, learning first-hand how complex and how like ballet a minuet was.”
“Mademoiselle George was a spirited actress with a fascinating history.”
The description of Mademoiselle George’s heckled debut performance suggests that this particular episode did in fact occur and was reported in great detail. Josephine later remarks that she is weary of the cult of enthusiasm that attends George’s every move. Considering this and the fact that she was Napoleon’s mistress, it seems as though she could be the subject of her own book—was she?
Mademoiselle George was a spirited actress with a fascinating history. She has been the subject of a number of books. She was only fifteen when she debuted as Clytemnestra in Racine’s Iphigénie. Her beauty made audiences gasp, but initially her acting was overly studied. She must have been a quick study, though, because within months the public was crazy for her. I personally never warmed to her because, of course, I was seeing her through Josephine’s eyes.
What else is known about the 18,000 men lost to yellow fever in Saint-Domingue?<
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In the end, an estimated 40,000 lives were lost in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), many of them to yellow fever. Ultimately, all the French were driven from the island, fleeing to other French colonies in the West Indies.
The story of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the self-educated slave who led the island’s independence movement, is tragic. He is sometimes referred to as “the black Napoleon” because of his military brilliance. Lured by a false promise of peace, he was captured and brought to France in 1803, where he died in a prison dungeon from cold, starvation and neglect.
There must be a story behind Josephine’s description of Pope Pius VII’s rough and noisy priests “spitting everywhere!” How had the Pope’s entourage been documented to provide such a memorable episode?
I was initially intimidated by the challenge of depicting the pope’s visit until I read, in letters written at the time, that the pope had a high voice and that his party of priests was ill-mannered (and, yes, spat). These were the details I needed to make them human.
The artist Jacques-Louis David makes a cameo appearance just prior to the coronation, complaining of inappropriate sightlines to work on what eventually became the grand mural The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Coronation of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame Cathedral An inconvenience to Josephine, perhaps, but a great help to you in preparing the setting, the costumes and the details, one would imagine.
The story of David’s creation of the magnificent coronation scene could be a book in itself. All of what is related in the novel is based on fact, but there was much more that I would have liked to include as well. In fact, I wrote several additional scenes about the painting that I ended up cutting. One man was furious because he was portrayed without his wig; the artist proclaimed that he would not sully his paint brushes to create such a lie—yet there are lies aplenty. Napoleon’s mother, who never showed up (a humiliation to him), is shown prominently. Maids, not Napoleons sisters, are shown holding Josephine’s train (the sisters insisted on this). In the duplicate of this painting at Versailles, David was somehow persuaded to show Napoleon’s vain sister Pauline in a pink gown, making her stand out from all the others. Napoleon said of the painting that one didn’t look at it so much as walk into it. It does have that effect.
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