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| Joséphine de Beauharnais with her children, Eugène and Hortense. |
When Emperor
Napoleon dissolved his marriage with Joséphine de Beauharnais over her
inability to sire an heir for his newly minted imperial throne, it was sufficient to say that her legacy would probably be a tarnished one. Though her beauty had
been renowned and her charm was indisputable, she had been put aside by the
most powerful man in all of Europe. She perhaps went to her grave four years
later believing she had failed in her duty. Ironically, the lineage that Joséphine had felt
such pressure to continue would die out prematurely, while her own descendants from her previous marriage made surprisingly advantageous marital alliances with various royal houses of
Europe. As it stands today, Napoleon has no surviving legitimate descendants,
while Joséphine’s descendants currently occupy the thrones of Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Belgium, and Luxembourg. Furthermore, two of her grandchildren were consorts to
past monarchs of Brazil and Portugal. One of her grandsons even managed to
follow in Napoléon’s footsteps to become Emperor of the French. So who were the
Beauharnaises, the unexpected conquerors of royal Europe?
In 1779, a Caribbean-born French aristocrat, Alexandre de Beauharnais,
Viscount de Beauharnais, married Rose Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, who like
her husband had also been born in the Caribbean to a prominent French family. Together they had two children: Eugène de Beauharnais and Hortense de Beauharnais. Alexandre lost his head at the guillotine in the Reign of Terror phase of the French Revolution, and his wife Rose would most likely have been sent to the guillotine herself had Maximilian Robespierre not been executed just five days later, bringing an end to the Terror.
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| Empress Joséphine |
Alive but widowed and destitute, Rose returned to her children and did
what she could to navigate the murky waters of the precarious new world that
had been created by the Revolution. After cultivating lovers from various corners of high French society, Rose married a young Corsican army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. She was not
particularly bowled over by him, but he was ambitious and helplessly in love
with her. They married in 1796, at which point Napoleon insisted that she begin
calling herself by her middle name, Joséphine. Though she was not passionately
in love with Napoleon, Joséphine was happy to be settled financially and especially
appreciated the devotion her new husband felt for her two children. Little
could Joséphine have known at this time that this marriage would catapult her
to a place she would never have imagined in her wildest dreams.
By 1799, Joséphine’s husband had become the most powerful man in France
as “First Consul”, which he eventually turned into consul for life. Then, in
1804, Napoleon made the audacious move to proclaim the First French Empire and
crowned himself as Emperor of the French. Joséphine, in turn, became Empress of
the French. Yet Joséphine now faced the pressure of giving her husband an heir to inherit the throne, and her inability to sire any other children led Napoleon to serve her with a divorce. When Joséphine died four years later, Napoleon, by this time forced into
his first exile on the island of Elba, fell into a depression after learning of
her passing.
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| Emperor Napoleon crowning Joséphine at their coronation, 1804. |
Even after his
divorce from their mother, Napoleon continued to act as a paternal figure to
his stepchildren, Eugène and Hortense, and always kept an affectionate
relationship with both. Eugène was appointed viceroy of Italy after Napoleon
invaded the region and crowned himself King of Italy, and has long been
regarded as one of the most politically astute of Napoleon’s relatives. As for
Hortense, she not only was Napoleon’s stepdaughter but eventually would be his
sister-in-law. Hortense married Napoleon’s brother, Louis Bonaparte, who was
created King of Holland after Napoleon’s armies invaded the territory that is
nowadays the Netherlands. Louis and Hortense were the parents of Napoleon III,
who followed in his uncle’s footsteps to become Emperor of the Second French
Empire from 1852 to 1870. Napoleon III's only son died young without having married, and Hortense's royal lineage ends there.
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| Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg |
Eugène de
Beauharnais contracted a successful royal marriage of his own with Princess Augusta
of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I of Bavaria. Having received the
hereditary title Duke of Leuchtenberg from his father-in-law, Eugène and
Princess Augusta had seven children who ingratiated themselves into Europe’s
royal menagerie. Their eldest daughter, Joséphine, named for her grandmother,
married King Oscar of Sweden; their eldest son, Auguste, married Queen Maria II
of Portugal, and their third daughter, Amelie, married Emperor Pedro I of
Brazil. Two of their other daughters married minor German princes, while their
youngest son, Maximilian, married one of the daughters of Tsar Nicholas I of
Russia.
Through the
children of Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg, and Princess Augusta
of Bavaria, the Beauharnais line traveled down primarily through Sweden’s royal
lineage. In fact, the current royal family of Sweden, the House of Bernadotte,
has a Napoleonic connection of its own. The dynasty’s founder was a French
general named Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte who later served as one of Napoleon’s
marshals and was also married to Desiree Clary, who was briefly Napoleon’s fiancé
before he married Joséphine. Bernadotte was later chosen to become crown prince
of Sweden and ascended the throne as King Carl XIV John. King Carl and Queen
Desiree’s son, King Oscar I, married Eugène’s daughter, Joséphine of
Leuchtenberg. Through the Swedish royal line, the current monarchs of Denmark,
Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and Luxembourg are descendants of King Oscar I and
Joséphine of Leuchtenberg.
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| Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland |
Ancestry from Eugéne de Beauharnais to
the present Queen of Denmark:
Eugéne de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg à Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of
Sweden à King Charles XV of Sweden à Louise of Sweden, Queen of Denmark à King Christian X of Denmark à King Frederick IX of Denmark à Queen
Margrethe II of Denmark
Ancestry from Eugéne de Beauharnais to
the present King of Sweden:
Eugéne de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg à Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of
Sweden à King Oscar II of Sweden à King Gustaf V of Sweden à King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden à Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden à King
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Ancestry from Eugéne de Beauharnais to
the present King of Norway: Eugéne
de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg à Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of
Sweden à King Charles XV of Sweden à Louise of Sweden, Queen of Denmark à King Haakon VII of Norway à King Olav V of Norway à King
Harald V of Norway
Ancestry from Eugéne de Beauharnais to
the present King of Belgium: Eugéne
de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg à Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of
Sweden à King Oscar II of Sweden à Prince Carl of Sweden à Princess Astrid of Sweden, Queen of the Belgians à King Albert II of Belgium à King
Philippe of Belgium
Ancestry from Eugéne de Beauharnais to
the present Grand Duke of Luxembourg: Eugéne
de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg à Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of
Sweden à King Oscar II of Sweden à Prince Carl of Sweden à Princess Astrid of Sweden, Queen of the Belgians à Princess
Josephine-Charlotte of Belgium, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg à Grand
Duke Henri of Luxembourg
I have found out so much about my linage .
ReplyDeleteStill looking to find out as much as I can. Very interesting!!!!
Napoleon's great love was Josephine...
ReplyDelete