Marriage of Napoleon and Joséphine — 9 March 1796

Napoleon Bonaparte married Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, widow of General de Beauharnais, in a civil ceremony at the town hall of the second arrondissement of Paris. He called her Joséphine; she brought him the networks of the Directory and two children, Eugène and Hortense. Two days later he left to take command of the Army of Italy.

Rose de Beauharnais

Born in Martinique in 1763, Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher de La Pagerie had married Alexandre de Beauharnais in 1779; he was guillotined in July 1794. She herself was imprisoned at the Carmes and owed her life to Thermidor. A widow with two children, Eugène and Hortense, she held a place in the salons of the Directory under Barras's protection.

She met Bonaparte in the autumn of 1795, after 13 Vendémiaire. He would call her Joséphine — a name she did not bear and which he gave her.

A ten-minute wedding

The civil ceremony took place on 9 March 1796 at the town hall of the second arrondissement, Rue d'Antin. Barras and Tallien were among the witnesses. The bridegroom arrived nearly two hours late and woke the registrar, who had fallen asleep.

The register carries adjusted ages: Bonaparte made himself older, Joséphine younger, so that the six years between them vanished from the record. There was no religious contract — it would take until the eve of the coronation, in December 1804, for Cardinal Fesch to marry them in haste.

Two days later, Italy

Appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy on 2 March, a week before his wedding, Bonaparte left Paris on 11 March. The campaign that began would make him, within a year, the most famous man in France.

From Nice, Milan and Verona he wrote burning letters to a woman who answered little and deceived him with Lieutenant Hippolyte Charles. The divorce, pronounced on 15 December 1809 for want of an heir, would not end their bond: it was at Malmaison, four years later, that she died an empress in title.