Napoleon divorces Josephine
The future Empress of the French was born in Martinique in 1763 as Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, daughter of a minor aristocrat. She was known as Rose or Marie and it was Napoleon who called her Josephine. At 16 she was sent to France to be married to the Vicomte de Beauharnais. They had two children, but the marriage did not work and they separated.
Beauharnais was executed during the Terror in 1794. His widow spent a few months in prison, but she was close to the men who took over France after Robespierre’s fall, including Paul Barras and Jean-Lambert Tallien. Charming, coquettish and sexually adventurous, she became Barras’ principal mistress and lurid tales circulated about their orgies with Tallien’s wife and others.
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