Andrea Stuart: Josephine, The rose of Martinique

Picture / Dean Purcell

Author Andrea Stuart, raised in the Caribbean, spent five years researching the life of Marie Josephe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie, who was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique and later to become Empress Josephine of France.

At 15, "Rose", as she was known, travels to Paris where she marries the elegant and handsome Alexandre-Francois de Beauharnais. This is the age of "les liaisons dangereuses", and the urbane Alexandre is appalled by his "gauche" young wife.

He eventually accuses her of adultery so he can run off with a mistress so neurotic she had a habit "of always carrying a candle with her that she nibbled compulsively".

With two children, Rose is forced to take refuge in a convent where she begins her transformation into the fashionable and cultivated "femme fatale" who would later captivate Napoleon Bonaparte.

In Paris, as the final, bloody chapter of the French Revolution, The Terror, takes hold, Rose is imprisoned along with her husband in the notorious, vermin-infested Le Carmes prison Alexandre is executed but Rose is freed as The Terror comes to an end. She throws herself into Paris society where she meets a young, unprepossessing general with "unwashed hair" and "jaundiced complexion".

Napoleon is besotted with the sensuous older woman but it is Josephine who hesitates, not willing to give up her life as a fashion celebrity with at least two lovers.

She agrees to marriage in 1796 but doesn't shake off other lovers until Napoleon, in a jelous rage, threatens divorce .

Vain, imperious but surprisingly kind to Josephine's two children, Napoleon was one of the rudest men in France. His insults to the women of the French Court were legendary. "Madame, they told me you were ugly. They did not exaggerate", being one example.

As for that famous moment of sexual rejection of his wife: "Not tonight, Josephine", Stuart doubts its veracity, speculating it was musical hall humour.

As Napoleon's power grows and he becomes leader of France, he restores the grandeur of the Court and Josephine is at the centre of glittering splendour, entertaining popes and princes.

With his mercurial temperament Napoleon, tends to dominate the latter parts of the book and Josephine's life of beauty regimens and supervision of court menus can't help but be overshadowed.

But Josephine's story, and 18th-century France, are brought vividly to life by Stuart and this entertaining book is a particular treat for fans of historical biography.

* Anne Beston is a Herald writer

* Macmillan, $27.95