JOSEPHINE (MARIE ROSE JOSEPHINE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE) (1763-1814), empress of the French, was born in the island of Martinique on the 23rd of June 1763, being the eldest of three daughters of Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, lieutenant of artillery. Her beauty and grace, though of a languid Creole style, won the affections of the young officer the vicomte de Beauharnais, and, after some family complications, she was married to him. Their married life was not wholly happy, the frivolity of Josephine occasioning her husband anxiety and jealousy. Two children, Eugène and Hortense, were the fruit of the union. During Josephine's second residence in Martinique, whither she proceeded to tend her mother, occurred the first troubles with the slaves, which resulted from the precipitate action of the constituent assembly in emancipating them. She returned to her husband, who at that time entered into political life at Paris. Her beauty and vivacity won her many admirers in the salons of the capital. As the Revolution ran its course her husband, as an ex-noble, incurred the suspicion and hostility of the Jacobins; and his ill-success at the head of a French army on the Rhine led to his arrest and execution. Thereafter Josephine was in a position of much perplexity and some hardship, but the friendship of Barras and of Madame Tallien, to both of whom she was then much attached, brought her into notice, and she was one of the queens of Parisian society in the year 1795, when Napoleon Bonaparte's services to the French convention in scattering the malcontents of the capital (13 Vendémiaire, or October 5, 1795) brought him to the front. There is a story that she became known to Napoleon through a visit paid to him by her son Eugène in order to beg his help in procuring the restoration of his father's sword, but it rests on slender foundations. In any case, it is certain that Bonaparte, however he came to know her, was speedily captivated by her charms. She, on her side, felt very little affection for the thin, impecunious and irrepressible suitor; but by degrees she came to acquiesce in the thought of marriage, her hesitations, it is said, being removed by the influence of Barras and by the nomination of Bonaparte to the command of the army of Italy. The civil marriage took place on the 9th of March 1796, two days before the bridegroom set out for his command. He failed to induce her to go with him to Nice and Italy.