Josephine

by André Castelot, Denise Folliot (Translator)

This is the biography of one of the most remarkable and amazing women in history. Joséphine de Beauharnais was born on 23 June 1763, in the West Indies on the Island of Martinique. She is said to have been a Creole, a term that often but not always implies a person of mixed race. Yet, from this humble origin, Josephine became the first Empress of the French. Through her daughter, Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoléon III. Through her son, Eugène, she was the great-grandmother of later Swedish and Danish kings and queens, as well as the last Queen of Greece. The current reigning houses of Belgium, Norway and Luxembourg descend from her. All of these things happened because Josephine met a lowly and seemingly unimportant corporal named Napoléon.

Genres: Biography

518 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

André Castelot, born André Storms was a French writer, historian and scriptwriter born in Belgium. He was the son of the Symbolist painter Maurice Chabas and Gabrielle Storms-Castelot, and the brother of the film actor Jacques Castelot. He wrote more than one hundred books, mostly biographies of famous people.

Reviews

[carriedaway · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is interesting but he, and therefore I, view Josephine as a ditzy, spoiled trollop. I'm about halfway through it and it's like watching a trainwreck happening. I had no idea what Josephine's life was like, I'm going to have to pick up another bio to see if his version is skewed.

[Dule · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok

[Lu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read years ago but had a hard time with it..