Joséphine de Beauharnais

Napoleon, within weeks of his successful defense of the Convention, had become romantically attached to Barras's former mistress, Joséphine de Beauharnais, the widow of a republican general, whom he marries on March 9, 1796 after he had broken off his engagement to Désirée Clary.

Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte leaves Paris to take command of the Army of Italy and leads it on a successful invasion of Italy.

Moreau, after prolonged difficulties caused by want of funds and material, had in 1797 again crossed the Rhine but his operations were checked by the conclusion of the preliminaries of Peace of Leoben between Bonaparte and the Austrians.

It was at this time that he had found a traitorous correspondence between his old comrade and commander Charles Pichegru and the émigré Prince de Condé.

He had already appeared as Pichegru's defender against imputations of disloyalty, and now he foolishly concealed his discovery, with the result that he has ever since been suspected of at least partial complicity.

Too late to clear himself, he had sent the correspondence to Paris and had issued a proclamation to the army denouncing Pichegru as a traitor.

Moreau had been dismissed and only re-employed in 1799, when the absence of Bonaparte and the victorious advance of the Russian commander Aleksandr Suvorov had made it necessary to have some tried and experienced general in Italy.

He had commanded the Army of Italy (France), with little success, for a short time before being appointed to the Army of the Rhine, and remained with Barthelemy Catherine Joubert, his successor in Italy, until the battle of Novi had been fought and lost.

Joubert had fallen in the battle, and Moreau had then conducted the retreat of the army to Genoa, where he had handed over the command to Jean Étienne Championnet.

When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, he had found Moreau at Paris, greatly dissatisfied with the French Directory government both as a general and as a republican, and had obtained his assistance in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, when Moreau had commanded the force which confined two of the directors in the Luxembourg Palace.

In reward, Napoleon had again given Moreau command of the Army of the Rhine, with which he had forced back the Austrians from the Rhine to the Isar.

On his return to Paris he had married Mlle Hullot, a Creole woman and friend of Joséphine de Beauharnais, an ambitious woman who has gained a complete ascendancy over him.

After spending a few weeks with the army in Germany and winning the celebrated battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800, he settles down to enjoy the fortune he had acquired during his campaigns.

Pope Pius VII presides over the December 2 ceremony at the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, in which Napoleon crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years, then crowns Josephine empress.

Witnessing this, Simón Bolívar dedicates himself to liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.

Ludwig van Beethoven, a longtime admirer, is disappointed at this turn towards imperialism and scratches his dedication to Napoleon from his Third Symphony.

The story that Napoleon seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony to avoid his subjugation to the authority of the pontiff is apocryphal; the coronation procedure had been agreed in advance.

Napoleon creates a titled court, including several ex-royalists and many of his statesman and generals.

André Masséna is made a marshal of France.

Joseph Marie Charles, called Jacquard, was born in Lyon, France on July 7, 1752, as one of nine children of Jean Charles dit Jacquard, a master weaver of Lyon, and his wife, Antoinette Rive.

However, only Joseph and his sister Clémence (born November 7, 1747) survive to adulthood.

Jacquard’s surname is not technically “Jacquard”; it is Charles.

In his grandfather’s generation, several branches of the Charles family had lived in Lyon’s Couzon-au-Mont d’Or suburb (on Lyon’s north side, along the Saône River).

To distinguish the various branches, they had been given nicknames; Joseph’s branch was dubbed the “Jacquard” Charles.

Thus, Joseph’s grandfather was Barthélemy Charles dit [called] Jacquard.

Although his father was a man of property, Joseph had received no formal schooling and remained illiterate until he was thirteen.

He was finally taught by his brother-in-law, Jean-Marie Barret, who runs a printing and bookselling business.

Barret also had introduced Joseph to learned societies and scholars.

His mother died in 1762, and when his father died in 1772, Joseph had inherited his father’s house, looms and workshop as well as a vineyard and quarry in Couzon-au-Mont d’Or.

Joseph then dabbled in real estate.

In 1778, he had listed his occupations as master weaver and silk merchant.

Jacquard’s occupation at this time is problematic because by 1780 most silk weavers did not work independently; instead, they worked for wages from silk merchants, and Jacquard was not registered as a silk merchant in Lyon.

On July 26, 1778, Joseph had married Claudine Boichon, a middle-class widow from Lyon who owned property and had a substantial dowry.

However, Joseph had soon fallen deeply into debt and was brought to court.

To settle his debts, he had been obliged to sell his inheritance and to appropriate his wife’s dowry.

Fortunately, his wife retained a house in Oullins (on Lyon’s south side, along the Rhone River), where the couple resided.

By 1800, Joseph had begun to dabble in inventing: a treadle loom in 1800, a loom to weave fishing nets in 1803, and starting in 1804, the “Jacquard” loom, which is meant to weave patterned silk automatically.

However, none of his inventions operate well and thus are unsuccessful.

In order to stimulate the French textile industry, which is competing with Britain’s industrialized textile industry, Napoleon Bonaparte places large orders for Lyon’s silk, starting in 1802.

In 1801, Jacquard had exhibited his invention at the industrial exhibition in Paris; and in 1803 he had been summoned to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.

On display there was a loom by Jacques de Vaucanson.

In 1804, at the urging of Lyon silk merchant Gabriel Detilleu, Jacquard studied Vaucanson’s loom, and by 1805 Jacquard has eliminated the paper strip from Vaucanson’s mechanism and returned to using Falcon’s chain of punched cards, thus introducing automation to the silk industry.

The potential of Jacquard’s loom is immediately recognized.

On April 12, 1805, emperor Napoleon and empress Josephine visit Lyon, and during their tour, they view Jacquard’s new loom.

Three days later, the emperor grants the patent for Jacquard’s loom to the city of Lyon.

In return, Jacquard receives a lifelong pension of three thousand francs; furthermore, he will receive a royalty of fifty francs for each loom that is bought and used during the period from 1805 through 1811.

While still loving his wife, Napoleon had begun to think very seriously about the possibility of divorce when after a few years it became clear Empress Joséphine could not have a child.

The final die was cast when Joséphine's grandson Napoléon Charles Bonaparte, who had been declared Napoléon's heir, died of croup in 1807.

Napoleon had begun to create lists of eligible princesses.

At dinner on November 30, 1809, he let Joséphine know that—in the interest of France—he must find a wife who could produce an heir.

Joséphine had agreed to the divorce so the Emperor could remarry in the hope of having an heir.

The divorce ceremony takes place on January 10, 1810, and is a grand but solemn social occasion, and each reads a statement of devotion to the other.

Napoleon had insisted Joséphine retain the title of empress even after their separation.

"It is my will that she retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she never doubt my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and dearest friend."
 
After the divorce, Joséphine lives at the Château de Malmaison, near Paris.

She remains on good terms with Napoléon, who once said that the only thing to come between them was her debts.

Napoleon's wish to marry Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia, had caused alarm in Austria, who were afraid of being sandwiched between two great powers allied with each other.

At the persuasion of Count Metternich, a marriage between Napoleon and Marie Louise, the daughter of Emperor Francis I!, had been suggested by Francis himself to the Count of Narbonne but no official overture had been made by the Austrians.

Though officials in Paris and Austria were beginning to accept the possibility of the union, Marie Louise had been kept uninformed of developments.

Frustrated by the Russians delaying the marriage negotiations, Napoleon had rescinded his proposal in late January 1810 and began negotiations to marry Marie Louise with the Austrian ambassador,  Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg.

Schwarzenberg had signed the marriage contract on February 7.

Marie Louise had been informed of the pending marriage by Metternich.

When asked for consent, she had replied: "I wish only what my duty commands me to wish."

Marie Louise is married by proxy to Napoleon on March 11, 1810 at the Augustinian Church, Vienna.

Napoleon is represented by Archduke Charles, the bride's uncle.