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.
Bonaparte’s letters to Josephine during the campaign reveal the ardour of his love, while she rarely answered them. As he came to realize her shallowness and frivolity his passion cooled; but at the time when he resided at Montebello (near Milan) in 1797 he still showed great regard for her. During his absence in Egypt in 1798-1799, her relations to an officer, M. Charles, were most compromising; and Bonaparte on his return thought of divorcing her. Her tears and the entreaties of Eugène and Hortense availed to bring about a reconciliation; and during the period of the consulate (1799-1804) their relations were on the whole happy, though Napoleon’s conduct now gave his consort grave cause for concern. His brothers and sisters more than once begged him to divorce Josephine, and it is known that, from the time when he became first consul for life (August 1802) with large powers over the choice of a successor, he kept open the alternative of a divorce. Josephine’s anxieties increased on the proclamation of the Empire (May 18, 1804); and on the 1st of December 1804, the eve of the coronation at Notre Dame, she gained her wish that she should be married anew to Napoleon with religious rites. Despite her care, the emperor procured the omission of one formality, the presence of the parish priest; but at the coronation scene Josephine appeared radiant with triumph over her envious relatives. The august marriages contracted by her children Eugène and Hortense seemed to establish her position; but her ceaseless extravagance and, above all, the impossibility that she should bear a son strained the relations between Napoleon and Josephine. She complained of his infidelities and growing callousness. The end came in sight after the campaign of 1809, when Napoleon caused the announcement to be made to her that reasons of state compelled him to divorce her. Despite all her pleadings he held to his resolve. The most was made of the slight technical irregularity at the marriage ceremony of the 1st of December 1804; and the marriage was declared null and void.
At her private retreat, La Malmaison, near Paris, which she had beautified with curios and rare plants and flowers, Josephine closed her life in dignified retirement. Napoleon more than once came to consult her upon matters in which he valued her tact and good sense. Her health declined early in 1814, and after his first abdication (April 11, 1814) it was clear that her end was not far off. The emperor Alexander of Russia and Frederick William III. of Prussia, then in Paris, requested an interview with her. She died on the 24th of May 1814. Her friends, Mme de Rémusat and others, pointed out that Napoleon’s good fortune deserted him after the divorce; and it is certain that the Austrian marriage clogged him in several ways. Josephine’s influence was used on behalf of peace and moderation both in internal and in foreign affairs. Thus she begged Napoleon not to execute the duc d’Enghien and not to embroil himself in Spanish affairs in 1808.
See M. A. Le Normand, Mémoires historiques et secrets de Joséphine (2 vols., 1820); Lettres de Napoléon à Joséphine (1833); J. A. Aubenas, Hist. de l’impératrice Joséphine (2 vols., 1858-1859); J. Turquan, L’Impératrice Joséphine (2 vols., 1895-1896); F. Masson, Joséphine (3 vols., 1899-1902); Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine (1796-1812), translated and edited by H. F. Hall (1903). Also the Memoirs of Mme. de Rémusat and of Bausset, and P. W. Sergeant, The Empress Josephine (1908).
(J. Hl. R.)
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS (c. 37-c. 95?), Jewish historian and military commander, was born in the first year of Caligula (37-38). His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly families, and through his mother he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan. A precocious student of the Law, he made trial of the three sects of Judaism—Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes—before he reached the age of nineteen. Then, having spent three years in the desert with the hermit Banus, who was presumably an Essene, he became a Pharisee. In 64 he went to Rome to intercede on behalf of some priests, his friends, whom the procurator Felix had sent to render account to Caesar for some insignificant offence. Making friends with Alityrus, a Jewish actor, who was a favourite of Nero, Josephus obtained an introduction to the empress Poppaea and effected his purpose by her help. His visit to Rome enabled him to speak from personal experience of the power of the Empire, when he expostulated with the revolutionary Jews on his return to Palestine. But they refused to listen; and he, with all the Jews who did not fly the country, was dragged into the great rebellion of 66. In company with two other priests, Josephus was sent to Galilee under orders (he says) to persuade the ill-affected to lay down their arms and return to the Roman allegiance, which the Jewish aristocracy had not yet renounced. Having sent his two companions back to Jerusalem, he organized the forces at his disposal, and made arrangements for the government of his province. His obvious desire to preserve law and order excited the hostility of John of Giscala, who endeavoured vainly to remove him as a traitor to the national cause by inciting the Galileans to kill him and by persuading the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem to recall him.
In the spring of 67 the Jewish troops, whom Josephus had drilled so sedulously, fled before the Roman forces of Vespasian and Titus. He sent to Jerusalem for reinforcements, but none came. With the stragglers who remained, he held a stronghold against the Romans by dint of his native cunning, and finally, when the place was taken, persuaded forty men, who shared his hiding-place, to kill one another in turn rather than commit suicide. They agreed to cast lots, on the understanding that the second should kill the first and so on. Josephus providentially drew the last lot and prevailed upon his destined victim to live. Their companions were all dead in accordance with the compact; but Josephus at any rate survived and surrendered. Being led before Vespasian, he was inspired to prophesy that Vespasian would become emperor. In consequence of the prophecy his life was spared, but he was kept close prisoner for two years. When his prophecy was fulfilled he was liberated, assumed the name of Flavius, the family name of Vespasian, and accompanied his patron to Alexandria. There he took another wife, as the Jewess allotted him by Vespasian after the fall of Caesarea had forsaken him, and returned to attend Titus and to act as intermediary between him and the Jews who still held Jerusalem. His efforts in this capacity failed; but when the city was stormed (70) Titus granted him whatever boon he might ask. So he secured the lives of some free men who had been taken and (by the gift of Titus) certain sacred books. After this he repaired to Rome and received one of the pensions, which Vespasian (according to Suetonius) was the first to bestow upon Latin and Greek writers. He was also made a Roman citizen and received an estate in Judaea. Thenceforward he devoted himself to literary work under the patronage of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. As he mentions the death of Agrippa II. it is probable that he lived into the 2nd century; but the date of Agrippa’s death has been challenged and, if his patron Epaphroditus may be identified with Nero’s freedman, it is possible that Josephus may have been involved in his fall and perished under Domitian in 95.
Works.—1. The Jewish War (Περὶ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊκοῦ πολέμου), the oldest of Josephus’ extant writings, was written towards the end of Vespasian’s reign (69-79). The Aramaic original has not been preserved; but the Greek version was prepared by Josephus himself in conjunction with competent Greek scholars. Its purpose in all probability was, in the first instance, to exhibit to the Babylonian Jews the overwhelming power of Rome and so to deter them from repeating the futile revolt of the Jews of Palestine. Of its seven books, the first two survey the history of the Jews from the capture of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the outbreak of war in 67, and here Josephus relies upon some such general history as that of Nicolaus of Damascus. The rest deals with the events of the war (67-73) which fell more or less within his own knowledge. Vespasian, Titus and Agrippa II. testified (he tells us) to his accuracy. Representatives of the Zealots would probably have protested against his pro-Roman prejudices.
2. The Jewish Antiquities (Ἰουδαϊκὴ Ἀρχαιολογία) covers in twenty books the history of the Jews from the creation of the world to the outbreak of the war with Rome. It was finished in the thirteenth year of Domitian (93). Its purpose was to glorify the Jewish nation in the eyes of the Roman world. In the part covered by the books of the Bible Josephus follows them, and that mainly, if not entirely as they are translated into Greek by the Seventy (the Septuagint version). Being a Pharisee, he sometimes introduces traditions of the Elders, which are either inferences from, or embroideries of, the biblical narrative. Sometimes, also, he gives proof of some knowledge of Hebrew and supplements his scriptural authorities, which include 1 Esdras, from general Greek histories. For the later period he uses the Greek Esther, with its additions, 1 Maccabees, Polybius, Strabo and Nicolaus of Damascus. But towards the end he confesses that he has grown weary of his task, and his history becomes meagre. The work contains accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus, which may account for the fact that Josephus’ writings were rescued from oblivion by the Christians. But the description of Jesus as “a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man,” can hardly be genuine, and the assertion “this was the Christ” is equally doubtful, unless it be assumed that the Greek word Christos had become technical in the sense of false-Christ or false-prophet among non-Christian Jews.