He needed her soft diplomacy and her aristocratic lineage to help smooth over the factionalism that had characterised the Revolutionary decade. She relished the pre-eminence that the role of helping create a new France gave her. Having been reluctant to join her husband in Italy in 1796, she took to accompanying him everywhere. It was very much in her interests that he was not distracted by a younger woman.
In 1807, he wouldn’t let her accompany him to Poland where he conducted a lengthy affair with the noblewoman Maria Walewska, although his letters show that he was still on intimate terms with Josephine as well. Nevertheless, the risk of divorce was growing.
Once Napoleon instigated a hereditary empire in 1804, his family increasingly badgered him about the need for an heir. Josephine was unable to give him one. One of her maids, Mademoiselle Avrillion, wrote an account of how, in the period leading up to their divorce, the couple had become less close. But Josephine was still devastated when her fate was confirmed in 1809.
A lasting bond
The divorce was framed as a sacrifice to the needs of the nation. Napoleon continued to visit Josephine and write to her before his marriage to the Hapsburg Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria. Josephine congratulated Napoleon on the birth of his son in 1811, telling him that she would always share his happiness as their destinies were inseparable.
Napoleon visited her at Malmaison, her preferred retreat just outside Paris, before he began his Russian campaign in 1812. He would never see her again, as she died in 1814. After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon spent time at Malmaison before being banished definitively to St Helena.
