As Alexandre becomes more and more important in government, Rose finds herself under more and more scrutiny because she is still his wife, and when the tide turns against Alexandre they both find themselves in Carmes prison. Eventually they undertake a legal separation, but there are many custody issues, particularly around their son, Eugene.Īll of this takes place against a background of revolution, and eventually Josephine has to try and walk the fine line between being a revolutionary (necessary if one wants to keep one's head intact), but still being loyal and doing all she can to save her aristocratic friends.
She marries Alexandre, Vicomte de Beaurharnais, and eventually provides him with two children, but the marriage is an unhappy one, and he is unfaithful to her many times. Following tragedy within her family she is however betrothed to a man she has never met before and therefore has to make the trip to France - a country in uproar. She visits a fortune teller who tells her that she will be married unhappily, she will be a widow, and she will be a queen - all very unlikely given that she is uneducated, and from a poor family. We meet the legendary Josephine Bonaparte when she is Rose, a young planter's daughter who lives in Martinique. This is, however, one of those books where the diary format really, really works. On the odd occasion that I have read books that are in diary format, particularly historical fiction, they haven't necessarily worked for me, so if I had of realised that this was the format of this book, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B is the first book in the incredible trilogy inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte.
From her simple childhood on the French island of Martinique to her first heady experience in French revolutionary Paris and her unhappy marriage to the unfaithful Alexandre, Rose's destiny lives with a man determined to rule all of France, determined to make her Queen. In this beautifully crafted novel, Sandra Gulland pulls back the veil of history to reveal an extraordinary life. But history tells a different tale, for Rose not only marries into a wealthy aristocratic family, she survives the French Revolution, outlives her first husband and is one day known as Josephine Bonaparte. Poorly educated and without a dowry, it seems unlikely that she will find any husband - much less a king. To the fourteen year old Rose, eldest daughter of a poor plantation landlord, the fortuneteller's prophecy is both thrilling and laughable.
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