Description:

Bonaparte Josephine



Josephine Bonaparte, New Year's Wishes 4 Months after Her Coronation as Empress

 

1p dictated letter signed by recently consecrated French Empress Josephine (1763-1814) as "joséphine" at top right. The cream paper is watermarked "J.H. & Z" and features a crowned lion rampant grasping a sword in one paw and a bunch of arrows in the other. With an integral address leaf. Four vertical slits run along the right margin recto; the bottom slit is partly torn. With expected paper folds. A translucent adhesive residue is found overall recto, but is only visible under raking light. Else near fine. 8.75" x 14.5".

 

Josephine wrote her friend Cardinal Charles Erskine (1739-1811) just months after her second husband Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) named her 1st Empress of the French, at the altar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on December 2, 1804.

 

Translated:

 

"[inscribed] My Cousin, nothing could be more agreeable to me than the latest testimony of your sentiments for me, on the occasion of the renewal of the year; I don't doubt their sincerity, and I can assure you of my constant desire to find occasions to prove my benevolence. On this point I pray that God, my Cousin, keeps you in his holy and worthy care. Written in Paris, 12 ventôse year 13 [March 3, 1805].

 

[signed] joséphine

 

[signed] J.M. Desehanipe [?]

 

[inscribed] My Lord Cardinal Erskine."

 

*Similar letters addressed by Josephine to Cardinal Erskine list this secondary signer as "J.M. De Beauharnais," possibly a relative of Josephine's first husband.

 

Josephine was probably not actually related to Cardinal Erskine by either blood or marriage, so her calling him "My Cousin" was more than likely honorific. Another Empress Josephine signed letter (see asterisk note above) addressed to the same recipient and dated January 10, 1808 was recently offered on Biblio.com for $2,700.

 

Empress Josephine was born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie on the island of Martinique, the eldest daughter of a Creole sugarcane planter. She moved to France at age 16 to marry the aristocrat Alexandre de Beauharnais; their 15-year-long marriage resulted in two children. After her first husband was guillotined during the Terror, Josephine became the mistress of several influential French political leaders, including Napoleon Bonaparte. Their iconic love affair, of which dozens of passionate billets doux remain a testament, was as passionate as it was destructive. Married in 1796, the two divorced in 1810 when it became apparent that Josephine could not bear Bonaparte an heir.

 

Cardinal Charles Erskine was the son of a Scottish father and Italian mother. Trained as a lawyer as well as a prelate, Erskine excelled in diplomatic relations. Erskine had spent more than six months in Paris representing papal interests in the Concordat, a treaty arranged between the Vatican and Bonaparte in 1801-1802. While in France, Erskine socialized with the Bonaparte family and their social circle. He even attended the weddings of Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon's younger brother) to Hortense de Beauharnais (Napoleon's step-daughter) and that of Caroline Bonaparte (Napoleon's younger sister) to Joachim Murat (one of Napoleon's best generals).

 

A beautifully phrased letter signed by Napoleon's beloved Josephine!

 


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