I HAVE A LOT OF CATCHING UP TO DO.......
The question you could well ask is would I have gone to see « Josephine » alone? The answer is « probably no ». I don’t say « definitely no » as my knowledge of French history is lacking and perhaps I would have gone alone to learn. Going with Marielle was another matter. I talked about the exhibition to a friend today who said that he had been disappointed in the lack of pieces displayed…..on the contrary. I found the setting ideal, spaced out and I was eager to learn. Thanks to Marielle, I did. This exhibition has been put together for the bicentennial of her death and is the first one exclusively dedicated to her in France. Now I discover how much she left in the field of arts, leaving an imprint of femininity on the first military and powerful Europe. I finally got my Napoleons in order too thanks to Marielle and to Josephine.
I had no idea that she had been born in Martinique in 1763. Nor that she had married a Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais at 16. She gave birth to