Alexandre, vicomte de Beauharnais

Alexandre François Marie de Beauharnais, Vicomte de Beauharnais (May 28, 1760 – July 23, 1794) was a French political figure and general during the French Revolution. He was the first husband of Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, who later married Napoleon Bonaparte and became Empress of the First Empire.

Ancestry

His paternal grandparents Claude de Beauharnais (1680 – 1738) and Renée Hardouineau (1696 – 1744) were married in La Rochelle during 1713. His father François de Beauharnais, Marquess de la La Ferté-Beauharnais (1714 – 1800) served as Governor of Martinique. Alexandre was the third of three sons born to him by his first wife Marie Henriette Pyvart de Chastullé (1722 – 1767) - the first died in infancy, and the second was Francis VI of Beauharnais. His father was remarried in 1796 to Eugenie de Tascher de la Pagerie (1739 – 1803).

Biography

Alexandre was born in Fort-Royal (today's Fort-de-France), Martinique. On December 13, 1779, he married Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, the future Empress of France. They had two children:

*Eugène de Beauharnais (September 3, 1781 – February 21, 1824).
*Hortense de Beauharnais (April 10, 1783 – October 5, 1837), later mother of Napoleon III of France.

Alexandre fought in Louis XVI's army in the American Revolutionary War. He was later deputy of the "noblesse" in the Estates-General, and was president of the National Constituent Assembly from June 19 to July 3, 1791 and from July 31 to August 14, 1791. Made a general in 1792 (during the French Revolutionary Wars), he refused, in June 1793, to become Minister of War. He was named General-in-Chief of the Army of the Rhine in 1793.

On March 2, 1794, the Committee of General Security ordered his arrest. Accused of having poorly defended Mainz during the Siege of Mainz in 1793, and considered an aristocratic "suspect", he was jailed in the Carmes prison and sentenced to death during the Reign of Terror. His wife was jailed in the same prison on April 21, 1794, but she was freed after three months, thanks to the trial of Maximilien Robespierre.

Alexandre was guillotined, together with his cousin Augustin, on the "Place de la Révolution" (today's Place de la Concorde) in Paris, only five days before the deposition and execution of Robespierre.

Through his son, he became an ancestor of today's Royal Houses of Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

External links

* [http://genealogy.euweb.cz/french/beauh.html A listing of the descendants of the Beauharnais family]