Alexandre, viscount de Beauharnais | Napoleonic Wars, Military Leader, Governor of Italy | Britannica (original) (raw)

Alexandre, viscount de Beauharnais (born May 28, 1760, Martinique—died June 23, 1794, Paris, France) was the first husband of Joséphine (later empress of the French) and grandfather of Napoleon III; he was a prominent figure during the Revolution.

He married Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie in Martinique in 1779. Known as a liberal noble, he rose after the French Revolution to important posts in France, presiding over the Constituent Assembly in 1791 and serving with gallantry in the army. In 1793 he was named general in chief of the Army of the Rhine and, soon after, was nominated minister of war but declined the latter offer. During the Reign of Terror he was seized—in large measure, simply because he was a noble—and guillotined. By his marriage to Joséphine he fathered Eugène de Beauharnais and Hortense, who became the queen of Holland and the mother of Napoleon III.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.