Joséphine de Beauharnais (née Marie Josèphe Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie June 23, 1763 – May 29, 1814) was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte and thus the first Empress of the French.

Joséphine was born in Trois-Ilets, Martinique, to a family that owned a sugar plantation. She was a daughter of Joseph-Gaspard de Tascher, chevalier, seigneur de la Pagerie, lieutenant of the Troupes de Marine, and his wife, the former Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sanois, whose maternal grandfather was English.

The family struggled financially when hurricanes destroyed their estate in 1766. Edmée, Joséphine's paternal aunt, had been the mistress of François, vicomte de Beauharnais, a French aristocrat. When Francois' health began to fail, Edmée arranged the advantageous marriage of her niece Catherine-Désirée to François' son, Alexandre, vicomte de Beauharnais. This marriage would be highly beneficial for the Tascher family, because it would keep the de Beauharnais money in their hands; however, 12-year-old Catherine died on October 16, 1777, before even leaving Martinique for France. In service to their aunt Edmée's goals, Catherine was replaced by her older sister Joséphine.

In October 1779, Joséphine went to Europe with her father. She married Alexandre on December 13, 1779, in Noisy-le-Grand. Although their marriage was not extremely happy, they had two children: a son, Eugène de Beauharnais (1781–1824), and a daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (1783–1837), who married Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte in 1802.

As a widow, Joséphine de Beauharnais supposedly was mistress to several leading political figures, reportedly including Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras. She met General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was six years younger than she, in 1795, when their romance began. He wrote in a letter to her in December "I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses." Joséphine was a renowned spendthrift and Barras may have encouraged the relationship with Napoleon in order to get her off his hands.

In January 1796, Napoleon proposed to her and they married on March 9, 1796. Until meeting Napoleon, she had always been Rose. Instead of calling her this name, which he apparently disliked, he called her 'Joséphine,' which she adopted from then on. Two days after the wedding, Napoleon left to lead the French army in Italy, but sent her many intensely romantic love letters. In February 1797, he wrote: “You to whom nature has given spirit, sweetness, and beauty, you who alone can move and rule my heart, you who knows all too well the absolute empire you exercise over it!”. Many of his letters are still intact today, while very few of hers have been found; it is not known whether this is due to their having been lost or to their initial scarcity.

Joséphine, less in love than Napoleon, is rumoured to have begun an affair with high society playboy Hippolyte Charles in 1796. There is no way of knowing whether or not this is the case, but regardless of the truth of the matter, the rumours so infuriated and hurt Napoleon that his love changed entirely.

During the Egyptian campaign of 1798, Napoleon started one of many affairs of his own with Pauline Bellisle Foures, the wife of a junior officer who became known as "Napoleon's Cleopatra". The relationship between Joséphine and Napoleon was never the same after this. His letters became less loving. No subsequent lovers of Joséphine are recorded, but Napoleon continued to take on mistresses. In 1804 he said "power is my mistress."

Shortly before their coronation, at the Château de Saint-Cloud, Josephine caught Napoleon in the bedroom of her lady-in-waiting, Elisabeth de Vaudey, and Napoleon threatened to divorce her as she had not produced an heir. Eventually, however, through the efforts of Joséphine's daughter Hortense, the two were reconciled and Napoleon and Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress of the French in 1804 in the Nôtre-Dame cathedral.

When it was clear the couple were not fertile, Joséphine agreed to be divorced so Napoleon could remarry in the hopes of having an heir to succeed him. The divorce took place on 10 January 1810, the opening point of Crossing Out The Emperor.

On 11 March 1810, Napoleon married Marie Louise of Austria by proxy; the formal ceremony took place at the Louvre on 1 April. They had one child, Napoleon II of France, who was born in 1811.

After her divorce, she lived at the Château de Malmaison, near Paris. She remained on good terms with Napoleon, who once said that the only thing to come between them was her debts.

When she died in 1814, she was buried not far from Malmaison, at the St. Pierre and St. Paul church in Rueil. Her daughter Hortense is interred near her.

Napoleon claimed to a friend, whilst in exile on Saint Helena, that "I truly loved my Joséphine, but I did not respect her." Despite his numerous affairs, eventual divorce, and Napoleon's remarrying, the Emperor's last words on the Island of St. Helena were "France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Joséphine."

Joséphine has many descendents. Hortense's son became Napoleon III of France. Her granddaughter Josephine, daughter of Eugène, married King Oscar I of Sweden, the son of Napoleon's one-time fiancée, Désirée Clary. Through her, Josephine is a direct ancestor of the present heads of the royal houses of Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden.