Alexandre de Beauharnais

General Alexandre Viscount of Beauharnais
Portrait by a painter of David's circle, c. 1793
Birth name	Alexandre François Marie
Born	(1760-05-28)28 May 1760 Fort-Royal, Martinique, France
Died	23 July 1794(1794-07-23) (aged 34) Paris, France
Buried	Picpus Cemetery, Paris, France
Allegiance	Kingdom of France Kingdom of France  First French Republic
Service/branch	Infantry
Years of service	1775–1794
Rank	Divisional general
Unit	French Royal Army French Revolutionary Army
Commands held	Army of the Rhine
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War French Revolutionary Wars War of the First Coalition Siege of Mainz (1793)
Spouse(s)	Joséphine de Beauharnais ​ ​ (m. 1779)​
Children	Eugène de Beauharnais (son) Hortense de Beauharnais (daughter)
Other work	Deputy in the Estates-General (1789) President of the National Constituent Assembly (1790)

Alexandre François Marie, Viscount of Beauharnais (28 May 1760 – 23 July 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 French Empire. Beauharnais was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

Family[]

Beauharnais was born in Fort-Royal (today's Fort-de-France), Martinique. He was the son of Governor François de Beauharnais, Marquess de la La Ferté-Beauharnais, and Marie Anne Henriette Françoise Pyvart de Chastullé. On 13 December 1779 in Paris, he married Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, the future Empress of France. They had two children, Eugène (1781 – 1824) and Hortense (1783 – 1837).

Career[]

Beauharnais 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 19 June to 3 July 1791 and from 31 July to 14 August 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.

Death[]

On 2 March 1794, the Committee of General Security ordered his arrest. Accused of having poorly defended Mainz during the siege 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, Josephine, was jailed in the same prison on 21 April 1794, but she was freed after three months, thanks to the trial of Maximilien Robespierre. Beauharnais 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.

References[]

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External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexandre de Beauharnais.

• Marek, Miroslav. "A listing of the descendants of the Beauharnais family". genealogy.euweb.cz.