Hortense de Beauharnais
Born: April 10, 1783, Paris, France
Died: October 5, 1837, Arenenberg, Switzerland
BIOGRAPHY MUSIC RECORDINGS SOURCES
Composer and painter, Hortense Eugénie Cécile de Beauharnais Bonaparte, a Queen consort of Holland, was born in Paris to the Visconte Alexandre de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, who separated when she was 5. Until she was 10, she lived in Martinique, only to have her father guillotined during the French Revolution when she was 11-years-old. Meanwhile, her mother was imprisoned during the Revolution and later began a courtship with the famous Napoleon Bonaparte, later becoming the Empress Josephine in 1804. Hortense Bonaparte was eventually sent to boarding school where music and art immersion became her consolation for loneliness.
Bonaparte played piano, studying with Steiblet, Mozin, and Jadin. She also sang and studied the harp and lyre with Dalvimare. She composed romances, primarily with medieval texts, many of which have survived. Her first publication of songs, in 1813, was bound and illustrated with engravings of knights and countrysides in watercolors.
Napoleon, now her stepfather, requested that Hortense marry his brother Louis Bonaparte who was appointed King of Holland. After their marriage they moved to Holland but their relationship was not an amicable one and they avoided each other as much as possible. After the birth of their second son, Hortense remained in Paris, preferring to live there than in Holland with her husband. She later had an affair while living in Switzerland and gave birth to an illegitimate son.
Bonaparte often performed her own romances for the many visitors she entertained at her intimate home gatherings, including Franz Liszt and Lord Byron. Her set of 12 romances was dedicated to her brother, Prince Eugene. Her most famous composition, Partant pour la Syrie, was the national anthem of France when her son, Napoleon the Third, ruled. After 1814, with the defeat of the Empire and Napoleon’s exile from France, Hortense was banished to Switzerland but her home continued to flourish as a center for French culture. She continued composing, publishing, drawing, and painting until her death at 54 from cancer.
Bonaparte’s works are located at the music library in the Napoleon Museum at Arenenberg. Her drawings and paintings can also be found in their collections. One of Bonaparte’s portraits can be found at Ash Lawn-Highland, the former Virginia home of James Monroe, who was President of the United States. Eliza Monroe’s daughter, Hortensia Monroe Hay, was named in honor of Bonaparte.