Lavalette, Joséphine

NOBLEMAN (FRANCE)
BORN 1 Apr 1802, Paris - DIED 23 Oct 1886, Paris: rue de la Rochefoucauld 59
GRAVE LOCATION Paris: Père Lachaise, Rue du Repos 16 (division 36, ligne 01, P, 35)

Joséphine de Lavalette was the daughter of Antoine-Marie Chamans de Lavalette and Émilie de Beauharnais. She was present when her mother helped her father to escape from the conciergery and from his execution by changing clothes in 1815. In 1817 she married baron François Alexandre de Forget (1787-1836) in Auvergne. They separated in 1830 and in 1837 he killed himself and their youngest son Edmond by drowning in the river Allier.

She had an affair with Alfred-Auguste Cuvillier-Fleury and possibly she had a daughter by him in 1833. In 1836 an affair with the painter Eugène Delacroix started and it lasted for many years. After they ceased to be lovers in 1850 they remained lifelong friends. In 1863 Delacroix adressed his final letter to her when he was dying. She visited Louis Napoleon Bonaparte when he was a prisoner in Ham and h stayed with her after his return to Paris in 1848.

Family
• Mother: Beauharnais, Émilie Louise de
• Father: Lavalette, Antoine-Marie Chamans, Comte de

Related persons
• was the lover of Delacroix, Eugène
• visited Napoleon III Bonaparte
• was painted by Vernet, Horace

Images

The grave of Antoine-Marie, comte de Lavalette at Père Lachaise, Paris.
Picture by Androom (19 Nov 2006)

 

The grave of Joséphine de Lavalette at Père Lachaise, Paris.
Picture by Androom (02 Nov 2018)

 

Sources
• Gabrielli, Domenico, Dictionnaire Historique du Père-Lachaise, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles, Éditions de l'Amateur, Les, Paris, 2002
Historia 229, Tallandier, Paris, 1965


Lavanchy-Clarke, François-Henri

Published: 30 May 2021
Last update: 26 Jan 2022