Musée de la Pagerie — Birthplace of Empress Joséphine

The Musée de la Pagerie occupies the former sugar estate of the Tascher de La Pagerie family at Trois-Îlets, on the south side of Fort-de-France bay in Martinique. Marie-Josèphe-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie was born here on 23 June 1763. She left for France as a teenager, married Alexandre de Beauharnais, survived the Revolution, and in 1796 married Napoleon Bonaparte, becoming Empress of the French in 1804. The estate was a working sugar plantation, and its history is inseparable from slavery, an aspect increasingly addressed in the interpretation of the site. The main house is generally reported to have been destroyed by a hurricane in the 1760s, and the museum is installed in the former estate kitchen, one of the few buildings to survive. This small stone building, with its characteristic colonial proportions, gives the visit an intimate rather than grand character. Inside, the displays include personal objects, furniture and period documents connected with the family and with Joséphine, among them letters attributed to Napoleon and Joséphine, portraits and engravings, and items illustrating daily life on a Creole plantation. The curatorial approach is biographical and chronological, tracing her childhood in Martinique, her years in France and her later fame. Around the museum, the domain preserves ruins of the sugar mill and other estate structures, set within a tropical garden of trees and flowering plants that gives a sense of the physical setting of the plantation. The site has been maintained for visitors over many decades, and restoration work has concentrated on stabilising the remaining buildings and the old mill remains. Interpretation is primarily in French, with some English material. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 09:00 to 17:00, with admission around €6 for adults and €3 for children. Because Trois-Îlets also hosts a large Joséphine-related local tradition, the visit fits easily into a day around the Anses d'Arlet, Pointe du Bout and the south-west coast. A statue of Joséphine that once stood in Fort-de-France, decapitated in 1991, is part of the island's complex relationship to her memory and to colonial history.