Musée de la Pagerie

Martinique

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This former sugar estate was the birthplace of Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, the future Empress Josephine of France. A picturesque stone building, once the family kitchen, has been turned into a museum containing Josephine's childhood bed and other memorabilia. Other buildings contain such things as the Bonaparte family tree, old sugarcane equipment and love letters to Josephine from Napoleon.

Multilingual guides relate anecdotal tidbits about Josephine's life, such as the doctoring of the marriage certificate to make Josephine, six years Napoleon's elder, appear to be the same age as her spouse.

You can poke around in the ruins of the old mill directly opposite the museum for free.

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