The Rose of Martinique: a life of Napoleon's Josephine Andrea Stuart Macmillan, 455pp, £20 ISBN 0333739337

Beautiful Creole maiden visits witch and is told she will rise higher than a queen. She arrives in Paris to wed louche aristocrat. The marriage is unhappy. She bears a son and daughter, separates from husband. She hibernates in posh convent, where she learns table manners and elegant chat. Revolution. They are both imprisoned: he is guillotined; she is released with hours to spare. Widowed aged 30, two children to support, becomes working girl; helps popularise topless dresses. Mistress of top French conspirator, runs orgies for him and his mates. Ambitious young Corsican officer with greasy hair falls for her, woos and wins her. Fabulous love letters. Second marriage successful; he wins battles, she wins hearts. He becomes emperor, gets megalomania and decides he needs an heir. Divorce, misery, early death.

It's a story worthy of a blockbuster novel, and it's all true. Oodles of sex, passion, adultery, media hype, decadence, plots, murder, mayhem, anguish and betrayal fill these pages. Not surprisingly, there have been many biographies of Josephine, including one by her daughter Hortense, plus memoirs by her staff, friends and relatives - more than 60 books in all. Josephine's extraordinary life justifies another big volume, and thoroughly readable it is, too.

Like Marie-Josephe-Rose, to give the lady her full name, Andrea Stuart comes from the Caribbean and arrived in Paris full of excitement, only to find herself very much the outsider. This also gave Josephine and Napoleon, she suggests, something in common. Josephine's native Martinique sent its "white gold" (sugar) to France and wallowed in riches in return; for many of the whites, it was a sensual, lazy existence similar to that of the Happy Valley set in Kenya. (I've played golf at La Pagerie, where she grew up, and it is certainly gorgeous.) Josephine's favourite slave, who accompanied her to France, was also her half-sister.

As for the fortune-telling, Stuart does not question the legend's authenticity but points out that Creoles would regard it as normal. On the same trip, Josephine's cousin was warned that she would be seized by pirates, which also turned out to be true. Josephine's belief in clairvoyance sustained her through her darkest days, as she knew she wasn't to die yet.

Desperately short of money, Josephine returned to the plantations of Martinique, only to find that her father's incompetence had destroyed the family fortunes. She was the classic girl on her uppers, and in this instance I accept that she had precious little choice but to hitch up her skirts, plaster on the rouge and be nice to the chaps. Intelligent, charming and alluring, she learnt to hide her bad teeth in a thin-lipped smile. Her regal bearing, rolling walk and low-voiced Creole accent were soon driving men crazy: she featured in English cartoons; her hairstyles made headlines in Paris newspapers; she was written about by the Marquis de Sade.

For Napoleon, who originally boasted that he could do it in four minutes, end- less nights of joy were to follow. "To live in Josephine is to live in the Elysian fields!" he wrote, and reams more in similar vein. The novelist Prosper Merimee later remarked: "He can talk of nothing but kisses, kisses, everywhere and upon portions of the anatomy not to be found in any dictionary of the Academie Francaise." "I am coming - do not wash!" was his cry as he sped from one battlefield. What woman could resist?

Stuart's modern viewpoint sometimes leads her into blind alleys. Citing Freud, she suggests Napoleon's insistence that Josephine change her name from "Rose" was an expression of deep-seated envy for his older brother Joseph. She is right that the renaming was a control device - Napoleon did the same thing to his one previous love, Desiree Clary, but then Desiree emerged as "Eugenie", which spoils the argument. Stuart rather doggedly explains that "Not tonight, Josephine" was so funny at the time simply because Napoleon could not resist her. She suggests that the pains and fevers Josephine suffered in her thirties were an early menopause brought on by the horrifying experiences of the Terror, but does not consider whether disease might have made her sterile. Either way, the couple's childlessness brought her unbearable heartbreak.

The soothsayer was right - Josephine became empress, crowned by the pope alongside her husband. Her beauty, style and grace made her a consort fit for a head of state; she could be relied upon to charm almost any opponent, from home-grown politician to high-born prince. She could lie to save her husband and her country, and frequently did. The only people with whom she failed were Boney's own family, the ghastly Bonapartes, including his imperious mother and a clutch of jealous, rapacious siblings. Attendants at the coronation, her sisters-in-law deliberately dropped the heavy train, nearly causing her to fall. Her own children, by contrast, were selflessly loyal to their stepfather, and stood by their mother to the end.

She was Madonna, Cherie Blair and Diana, Princess of Wales rolled into one. This is an enjoyable, well-researched book; I didn't want to reach the end.

Edwina Currie's This Honourable House is out in paperback from Time Warner

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