What to see at the Chateau de Malmaison – a home fit for an Empress…
17kms west of Paris the pretty Château de Malmaison was home to Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte. Christina Mackenzie explores its fascinating history.
Home to an emperor and Empress
Tucked away on the outskirts of Paris, the Château de Malmaison doesn’t have the kudos of Versailles or the royal history of Fontainebleau, but it became a firm favourite with Napoleon and Josephine, Emperor and Empress of France. Josephine purchased the castle in April 1799 for 325,000 Francs (the equivalent of about $500,000, a small fortune in those days), money she borrowed whilst her husband was fighting in Egypt. Napoleon returned four months later, reimbursed the loan, and the couple passed much of their time at Malmaison, spending a fortune on updating and expanding the gardens.
The good times didn’t last. Josephine’s inability to produce an heir (by now a son born to Napoleon’s mistress was proof he was fertile), led to their divorce in 1809. Three months later he married Marie Louise of Austria (1791-1847) although he’d never met her in person!
He gave the Chateau de Malmaison to Josephine and was still a regular visitor there. He also continued to support her financially – more than 30 million francs over a decade. A steady stream of dressmakers, jewellers, milliners, and perfume makers made their way to Malmaison to tempt her – she loved fashion, and clothes, and in one year alone it was claimed she bought 985 pairs of gloves, 520 pairs of shoes, and some 900 gowns, and the dressing room, wardrobe room and boudoir must have been bursting at the seams.
She died of pneumonia in Malmaison on 29th May 1814 just 26 days before her 51st birthday, a month after her ex-husband’s abdication. Exiled on the island of Elba he was distraught at the news and on returning to France, one of his first visits was to Malmaison.
Although Malmaison is inextricably tied to Josephine and Napoleon, the house had a long history before them. The existence of a manor house on this spot is recorded in papers from 1376. In 1390 it was bought by a Parisian tradesman and sergeant-at-arms, Guillaume Goudet whose descendants owned the property for 373 years, and it passed through several hands before the Bonapartes bought it.
Josephine’s son (from a previous marriage) inherited the house. It was later bought by Queen Marie-Christine of Spain and eventually sold in 1861 to Emperor Napoleon III, Josephine’s grandson and Napoleon I’s nephew (Josephine’s daughter Hortense married Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte).
What to see at the Chateau de Malmaison
Malmaison was eventually donated to the French state and became a museum in 1906. It’s the Napoleon III version of the house that we see today, beautifully restored and filled with fabulous artworks and furnishings. On the first floor the rooms are sumptuously decorated, filled with paintings and objets d’art, furniture and gorgeous chandeliers. Josephine’s bedroom features gold and deep red furnishings, containing her original, curtained bed in which she breathed her last. A billiard room, dining room, council room are all beautifully furnished.
The library is spectacular, with several hundred books embossed with the letters “BP” for Bonaparte. The walls and ceiling are hung with striped twill to resemble the inside of a military commander’s tent. It was here in this room that Napoléon created the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest order of merit, and worked on the Code Napoléon, France’s first legal framework, still in use today.
The second floor is dedicated to Napoleon’s exile to Saint Helena and to his death. There are many mementos including the tableware, furniture and personal items he used.
Josephine’s rose garden
The gardens are gorgeous! Josephine expanded the 70 hectares she’d originally bought, to 726 hectares. She loved English-style gardens and hired a series of landscape architects to work on the house and gardens. Josephine cultivated rare and exotic plants, sometimes from seeds, which she acquired thanks to her network of botanists, nurserymen and scientists, and even the French Navy, who at Napoleon’s command, was enlisted to confiscate any plants or rose seeds from ships at sea. And Josephine’s purchases from the British nursery Kennedy and Lee, were granted safe passage through a naval blockade Napoleon ordered when France and England were at war.
Josephine cultivated dahlias, camellias, hibiscus, tree peonies and black lily magnolia, amongst 200 or so other plants, when they were first introduced to France. An orangery contained 300 pineapple trees. But it was roses that Josephine (whose real name was actually Rose, but Napoleon preferred to call her Josephine, her second name), had a passion for, and she assembled more than 250 varieties, both botanical (wild) and horticultural (bred) from central Asia, Europe and the Americas. It was the largest collection in the world at that time.
Josephine ordered a series of drawings of her rarest plants from famous illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté and the resulting, sumptuously illustrated book “Jardin de la Malmaison” published in 1803-04, played an indisputable role in the fame of Malmaison’s rose-garden.
It’s a fascinating visit, a unique, historic castle, and for bonus points, the lovely Park Bois-Préau is next door, the perfect place for a picnic lunch.
Opening hours, how to get there and details: musees-nationaux-malmaison.fr
Christina McKenzie is a Franco-British journalist who writes in both English and French. Married to a Frenchman, she settled 30 years ago near Fontainebleau.
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