Beauty and Sadness: The Private Home of Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte

Beauty and Sadness: The Private Home of Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte

If you love French history and antique roses, this  place should be at the top of your bucket list for   a visit to Paris. Today we’re visiting one of  the only places we would go back to more than   once. This is the gorgeous Chateau Malmaison, the  private home of Napoleon and his wife Josephine.  

This gorgeous estate was purchased in sort of  a rundown state by Josephine on April 21st of   1799 while Napoleon was on campaign in Egypt. She  purchased it for the sum of around 325,000 francs,   sort of borrowing from the money that she expected  him to come home from Egypt with. He was said to  

Be displeased with her for this purchase, but it  did become their favorite home. Josephine spent a   fortune renovating the property and adding to  it. It was to become her beloved private home   and garden, where she spent most of her time and  indeed her last days as well. She decorated it to  

Her taste, and she indulged herself by collecting  and importing roses and rare and exotic plants   and even animals from all over the globe. Her  collection eventually included some 250 roses,   and the art prints that she commissioned by the  famous artist Redoute of her roses and irises  

Still sell well to this day. She was responsible  for cultivating around 200 new plants previously   unknown to France. She built an orangerie for  some 300 pineapple plants, a greenhouse heated   by 12 coal burning stoves, and the exotic animals  and birds that roamed the property included at one  

Time kangaroos, llamas, zebras, and a seal, and  many other Fantastical creatures. I first heard of   Malmaison back in the early 2000s, when I became  obsessed with growing antique roses here at our   property, and many of the most famous varieties  that you want to grow if you love antique roses  

Will trace back to Josephine’s garden, since it  contained nearly every rose known to exist at   her time. She had plants shipped from all over the  globe as Napoleon’s boats and armies moved around,   and her shipments were said to have been so  important that that a ship carrying plants for  

Josephine’s gardens would be allowed through any  navy blockade, although you can’t help wondering   if they were maybe smuggling other things through  under her diplomatic immunity. As a side note,   I always find it interesting the name Malmaison  , so I looked it up, and it was first referred  

To in 1244. It stands for “evil house” translated  in French, and it was thought to be a reference   to a hideout used by Norman Invaders to carry out  raids on surrounding areas. There was also a manor  

House called La Malmaison here referred to in the  1300s, so the name goes way back. A walk through   this mansion is amazing. The interior is gorgeous.  It is much as it was in their time. A lot of the  

Furnishings are original. This was their private  retreat and they spent much of their time here,   if you can call it, you know their “off” time,  but they spent a lot of their private time here,  

Although Napoleon did much of his work from the  study here, as it was one of his two main seats of   power between 1800 and 1802, so very many meetings  and receptions and concerts and balls took place   here, but you’ll find that Malmaison definitely  does feel–although it is a large mansion and/or  

A small chateau–it does have a feel to it, it  feels like it could be a home. There is definitely   a home feel to this place, and if you walk around  the gardens and grounds, you’ll see markers in the  

Ground, there is a path that’s marked as Napoleon  and Josephine’s path or walk, and legend says that   this is the route that they would take when they  walked and talked privately together in their time   here. The original 148 acre property that she  bought was expanded throughout her lifetime. By  

The time Josephine died, she owned 1794 acres. It  has been much reduced since then. Her menagerie   has long since disappeared of course. By 1896, the  estate had been reduced to around 16 acres that is   here now, which is a a sad reduction of what was  once probably an amazing place. It’s so historic!  

But we were actually surprised to find that  Malmaison is not very well known or remembered,   sadly. When we were there, we actually talked to  two different local you know native parisians,   and we were tourists, so of course they asked  us you know “Where are you going today? What  

Are you going to see?” and we said “We’re going  out to Malmaison,” and both of them looked at us   like..”Where??” I couldn’t believe they both had  never heard of it. They had no idea what it was  

Or where it was. I couldn’t believe they had never  heard of this! So, unfortunately it’s not as well   known as it should be. And if you’re like me and  you love to read, I would highly recommend finding  

A copy of the Memoirs of Queen Hortense, who was  Josephine’s daughter from her prior marriage. She   had two children from her first husband who was  guillotined during the Revolution. Eugene and   Hortense were her children, who became part of the  new Imperial family, and Hortense was eventually  

Married to Napoleon’s brother Louis. They became  the king and queen of Holland. She had a miserable   marriage to him, which is a whole story in itself,  but she wrote this incredible memoir throughout   her life and her later life, and it is a wonderful  firsthand sort of eyewitness Insider account of  

Napoleon from the viewpoint of his stepdaughter.  It is well worth a read. I especially loved her   firsthand account of their divorce, the story  of Napoleon’s hard decision to finally divorce   Josephine after 15 years of happy marriage  in order to be able to possibly have a son  

By a second younger wife. She tells it with the  unique insider’s point of view, and tragically his   decision was somewhat precipitated by the death  of Hortense’s own young son, who was Napoleon’s   designated heir, in 1807. So the idea of a divorce  was floated for a couple of years, it wasn’t  

Really a surprise, but she does recount the story  of her mother actually fainting when Napoleon   finally told her his decision was final, and that  he and another man had to carry Josephine to her   room to recover Josephine left the Tuilleries for  her beloved Malmaison in a carriage with Hortense,  

In the pouring rain, in the afternoon of December  16th 1809, and her daughter recounts “Our trip to   Malmaison was a sad and silent one. When my mother  entered that house where she had been so happy,  

Her heart was heavy with grief. She said ‘If he is  happy, I shall not regret what I have done,'” but   Hortense continued “As she spoke to me, her eyes  constantly filled with tears.” The next day the   Emperor actually did come out to visit Josephine  at Malmaison, and they walked hand in hand for  

Hours through the garden, talking. I did learn  that the carriage they rode out to Malmaison   in on that journey remains at the Malmaison  Museum, although we didn’t go and see it,   so if we go back out, I am definitely going to  go and see if we can find the carriage. Josephine  

Spent the rest of her life mostly at Malmaison.  She was given the estate plus a 5 million franc   allowance annually, and she kept the title  of Empress. Her children and grandchildren   and of course even Napoleon visited her here.  According to Hortense’s account of the story,  

Napoleon was actually very emotional about having  to divorce Josephine, and he begged Hortense and   Eugene not to desert him at his time of greatest  despair and insisted that they remained close to   him. After Napoleon’s abdication and exile to  Elba, an unusual guest actually became a close  

Family friend to Hortense and her mother–this  was the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. He spent as   much time as possible actually privately visiting  Hortense and Josephine, and he said he preferred   their homes to the royal protocol he faced at all  the state visits in Paris. He told Hortense that  

She felt like someone he’d always known, and  that being at her home felt like being in his   own. Unfortunately Hortense recounts that after  Napoleon’s second exile, Alexander turned on the   family, refused to see them, and treated them so  harshly that she was forced to return his letters  

And said that she had been mistaken in assuming  his friendship. Josephine’s final illness actually   developed after she took a walk with Emperor  Alexander on the grounds of Queen Hortense’s   property outside of Paris on May 14th of 1814. She  returned to Malmaison and wasn’t feeling well. Her  

Illness developed from a cold to a cough, which  alarmed her children enough that they were both   at Malmaison, and Alexander himself actually sent  his own physician to see Josephine. Alexander   arrived May 28th for a pre-planned dinner party,  which they actually hid from Josephine the fact  

That he was there. They didn’t want her to disturb  herself and get out of her sick bed to entertain   Alexander, so they told her he had not come.  He left that night and Josephine died the next  

Day on May 29th of 1814 at the age of 50 in the  red and guilt tent-shaped bed that you can still   see in her rooms today. Her son Eugene inherited  Malmaison after Josephine’s death, but his widow  

Sold it in 1828. It was then sold back into the  family when Hortense’s son Napoleon III bought   it in 1861. After Napoleon’s final defeat at  Waterloo and his abdication, he actually came out   to Malmaison briefly, and he had Hortense and some  of his family members actually join him there,  

And she recounts walking through the gardens with  him and having him mention that he could not get   used to being at Malmaison without Josephine and  that he expected to see her around any corner,   picking the flowers that she loved so much.  He told Hortense how beautiful Malmaison was  

And how he wished they could just stay there,  but he did make plans to leave from there and   settle in America with his family. Napoleon sent  Hortense back to Paris, and he left Malmaison for  

The last time on June 29th of 1815. She recounts  in her memoir walking down the gallery as she was   leaving for Paris and realizing that she hadn’t  made provision to save the art and any of the   pieces that were in Malmaison itself for her  children, and realizing that she would probably  

Never get to preserve these artifacts for her  family. By October of 1815, Napoleon had been   exiled by the English to the island of Saint  Helena, where he died May 5th of 1821. His   last words were said to be “France…armee…head  of armee…Josephine.” Hortense died in 1837 and  

Was laid to rest next to her mother at the nearby  Saint Pierre-Saint Paul chapel. After their time,   Malmaison was ransacked and vandalized, and the  gardens were later destroyed in a battle in 1870.   The property was restored to its current state  by a famous French architect in the early 20th  

Century and is now a historical monument, and  one well worth taking the time to see. If you’re   planning a visit out to Malmaison from Paris, plan  to see it when the roses are at their peak. We  

Were here on June 1st, and they were just at their  peak or maybe just slightly passing their peak,   so it was a really perfect time to walk through  the gardens. It takes I believe about an hour  

To get out there the way we went, which was by  Metro to La Defense, and then we got on a bus   out to the Chateau. If you decide to take the bus  out, we did not know this, but probably everyone  

Does but us–you need to know the route that  you’re taking and what stop is before your stop,   so you can tell the bus to stop and let you  off, and we kind of learned that the hard way,  

So keep that in mind. Also, if you take a bus, you  will be getting off up at the top of the hill and   it is quite a little long walk down to the Chateau  and then back up, so you’ll have some walking. The  

Next time we go, we’ll probably just take a taxi  right to the gate. One other thing to notice,   obviously check on closure times because some days  it’s not open, and there is no food or water to  

Buy on site. There is- I believe you can picnic  here, but there is nothing you can buy. There’s   no cafe, so plan to bring any food or drink that  you want with you. We learned that when we were  

There as well. Malmaison is so worth the trip.  Plan to spend maybe half a day walking around the   mansion and the beautiful grounds here, soaking  up the atmosphere at this historic place where   so much life was lived by these legendary people.  Let us know in the comments if you’ve ever been to  

This hidden historical treasure of Paris! Tthanks  for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.

The moving history of Josephine’s beloved Malmaison, with personal insights from the memoir of her daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, a first-hand account of this beautiful place and the historical people who moved through it.

Napoleon’s wife, Empress Josephine, was one of the foremost gardeners responsible for many new plant varieties to France, and she is (for me) the original grand dame of today’s antique roses.

There’s so much history here–It’s historian/gardener’s dream! We’ll explore how so much of Napoleon and Josephine’s private and political life took place in this beautiful place.

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Malmaison photo credits
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_I_of_Russia_by_G.Dawe_%281825,_GIM%29_FRAME.jpg
tomb : Pierre Cartellier, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
chapel: Moonik, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
family with alexander https://picryl.com/media/josephine-accueil-tsar-alexandre-1er-909741
coronation pictures Jettcom, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
music room https://picryl.com/media/the-music-salon-at-malmaison-9ed5ee
reception https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/media/reception-at-malmaison-in-1802-by-francois-flameng-e08555
foyer Pierre Poschadel, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
rose1 Rawpixel, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
rose2 Rawpixel, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
rose3 Henry Joseph Redouté, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
king louis of holland Charles Howard Hodges, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Hortense and son https://picryl.com/media/hortense-de-beauharnais-2-d8a83a