1. There are many more ornate châteaux than Malmaison, Napoleon’s last residence in France at the end of the Hundred Days, but a glance at the ceilings will show you one of my favorite little details: the chandeliers.
2. The structure, austere by French standards, is located just outside of Paris, in the town of Rueil-Malmaison. While Napoleon did live there, the person who spent the most time in the château was his first wife, Josephine. It was actually Josephine who bought the house in 1799, when Napoleon was still just a general, who was fighting in Egypt. The house at the time was quite run-down, and Josephine began transforming it into “the most beautiful and curious garden in Europe, a model of good cultivation.”
3. When I visited, the garden wasn’t quite in bloom, so it was hard to see what Josephine was going for, but we did see some pretty plants just starting to open up, and it’s easy to imagine, based on the symmetrical planting of the trees, that the garden continues in the vein of many other French gardens, with plants marching in even, parallel rows.
4. Inside Malmaison, the living quarters of the Bonapartes are open to visit. This is the emperor’s bedroom, with a bed that reportedly came from the Tuileries palace, which was an extension of the Louvre built in the 16th century by Catherine de Medici. It was later destroyed during the Commune of Paris. One might think that once he became emperor, Napoleon would have wanted to move to the Tuileries – or to one of the more ornate palaces like Versailles. However, the emperor was adamant that he was not a king (mainly a question of word choice, honestly), and to keep up the propaganda, he remained in his more demure home.
5. Of course, a tour of Napoleon’s home wouldn’t be complete without a bust of the man himself. Good looking fella, don’t you think? (I wonder what he really looked like…)