Château de Malmaison

About

The Château de Malmaison (French pronunciation: [...]) is a French château located near the left bank of the Seine, about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) west of the centre of Paris, in the commune of Rueil-Malmaison. Formerly the residence of Empress Josephine de Beauharnais, along with the Tuileries, it was the headquarters of the French government from 1800 to 1802, and Napoleon's last residence in France at the end of the Hundred Days in 1815.

Josephine de Beauharnais bought the manor house in April 1799 for herself and her husbandband, General Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Napoleon I of France, at that time away fighting the Egyptian Campaign. Malmaison was a run-down estate, seven miles (11 km) west of central Paris that was nearly 150 acres (0.61 km2) of woods and meadows. Upon his return, Bonaparte expressed fury at Josephine for purchasing such an expensive house with the money she had expected Him to bring back from the Egyptian campaign. The house, for which she had paid well over 300,000 francs, needed extensive renovations; She spent a fortune doing them. However, Malmaison would brag great happy to the Bonapartes. Josephine's daughter, Hortense...