In Burke and the Pimpernel Affair, Burke visits the Empress Josephine at her home at Malmaison. Until I started researching the story, I had no idea that Malmaison still existed and is a short bus ride from the centre of Paris. Back then, I couldn’t go to see it because of covid. Fortunately, there is an excellent virtual tour available online but I really wanted to see the place for myself and last month I was finally able to visit.
It’s a beautiful house, lovingly restored to show what it was like when Josephine lived there.
This was her bedroom and the bed where she died in May 1814. It’s rather splendid.
She actually had another, more liveable, bedroom for regular use but this one (designed in 1812 and restored by Napoleon III) was her “formal” bedroom. I wish I had seen it before I wrote the book because I’ve created an imaginary bedroom on the ground floor and this one would have been much more fun.
Visiting Malmaison gives you a strong idea of what Josephine was like. I enjoyed the billiards room.
Billiards rooms always seem a very masculine place (often explicitly so in English stately homes) but the billiards room at Malmaison was just across the hall from the dining room and apparently Josphine enjoyed a game of billiards after dinner.
Although Malmaison was her personal property, Napoleon spent a lot of time there and clearly had a hand in a lot of the décor. There is a recurring tent motif, with walls covered in fabric. The Emperor wanted to feel that he was out campaigning even when he was quietly at home with his wife. This was particularly obvious in the council chamber where he would often meet with his ministers.
Napoleon was a voracious reader — he even had a travelling library in the coach he took on campaign — and leading off the council chamber was a large library with a hidden staircase that led directly to his first floor apartment.
There are an awful lot paintings of Josephine on display in Malmaison. I notice her feet peeking out from under some of her dresses. I think she might have been especially proud of her feet which, judging from some shoes on display, were particularly small and narrow.
She was fond of shoes, buying an immense number. She spent out on dresses, too, though probably not very many like this one.
Josephine is buried with her children in a church nearby.
It’s such a shame that Ridley Scott’s terrible film of Napoleon’s life did not make more of Josephine. At one point, Napoleon appointed her Regent of France and she seems to have been a remarkable woman. It was a great pleasure to visit her home.
Buy the book!
Burke and the Pimpernel Affair is huge fun, featuring thrilling gaolbreaks, fun with the Empress Josephine and a surprising amount of historical fact hidden away in Burke’s most outrageous adventure. Buy it for just £3.99 on Kindle or £9.50 in paperback.
If you want to explore more of the places Burke visited in the book, have a look at last week’s blog post: In Paris with James Burke.
