Josephine's rooms at Chateau de Malmaison - www.paris-pages.com

Ground floor, Napoleon's rooms, Josephine's rooms
Josephine's room

Fast facts about Josephine

  • 1763 born in the Caribbean island of Martinique
  • Came to France to marry
  • 1779 married Count Alexandre de Beauharnais
  • 1794 Beauharnais guillotined
  • 1796 Josephine marries Napoleon
  • 1799 Josephine buys Malmaison
  • 1804 Napoleon crowns himself Emperor and Josephine Empress
  • 1809 Napoleon divorces Josephine, but she retains the title of Empress
  • 1814 Josephine dies

Malmaison is very much Josephine's house. It did not belong to the state, but was bought as a private dwelling, and after her death was inherited by her son.

The photograph on the left shows the room simply known as Josephine's room. The wall frieze is in GrecoRoman style, and there are frequent occurrences of swans. Josephine was very fond of swans and had black swans imported from Australia to swim in her lake.

 

 

The detail of the carpet shown in the photograph on the right has a circular swan motif surrounding a peacock.

Josephine's bedroom

Below left is Josephine's main bedroom, showing her bed surmounted by the imperial eagle, and flanked on either side by swans. On the right is another bedroom off the main bedroom. This is much less formal, and in front of the bed there is a small table that would have held sewing materials.

 

 Josephine's carpet
Josephine's main bed Josephine's other bed
Josephine's document chest

On the left is Josephine's document case. This has a secret lock, and is where she would have kept any documents she didn't want other's to see.

I'm not sure what the chest on the right is, but it is beautifully decorated and made. It probably contained toiletries, etc.

 chest
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