Rueil-Malmaison, residence of Napoleon and Joséphine
Monday, 31 October 2011 - 03:11 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union General , Paris / Île-de-France
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul Church © Myrabella
🔊 Listen to this Post
Rueil-Malmaison is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department. It is located 12.6 kilometers from the center of Paris. Rueil is famous for the Château de Malmaison where Napoleon and his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais lived. Upon her death in 1814, she was buried at the nearby Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church, which stands at the centre of the city. The Rueil barracks of the Swiss Guard were constructed in 1756 under Louis XV by the architect Axel Guillaumot, and have been classifed Monument historique since 1973. The Guard was formed by Louis XIII in 1616 and massacred at the Tuileries on 10 August 1792 during the French Revolution. At the end of the 19th century, Impressionist painters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet and Claude Monet came to paint the Seine River which crosses the town. Rueil is (despite the title) the principal location of the novel
Loin de Rueil by the French novelist Raymond Queneau.
Joséphine de Beauharnais bought Château de Malmaison in April 1797 for herself and her husband, General Napoléon Bonaparte, the future Napoléon I of France, at that time away fighting the Egyptian Campaign. Malmaison was a run-down estate, that encompassed nearly 150 acres (0.61 km2) of woods and meadows. Upon his return, Bonaparte expressed fury at Joséphine 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, and she spent a fortune doing so. Malmaison would bring great happiness to the Bonapartes. Joséphine’s daughter, Hortense would call it “a delicious spot”. Joséphine endeavored to transform the large estate into “the most beautiful and curious garden in Europe, a model of good cultivation”. She actively sought out flora and fauna along with rare and exotic animals from around the world. In 1800, Joséphine built a heated orangery large enough for 300 pineapple plants. Five years later, she ordered the building of a greenhouse, heated by a dozen coal-burning stoves. From 1803 until her death in 1814, Josephine cultivated nearly 200 new plants in France for the first time.
Bois-Préau Castle and Park, part of the Malmaison estate. Statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais in the foreground © Myrabella
The public can visit the manor house as a Napoleonic
musée national . The museum lies on RN 13 (
route nationale 13 ) from Paris and bus 258 from RER A “Grande Arche” station.
Read more on
City of Rueil-Malmaison ,
Malmaison Castle Museum (National Museum musées nationaux napoléoniens) ,
Rueil-Malmaison Tourism ,
Wikipedia Château de Malmaison and
Wikipedia Rueil-Malmaison . Learn more about the
use of photos . To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organisations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Travel Risk Map -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
VIDEO
Recommended posts:
[caption id="attachment_154364" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Chilehaus © Sebastian Warneke/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Chilehaus (Chile House) is a ten-story office building in Hamburg. It is located in the Kontorhausviertel. It is an exceptional example of the 1920s Brick Expressionism style of architecture. This large angular building is located on a site of approximately 6,000m², spanning the Fischertwiete Street in Hamburg. It was designed by the German architect Fritz Höger and finished in 1924.
...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_214018" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Vernazza © Charles van Dijk/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Italian Riviera, or Ligurian Riviera, is the narrow coastal strip in Italy which lies between the Ligurian Sea and the mountain chain formed by the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Longitudinally it extends from the border with France and the French Riviera (or Côte d'Azur) near Ventimiglia (a former customs post) eastwards to Capo Corvo (also known as Punta Bianca) which marks the eastern end of...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_171467" align="aligncenter" width="590"] The docks at Bella Coola © flickr.com - Colin/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Bella Coola is a community in the Bella Coola Valley in British Columbia. Bella Coola usually refers to the entire valley, encompassing the settlements of Bella Coola proper ("the townsite") (population approximately 148), Lower Bella Coola, Hagensborg, Saloompt, Nusatsum, Firvale and Stuie. It is also the location of the head offices of the Central Coast Regional District. The entir...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_25694" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Carrao river and tepuys © Berrucomons/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Canaima National Park (Parque Nacional Canaima) is a 30,000 km² (12,000 sq mi) park in south-eastern Venezuela that borders Brazil and Guyana. It is located in Bolívar State, and roughly occupies the same area as the Gran Sabana region. The park was established on 12 June 1962. It is the second largest park in the country, after Parima-Tapirapecó, and sixth biggest national park in the ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_186187" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Cornmarket © J.-H. Janßen/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Liberties is an area in central Dublin, located in the southwest of the inner city. One of Dublin's most historic working-class neighbourhoods, the area is traditionally associated with the River Poddle, market traders and local family-owned businesses, as well as whiskey distilling, and, historically, the textiles industry and tenement housing. Many places in The Liberties still have connection...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_171385" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Kitesurfing © flickr.com - Christopher Michel/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Kiteboarding is a surface water sport combining aspects of wakeboarding, snowboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, skateboarding and sailing into one extreme sport. A kiteboarder harnesses the power of the wind with a large controllable power kite to be propelled across the water on a kiteboard similar to a wakeboard or a small surfboard, with or without footstraps or bindings...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_6306" align="aligncenter" width="590"] The Monastery Al Dier © Tom Neys[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Petra is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Established possibly as early as 312 BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan as well as its most visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah ...
[ read more ]
SOHO
[caption id="attachment_150767" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Berwick Street Market - Soho © Fin Fahey[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_240879" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Mefalsim © Rikmal/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Gaza Envelope encompasses the populated areas in the Southern District of Israel that are within 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) of the Gaza Strip border and are therefore within range of mortar shells and Qassam rockets launched from the Gaza Strip.
The border between Israel and the Gaza Strip was established in the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed at the end of the 1948 Arab–Is...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_160821" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Palazzo Medolago © MarkusMark[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan. The foothills of the Alps begin immediately north of the town.
The town has two centres: "Città alta" (upper city), a hilltop medieval town,...
[ read more ]
