📍Avenue du Château de la Malmaison, 92500 Rueil-Malmaison, France
1799 – 1814“Napoleon gave me Malmaison before he gave me an empire, and Malmaison outlasted the empire in my heart. After the divorce — when my failure to produce an heir made me politically inconvenient — I retreated here and made it mine absolutely. My rose garden became my obsession: 250 varieties, documented by the painter Redouté in paintings that outlasted everything. My greenhouses contained plants from every continent. This was who I was, apart from the Napoleon story.”
👍 LovedThe rose garden in June — the scent on a warm evening was unlike anything I have known anywhere else
👎 DislikedThe humiliation of the divorce and the knowledge that I would never see Napoleon again, though I loved him still
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today
Sources: Wikipedia: Joséphine de Beauharnais