FRENCH LANGUAGE
A long, narrow and mysterious passage, an elegant stone pavilion nestled in an island of greenery, this is the residence that Josephine chose in the autumn of 1795 in the heart of the Chaussée d'Antin, the new business district. The place was well known in Paris: literary and theatrical...
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FRENCH LANGUAGE
A long, narrow and mysterious passage, an elegant stone pavilion nestled in an island of greenery, this is the residence that Josephine chose in the autumn of 1795 in the heart of the Chaussée d'Antin, the new business district. The place was well known in Paris: literary and theatrical people, the high aristocracy and then Girondin circles liked to meet there from the 1780s onwards around Julie Careau, a dancer at the Opéra, soon to be the wife of the actor Talma.
Shortly afterwards, the seductive Josephine joins her destiny to that of Napoleon Bonaparte. The small house accompanied the general's political rise in a Directoire France that yearned for appeasement: Josephine furnished it with luxury and refinement, sparing no expense to bring it up to the level of the most elegant decorations of the time.
But after the coup, the house, far from becoming a sanctuary, was gradually forgotten and disappeared without a fight in the upheavals of Haussmann's Paris. Objects and reconstructions bring back to life a vanished place, emblematic of the Napoleonic epic, the first residence of this mythical couple before Malmaison.
Exhibition at the musée national du château de Malmaison from 16 October 2013 to 6 January 2014.
French language
128 pages / 140 illustrations
Rmn - Grand Palais Publishing
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