Malmaison CastleChâteau de Malmaison

Malmaison Castle began as a 17th c. country house, but its meaning was remade when Joséphine Bonaparte bought it in 1799 and Napoleon used it as an intimate seat of power during the Consulate and early Empire. Here politics unfolded in salons rather than grand palaces, and the refined Empire interiors helped define the look of a new regime. After their 1809 divorce, Joséphine kept Malmaison until her death in 1814, when Tsar Alexander I came to pay his respects—an emblem of how private rooms could hold European history.