Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
Here Marie Antoinette st to Mme. Lebrun for the picture in which she is
represented with her children. In the dining-room is a secretaire given
to Louis XVI. by the States of Burgundy, and portraits of the King and
Marie Antoinette. The Cabinet de Travail of the queen was a cabinet
given to her on her marriage by the town of Paris; in the Salle de
Réception are four pictures by Watteau; the Boudoir has a Sévres bust
of the queen; in the Chambre-á-coucher is the queen's bed, and a
portrait of the Dauphin by Lebrun. These simple rooms are a standing
defense of the queen from the false accusations brought against her at
the Revolution as to her extravagance in the furnishing of the Petit
Trianon. Speaking of her happy domestic life, Mme. Lebrun says: "I do
not believe Queen Marie Antoinette ever allowed an occasion to pass by
without saying an agreeable thing to those who had the honor of being
near her."
Malmaison
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]
The station is opposite a short avenue, at the end of which on the
right, is the principal entrance to Malmaison. A little higher up the
road at the right is a gate leading to the park and gardens, freely
open to the public, and being sold (1887) in lots by the Stat. There is
a melancholy charm in the old house of many recollections--grim, empty,
and desolate; approached on this side by a bridge over the dry moat. A
short distance off, rather to the left, as you look from the house, is
a very pretty little temple--the Temple of Love--with a front of
columns of red Givet marble brought from the chateau of Richelieu, and
a clear stream bursting from the rocks beneath it.
Malmaison is supposed to derive its name from having been inhabited in
the XI century by the Norman brigand Odon, and afterward by evil
spirits, exorcised by the monks of St. Denis. Josephine bought the
villa with its gardens, which had been much praised by Delille, from M.
Lecouteulx de Canteleu for 160,000 francs.... Josephine retired to
Malmaison at the time of her divorce, and seldom left it afterward....
In 1814, the unhappy Josephine, whose heart was always with Napoleon,
was forced to receive a visit from the allied sovereigns at Malmaison,
and died of a chill which she caught in doing the honors of her grounds
to the Emperor Alexander on May 26, by a water excursion on the pool of
Cucufa. After his return from Elba, Napoleon revisited the place....
After the loss of the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon once more retired to
Malmaison, then the property of the children of Josephine, Eugene and
Hortense. There he passed June 25, 1815, a day of terrible agitation.
That evening at five o'clock he put on a brown suit of civilian
clothes, tenderly embraced Queen Hortense and the other persons
present, gave a long lingering look at the house and gardens connected
with his happiest hours, and left them for ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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