LA MALMAISON: JOSÉPHINE'S GARDEN
Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Page was born in 1763, in the West Indies.
Her love of fauna and flora took seed in that fertile island paradise.
At the age of 16 she travelled to France to marry Alexandre de Beauharnaisis.
They had two children Eugène and Hortense. It was not a happy marriage, they separated and in 1793, during the Reign of Terror, Joséphine was arrested for a short time and Alexandre was sentenced to death and guillotined.
Two years later, she met General Bonaparte,
who fell madly in love with her and Joséphine remarried.
Bonaparte continued his conquests, leading the French Army into Italy, then Egypt.
In 1799 Joséphine fell under the spell of Château Malmaison
and began to build a garden that replicated the landscape of her native land
with its rich flowers and colourful birds.
In 1804 after the Brumaire Coup D'Etat,
Napoleon crowned himself Emperor and Joséphine Empress.
With all the political turmoil, Malmaison became the ideal refuge.
Joséphine employed Europe’s best gardeners and seized the opportunities
offered by the Emperor's campaigns and travels to obtain
the world's most exotic, rare plants and birds.
Daffodils, hyacinths, camelias and tulips flourished in her garden
and a greenhouse was constructed to house the most delicate, fragile specimens.
In 1809, confronted with the impossibility of conceiving a child together,
Napoleon and Joséphine divorced. The Emperor left Malmaison to his first love.
The fallen Empress stayed there in solitude in her lush paradise,
surrounded by her flowers and her birds.
This history is the inspiration for Cire Trudon's latest candle … Joséphine.