Word: malmaison
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...guest settles on a favorite, he is likely to insist on the same room year after year. Three suites are patterned after the chambers of Louis XIV, XV and XVI. But Sophia Loren favors No. 414, the so-called Royal Suite, copied from Josephine's boudoir at Malmaison...
...public occasions. Otherwise, she entertained herself with the theater and with sentimental novels, frequently only sampling them and having others tell her the ending. Her personal expenditures came to about a million francs ($200,000) a year. Her two great extravagances were clothes and Malmaison, the estate outside Paris where she collected exotic flowers, romantic paintings, and such oddities as male and female mummies-relics of the Egyptian campaign. In a reversal of their former roles, it was Josephine who now wrote imploring letters to Bonaparte when he was away campaigning, asking permission to join him. Bonaparte, engaged with...
...mistress of the moment, Polish Countess Maria Walewska, revealed that she was pregnant. Several months later, Bonaparte announced his decision to divorce Josephine for the good of the state. Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria gave him the legitimate son he wanted; Josephine retired on a handsome pension to Malmaison. When she died at 50 in May 1814, after contracting a chill at an outdoor reception, 20,000 people filed past her bier and Paris was flooded with pamphlets hailing la bonne Josephine. Bonaparte was virtually the last to get the news. A valet clipped the story out of a Genoa...
...hospital for premature infants, she accepted a bouquet of sweet peas, admired the babies, and observed that her daughter Caroline detested flashbulbs. The president of the Paris Municipal Council presented her with a tiny wristwatch, was rewarded with a smile. Then there was a quick trip to flower-decked Malmaison, the Empress Josephine's country retreat, and a gourmet lunch (lobster thermidor, mousse aux fraises des bois, and three wines) at La Celle St. Cloud, the long-ago hideaway of Mme. de Pompadour. And capping it all was the gala evening at the Palace of Versailles, with illuminated fountains...