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History of Bois-Préau

View of Bois-Préau Castle

Initially a mere fiefdom of the extremely rich Abbey of St. Denis, the land of Bois-Préau was bought jointly in 1696 by Frédéric Léonard and his son Frédéric-Pierre Léonard, both printers and ordinary booksellers to the King. Within these seventeen hectares of land (an area that represents the size of the park even today) they constructed a fairly sizeable residence between 1697 and 1700, surrounded by gardens dotted with water features. The son of Frédéric-Pierre disposed of the land in 1747 to a former kitchen boy, Jean Garnier, who had become major-domo to Queen Marie Leszczynska; Garnier spent until 1765 embellishing the estate by creating a bath-house and decorating the park with statues. The Count of Prie, who had owned Bois-Préau for the nine years between 1765 and 1774, sold the property to the banker Louis Julien, who died there in 1796. His daughter, Anne-Marie Julien, persistently refused to sell Bois-Préau to Bonaparte, in spite of the attractive offers he made her for it. It was not until the spinster’s accidental death by drowning in one of the park’s water features on 9 March 1808 that Joséphine was finally able to extend her estate towards the village of Rueil.

View of the Grand Ballroom

After having inquired discreetly of the heirs, the Empress was unable to resist the temptation to extend her property; Napoleon even wrote to her from Schönbrunn in September 1809: “The spinster’s house is worth a mere 120,000 francs – they shall never succeed in getting any more for it. However, it is at your entire discretion to do as you wish, since it amuses you, but if you buy it, do not have it torn down merely in order to have a few rocks set in its place.” Three weeks after the divorce, he sent her 200,000 francs with which to purchase Bois-Préau, and the conveyance was signed on 29 January 1810. After she had the walls separating Malmaison from Bois-Préau demolished, she was able to go to Rueil without setting foot outside her own property. Joséphine accommodated several persons in her service here, such as her doctor and her intendant, and made use of the space to store the overflow from the library at Malmaison (7,500 volumes), fitting out a room for the estate’s archives and storing part of her natural history collection in the property.

Detail of the decor of the grand salon

The death of the Empress brought a halt to the work commenced by Louis-Martin Berthault on the gardens, which she had hoped to remodel. Bois-Préau’s upkeep continued to be assured by her son and heir, Prince Eugène, and when the latter died in 1824 his widow sold the property to Parisian traders in 1828. In 1853 the property changed hands once again, coming into the possession of Edouard Rodrigues-Henriques, benefactor of Rueil, who held gatherings at Bois-Préau for artists and musicians such as the composers Fromental Halévy, who had married his first cousin, or Georges Bizet, who had married Halévy’s daughter. He also maintained extensive correspondence with George Sand, who had been introduced to him by Alexandre Dumas. She assisted him in choosing which books to buy for the library destined for the poor of Rueil, and his wife, Sophie Rodrigues, founded a crèche with twenty cribs. The castle was not, however, in pristine condition, and the first concern of Edouard Rodrigues was to demolish the wings and to have the majority of the central part rebuilt in 1854 by his architect, who may have been Alfred-Louis Feydeau, uncle of the famous author.

Statue of Joséphine in the park of Bois-Préau

When Rodrigues-Henriques died in 1878, his children waited only a year before selling Bois-Préau to the journalist Jouvin, responsible for the revival of the Figaro, and his father-in-law Villemessaint. After passing through several sets of hands the property was purchased in 1920, on condition that the profits therefrom be granted, by another couple of great benefactors of Rueil: Edward Tuck and his wife Julia Stell. They donated Bois-Préau and its seventeen-hectare park to the French National Museum Association in 1926 so that it could be transformed into an annex to Malmaison Museum. Following several changes of theme it is today dedicated to the souvenirs of Napoleon from St. Helena, the story of the Return to the Ashes, Consular and Imperial propaganda and the Napoleonic legend.