It was the summer of 1809, and Mr. Kennedy was quite happy. There he was, on a boat sailing from England to France. He felt quite safe, even though the two countries were at war, and had been for the last six years, for he carried a Letter of Immunity. He was allowed to travel regularly from London to Paris on very important missions. Nothing so mundane as carrying diplomatic letters to try to ease the situation. No, his task was much more important. He, the owner of Vineyard Nurseries in Hammersmith, was taking roses to the garden of Malmaison. Obviously, Malmaison must have been a very special place.
The story really began in 1799, when the marriage of Napoleon and Joséphine was on the point of collapse. Joséphine, born Marie Joséphine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie on 23rd. June 1763 on the island of Martinique, had married Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais in 1779. After his death (he was sent to the guillotine in 1794 after being accused of counter-revolutionary activities during the Reign of Terror), she became the mistress of Paul François Jean Barras who introduced her to the commander of the French army, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was attracted by her beauty and they married on 9th. March 1796. But while he was away winning glory for France on the battlefields of Italy and Egypt his passionate love letters lay unopened and unanswered. He returned home in 1799 to a hero's welcome, poised to become First Consul of France, but he also returned home to his wife's debts and the stories of her affairs and intrigues. But, of course, Napoleon forgave her. Instead of divorcing her he suggested she should take up a new hobby. So she started to take up a new interest and a new challenge for her - the Chateau de Malmaison and its several hundred acres (or should that be hectares) of parkland. Here, eight miles (or ten and a half kilometers) away from Paris she could indulge her life-long passion for flowers. She gathered around her some of the great botanists and horticulturalists of the day. There was Thomas Blaikie whose job was to landscape the grounds. André Dupont was there to take charge of the search for roses and the artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté had the job of recording them for posterity. Napoleon's armies fanning out across Europe were ordered to collect unusual roses and send them to Malmaison. Joséphine, now Empress of France, often walked in her garden to admire them, argue with and no doubt advise her gardeners, and perhaps wish she could spend more time among her beloved flowers. Her wish was soon to be granted. Napoleon wanted to be the father of a line of Emperors, and this desire was even greater than his love for Joséphine. After thirteen years of marriage she had failed to give him a son. (By her marriage to Beauharnais, Joséphine was the mother of Hortense de Beauharnais who later became the wife of Napoleon's younger brother, Louis Bonaparte, and the mother of Napoleon III). So on the l6th. December 1809 he had the marriage annulled by an Act of Senate and in the following year married Marie Louise, the daughter of Francis I of Austria and the mother-to-be of Napoleon II. Meanwhile the ex-Empress took up permanent residence at Malmaison and devoted herself to her plants.
If you could have visited the gardens at Malmaison in 1810 and walked along the paths between the flower beds, you would probably have been disappointed. You would have seen none of the vibrant colours, the high-centred blooms nor the compact, repeat flowering bushes that you would find in modest suburban gardens of today. Instead there would have been large, spreading bushes which bore a single flush of flowers each year.
There were about 250 different types of roses at Malmaison, mostly forms of Gallicas, the classic Red Rose. Growing in beds alongside were Albas or White Roses. In other beds there were the tough Rugosa Roses and the graceful Burnet Roses, Blood Roses from China and Virginia Roses from America. Damask Roses would send their fine fragrance over the whole garden, and the Centifolias with their large, globular blooms would have been very impressive. But one thing would have been missing - the bright colours of the modem rosarium. Instead, only white, pink and red, with a bed or two of dull yellow or dark orange roses from Persia - roses which were due to play an important part in the breeding of the modern colourful rose.
Joséphine was very proud of her roses. She loved to show them off to all and sundry, provided they were royal, or aristocratic at the very least. This was the greatest collection of roses the world had ever known, and soon everybody who was anybody had to have their own roseraie in the grounds of the family chateau. And, of course, when the war was over the fashion spread to the grand gardens of Britain and then to North America. The Rose Garden was born.
Unfortunately, the rose gardens of Malmaison are no more. Joséphine died in 1814, and without her to keep the project going they steadily declined, and were finally destroyed by the Prussians in the 1870-71 War. But not all is lost - far sighted people have recreated the Malmaison collection at La Roseraie de l'Hay-les-Roses in Paris as a memorial to Joséphine. But then, every great Rose Garden in the world is a memorial to Josephine, Empress of France and Queen of Roses.
Joséphine had a dream. The dream - as simple as it was bold - was to obtain a specimen of every species and variety of rose growing anywhere in the world and to use them to create the greatest rose garden ever made. To take on such a task today, with all the miracles of modern travel and communications, would be considered to be a sign of madness. But to undertake it at the beginning of the l9th century, with no aeroplanes, no telephones, no fast ships, and in war-torn France locked in a mighty struggle with the rest of Europe, was like reaching for the stars. And yet she succeeded. On the outskirts of Paris the world's first great rose garden was created - Malmaison.
Happy Gardening,
Bill Hutchings
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