Rueil-Malmaison: station history
Served by: RER A.
Did you know?
A Hauts-de-Seine station run by RATP, on the A1 branch of RER A towards Saint-Germain-en-Laye, at kilometre point 13.680 of the Paris-Saint-Lazare to Saint-Germain-en-Laye line. It has five entrances, rue des Deux Gares, avenue Pereire (in the shopping centre), avenue de Colmar, avenue Albert 1er and avenue Victor Hugo. It is the terminus for trains whose mission code begins with Y, and has central dead-end tracks and stabling tracks to the north-east. Six RATP bus lines, two lines of the Argenteuil - Boucles de Seine network, line 6227 and, at night, Noctilien line N153 serve it.
Anecdote
In Rueil-Malmaison, the church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul holds the tomb of Joséphine de Beauharnais, completed in 1825 by Louis-Martin Berthault and Pierre Cartellier, in Carrara marble, which shows her at prayer as in David's painting of the Coronation. The mausoleum of Hortense de Beauharnais was inaugurated there in 1858 by Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie. Between 1632 and 1635, Richelieu had the present façade built there, designed by Jacques Lemercier. The church has been a listed historic monument since 1941.
Audio guide
La Malmaison, Josephine de Beauharnais' favourite residence
On April 21, 1799, while Napoleon was waging war in Egypt, Josephine unwittingly bought the Rueil estate for 325,000 francs, going into debt. From 1800 to 1802, Percier and Fontaine redecorated it: with the Tuileries, it became the seat of the Consulate government, and its decoration summarizes the Consulate style.
But his real masterpiece is the park. Josephine dreams of making it the most beautiful garden in Europe: greenhouses, exotic plants and a rose garden that now has nearly 150 varieties. Her name was Rose before marrying Napoleon…
After the divorce of 1810, she retired there and died there in 1814. Became a museum in 1905, the castle can still be visited: council chamber, Napoleon's mahogany library, oval room where Josephine died. The top floor tells the story of the Emperor's exile on St. Helena.
The library had 13,000 books in 1814 and the park covered 726 hectares. Josephine planted exotic plants brought back from Martinique, which botanist Aimé Bonpland describes in a book.
Around Rueil-Malmaison
- Château de Malmaison, 1450 m away — Joséphine de Beauharnais's favourite residence, from which Napoleon Bonaparte governed France in 1800.