Life in a museum
Bernard Chevallier, you are head curator of the Malmaison and Bois-Préau estate. How did you become curator? Was it something you always wanted to do?
I was always interested in history, and after a brief period doing business studies, following my parents' wishes, I managed to extricate myself, signed up at Paris IV where I read both history and art history – I think it's essential to do both. There I finally found my vocation. I loved the Mediaeval period, but since I had no Latin, I turned towards modern history, 18th-19th centuries. And after six years as a guide/translator, I took the curator's exam in 1971.
What do you think were the key figures in your career?
My university teacher, André Chastel, was very important. We called him “maître”. Other key individuals were Jean-Pierre Samoyault (head curator at a national level) who was head curator of the museum in the château at Fontainebleau and general administrator of the French national furniture depot ad his wife Colombe Samoyault-Verlet, who taught me the trade – I was seven years at Fontainebleau; professor Guy Ledoux-Lebard, collector of Napoleonica, was also important.
When you came to Malmaison in 1980, as deputy curator to Gérard Hubert, were you still as enthusiastic: did Malmaison have particular charms for you?
Malmaison is a house which entraps you in the end! But seriously, I am deeply attached to this place. It was here I did my first internship as a curator in 1972 – as you can imagine, this was a crucial moment. When I was a translator/guide in English and German during the period 1965 – 1971, I was often at Malmaison. And there were also the visits I made to Malmaison and Bois-Préau as a teenager at the end of the 50s!
During this first internship in 1972, I looked at Malmaison in the long previously unstudied period from 1244 to 1799; later on I went up to 1904, and this became my doctorate which I defended in 1987.(1).
Gradually, in the course of this research work, I discovered Josephine. So today, I liked to tease visitors to Malmaison by saying that Napoleon was merely Josephine's husband!
You were appointed curator in 1989, and then director in 1997, which means that today, in 2004, you are both curator and director? How has your job changed?
Today, the largest part of my daily work is the running of the museum, which diminishes considerably the time I have to spend with the objects in the collection and in historical research. For example, as a result of changes in the French system museum management, personnel issues are now dealt with here in at the museum and no longer nationally. Furthermore, with the new funding legislation, expenses have to be accounted for right down to the last euro, and in the December of every year we have to present our provisional budget to the body that runs museums nationally in France. This is an enormous and appalling administrative burden. Indeed, this new system has caused a certain amount of frustration in that it's not usually a system that chosen in such situations, and young curators on seeing this are unlikely to want to become museum directors.
And on the other hand, Malmaison is unusual in that it is not a single but rather a triple site. Attached to Malmaison are two other establishments, namely, the house in which Napoleon was born in Ajaccio and the two museums on île d'Aix (the Napoleonic museum and the African museum). These three budgets are run from Malmaison.
And you are also in charge of a part of the collection at Longwood House on Saint Helena. But to return to the house in Ajaccio in which Napoleon was born. Restoration work has been recently undertaken there: could you tell us what stage the work is at? And when will it be reopening?
The work ended in the middle of June this year. We know that the Bonaparte's lived on this site since the origins of the family at the end of the 12th century. The current house – which dates from the 17th century – was given to the French state by prince Victor Napoléon in 1923. Initially run by the Caisse des monuments historiques until 1967, it subsequently came under the aegis of the Direction des Musées de France. At that point it was possible to perform the necessary alterations to make the building into a museum. The adjoining house was bought, a welcome desk, a lift, toilets, an auditorium and a shop were installed, and a route for the exhibition. The acquisition of the adjoining house was long and complicated; seven years in fact. On the first floor are the « salles historiques », and on the second (both in the old house and in the extension) there are six documentary rooms giving the history of the Bonapartes and their house.
The « salles historiques » have not as yet been restored; that will be done later when the national head architect has completed his survey. However, some of the smaller jobs have already been done. Since « Maison Bonaparte » was handed over in 1923 with all its furniture, we decided to begin with the chairs in the gallery which has already been restored. We were very pleased to find that of the three subsequent re-coverings on them, the earliest dated from time of Madame Mère, and so it was very easy to find very similar material made by Maison Prelle from Lyon.
Josephine, my patroness
You have written many books and articles on the Empire, its history and its art de vivre, but it is above all Josephine who dominates. Would you say that in recent years she had been your inspiration?
Yes, we've been together for twenty-five years now! The historian Frédéric Masson (2) wrote four volumes which are fundamental for all those who want to get to know her well; but he wasn't very gentle with her, and this negative image was to be even further accentuated by André Castelot (3).
The result of their work was that people saw Josephine only as a shallow spendthrift. But that seemed to me to be too reductivist, so I set about learning more; although I had already done a great deal of work on the subject. I found her intelligent, strong-willed, someone who knew where she wanted to go, fascinated by the natural sciences and a passionate art lover. It is true that she is an opportunist who always getting the ‘right people', whether it's Alexandre de Beauharnais, Barras, Napoleon of the Czar Alexander; she was not doing it out of a taste for power or politics, but simply out of self-protection and material comfort. In her correspondence, she comes over as an intelligent, sensitive woman, who loves her children and grand-children. Napoleon III remembered the times he spent with his grandmother with such tenderness that he bought Malmaison in 1861.
Her marriage to the up-and-coming young general was probably more a head than a heart decision. How far do you think their relationship evolved? How important was she for Napoleon?
Josephine married Napoleon in the manner of a woman of the Ancien Régime, and was probably hugely surprised to find herself with a husband who was deeply in love with her! As for what followed, I think you could say that they evolved together, Josephine took part in the preparations for the Coup d'Etat and managed get many aristocrats and émigrés to rally to Bonaparte during the Consulate period. Born in 1763, in other words only eight years after Marie-Antoinette, she was completely anchored in the 18th century and knew how act as a bridge between the old and new society. That was her key role. Also later she understood what it meant to be empress, and the importance of encouraging literature and the arts. She was furthermore adept in the manners of high society. There was a real bond between her and Napoleon, and when they divorced Napoleon declared emotionally before the court, on 15 December, 1809, that she has brought beauty to fifteen years of his life. Josephine felt the threat of divorce early on and never left him alone. He was still complaining on Saint Helena that she was informed of all his movements and that he found her waiting for him in his carriage in the Tuileries courtyard in the middle of the night! She did have her own network of informants, but she never played any political role; Napoleon would never have permitted it.
Which of the pieces related to her at Malmaison are the most remarkable?
I would have to say the gallery of a dozen portraits, particularly the private commissions, such as the unfinished work by Prud'hon, or that by Firmin Massot, bought last year, where she appears outrageously made up and already tired.
we recently bought the six boxes missing from her mineralogical collection. We had had the other twenty-four boxes since 1933, but the collection is now complete, and that is always a special moment for a curator. Even more recently we had the good luck to buy the first arm chair from the Salle du Conseil where it joins the stools bought fifty years ago! In two years time the museum will have been open for one hundred years. At beginning it was entirely empty, and the curators decided to make it into a museum of the two empires, filling up the small rooms with thousands of objects. In 1953, a decision was taken to send the three thousand Second Empire objects to Compiègne; they now form the kernel of the Musée du Second Empire there. Later, in 1984, it was decided to create a First Empire museum in Fontainebleau, for this Malmaison was dispossessed of the object it had related to the emperor Napoleon, his brothers and sisters, Marie-Louise and the Roi de Rome. This chopping up was in fact a good thing, because it made it possible for us to re-centre our collection and make it more coherent, with a real agenda. Malmaison is now dedicated to Bonaparte, general and Consul, to the Consulate period, to Josephine and her children, whilst Bois-Préau has memorabilia from Saint Helena and is dedicated to the Napoleonic legend.
What are the pieces you would like to add to the Malmaison collection?
The empress' vermeil toilette and her tea service, both made by Odiot and both owned by a well-known greek shipping family. We are also missing the twelve upright chairs from the salon for which he own six armchairs. We patiently was the sale rooms hoping that they will turn up one day. Currently we have thirty-one plates from the service made for the empress by Dihl et Guerhard. Our direct « competitor », in this respect is the Hermitage Museum, which has thirty-four. We hope therefore that the three plates we know to be still in private hands will one day come to us…
Meeting the visitors
Every year, you have a special exhibition in the wonderful setting of the Château de Malmaison. What is your policy on this?
It may seem paradoxical, but we have a duty to show this heritage to the public, whether in exhibitions at Malmaison or by lending pieces from the museum for exhibitions either elsewhere in France or abroad. Every odd-number year, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux finances an exhibition at Malmaison; we can then bring in pieces from abroad. On the even-number years, the exhibitions are financed using funds from Malmaison; we usually exhibit pieces held in reserve for reasons of lack of space. In 2004, we will be exhibiting jewels from the two empires, and in 2005 we are to have a beautiful exhibition dedicated to the painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey, with several loans from abroad.
Do you have a specific goal with your exhibitions? What impression do you hope to leave visitors with?
I want people to leave Malmaison with the impression that their time spent there felt more like a visit to Josephine's house, not just going to another museum. That for me is the best of rewards.
You direct many exhibitions worldwide. How is the figure of Napoleon seen, for example, in North America, Japan, or Brazil?
Americans are particularly interested in the ‘self-made-man' aspect of Napoleon, the boy who came from nowhere to become master of Europe. That is largely how he is perceived over there. Historians may attempt to lay this lie, but that's how the public sees it. In Asia, people are more fascinated by Napoleon as man of war, the conqueror. Indeed, there seems to be interest in China; I would like to do an exhibition in Peking, perhaps even in the Forbidden City, but for the moment the negotiations we have tried to get going have not led anywhere… Recently there's been more interest in Josephine; there was an exhibition in Montreal, and another in Baton Rouge, both in 2003, and there's another planned for next year entitled « Josephine, patroness of the arts » in a town in Massachusetts. And following on from that, a Boston museum is thinking about a Josephine project for 2006.
Bernard Chevallier today
You have just published a book with Artlys (4), in which you encourage your readers to discover the Napoleonic centres of power. You cite for example the instructions given by the head of the National Furniture store to his suppliers “Simplify the ornamentation : it's for the emperor”: what were Napoleon's opinions in terms of interior decoration for his palaces?
Napoleon had a great sense of the State, and for him his residences ought to be ‘display windows' for French know-how. But he was also a man of habit, with simple tastes; and he wanted to find the same simplicity in his houses: thus, he always had an interior staircase linking his apartment with his library, and he always had the same desk «à coffre», made by frères Jacob to his own design.
Malmaison and Josephine are indissolubly linked; for Napoleon, the estate was where he spent his happiest years, alongside his first wife, the years of the Grand Consulate and the modernisation of France. Are there any other places so typical of Napoleon?
It is hard to say, because Napoleon was such a ‘rolling stone'! Since the Tuileries no longer exist, and neither does Saint-Cloud, no other important imperial residences survive. It true that Fontainebleau, Compiègne, the Grand Trianon and Rambouillet are still there, but he did not stay there regularly and only certain moments in his life in are linked to them.
What is your opinion on the debate over the rebuilding of the Palais des Tuileries, a project which has been defended notably by certain high-profile individuals and enthusiasts?
It's a nice idea. I think that it should be built exactly as it was, at least as far as the interior is concerned. But it's a bit utopian; the ability of certain trades, for example, stone sculptors, is so poorly developed that the reconstruction would take centuries… Furthermore, the weight of the theories of Viollet-Le-Duc can still be felt in this country. We in France don't dare to imagine a reconstruction that is identical.
You are in charge of the exhibition “The Treasures of the Fondation Napoléon”, which is to be held at the Musée Jacquemart-André from 28 September 2004 to 3 April, 2005. Can you give us a glimpse of what's in store?
The objects on show are real treasures, and they are to be arranged in a special ‘mise en scène' made by Michel Albertini, man of the cinema, who has put his remarkable talents to the service of these wonderful pieces; he is a genius with lighting, his setting will amaze you. The exhibition is studded with gems, but of particular interest are the collection of bijou gift boxes and the nineteen plates from the emperor's private service; only Fontainebleau has more than that. The assembly of these nineteen plates (out of an original 72) is completely exceptional. Josephine's punch bowl and paper press are also remarkable objects and emblematic pieces for the decorative arts of the First Empire. And how could one not mention the preparatory sketch by David for his painting of Napoleon's coronation? In its acquisitions, the Fondation has also followed the direction pursued a the founder of the collection, Martial Lapeyre; the bringing together of some of the most wonderful objects, reflections of an extraordinary period and civilisation.
July 2004
Bibliography
– Bernard Chevallier: Napoleon, Centres of Power, (Paris): Artlys, 2004, 127 p.
– …………………………….: Vues du château et du parc de Malmaison, Paris: Perrin, 2003, 128 p.
– ……………………………., Marc Walter (photogr.): Style Empire, les arts décoratifs en France de 1798 à 1815, Paris: Valmont Eds, 2000, 359 p.
– ……………………………., Chr. Pincemaille: Douce et incomparable Joséphine, Paris : Payot, 1999, 273 p.
– ……………………………., Marc Walter (photogr.): L'art de vivre au temps de Joséphine, Paris : Flammarion, 1998, 191 p.
– …………………………….: L' ABCdaire des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau, Paris: Flammarion, 1997, 119 p. – (L'ABCdaire; Série Art ; 36)
– ……………………………., Maurice Catinat, Chr. Pincemaille: Correspondance de l'impératrice Joséphine: 1782-1814, Paris : Payot, 1996, 419 p.
– …………………………….: Malmaison : Château et domaine des origines à 1904, Paris : Ed. de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1989 (Notes et documents des musées de France ; 22)