Stop 9: The most beautiful flowers smile on the visitor 
A visitor to Malmaison said: ‘From all sides the most beautiful flowers smile on the visitor.’ Malmaison was, indeed, a charming place, but it was also a profoundly scientific one. Josephine was a talented and expert botanist who successfully cultivated all manner of exotic plants. She was serious about her science and hoped to create at Malmaison, as she said, ‘the most beautiful and curious garden in Europe, a model of good cultivation’.
Within a decade her garden rivaled the Jardin des Plantes in Paris – no small feat given that the Jardin des Plantes had three centuries of development behind it. 
Josephine intended Malmaison to become a showcase filled with the treasures of the French empire gathered from all corners of the globe. Mirroring her husband’s ambitions she said: 
Here are the violet from Parma, the lily from the Nile, the rose from Damietta: these conquests from Italy and Egypt will not be enemies of Napoleon: but here are my own conquests.
Not even war halted her zealous collecting – when France was at war with England, Napoleon ordered that the ships carrying English roses for her collection be allowed to cross the blockade. Distinguished guests to Malmaison were treated to a garden tour from the Empress during which she displayed her great knowledge of botany. For many, this was an enlivening experience. 
For some, however, it could be fatiguing. A lady-in-waiting wrote of how:
When the weather was finethe green-houses were inspected; the same walk was taken every day, on the way to that spot the same subjects were talked over; the conversation generally turned upon botany, upon her Majesty’s taste for that interesting science, her wonderful memory which enabled her to name every plant; in short, the same phrases were generally repeated over and over again, and at the same time, circumstances well calculated to render those promenades exceedingly tedious and fatiguing. I no sooner stepped onto that delightful walk, which I had so much admired when I first saw it, than I was seized with an immoderate fit of yawning.

Although this poor lady-in-waiting had to stifle her yawns, many distinguished scientists flocked to Malmaison. They were enthralled by the many wonders of natural science that could be viewed there. 
To encourage the growth of her exotic plant collection, many of which came from warmer climates, Josephine built the magnificent Grande Serre Chaude, the large hothouse. This enormous glasshouse could house trees up to five-metres high. It was kept warm during the icy French winters by heat given off from a dozen coal-burning ovens. At some dinner parties, Josephine would order her footmen to carry dwarf fruit trees from the hothouse to the dining room so that guests could pluck their own cherries, plums and apricots in the middle of winter.
Malmaison was also home to wild animals, which wandered uninhibitedly across the seventy-acre grounds. This included ostriches, zebras, gazelles, llamas, a seal, kangaroos, emus, cockatoos and – her personal favourite – black swans. 
Her love of animals was also something endured by Napoleon who was forced to compete with Fortuné, Jospehine’s pug dog, for the best portion of the bed. 
Josephine’s zeal for collecting encompassed all manner of subjects including art, fashion, antiques and the natural sciences – indeed Napoleon once exclaimed, somewhat exasperated, to one of her gentlemen-in-waiting: ‘She wanted everything!’ However it was the garden at Malmaison that was of enduring importance. ‘I feel more fortunate’ she once said, ‘when I study the purple of the cactus than when I look at all the splendour that surrounds me’.