Fontainebleau

Josephine was a widow with two children when she married Napoleon. He was keen to have an heir but initially

The year he became Emperor Napoleon had decided to re-establish all the former royal chateaux as imperial palaces. General Duroc*

Three years after starting restoration of the Chateau of Fontainebleau, Napoleon ordered work to start on another former royal residence

Fontainebleau was the only royal residence to have been continuously used for seven centuries. During the French Revolution it became

Madame de Montesquiou ordered another rocking cradle in elm wood trimmed with laurels (the Roman emblem of victory). As usual,

Anne was from a noble family but had been one of over 30 children her father had with 3 wives.

“The most learned of the beauties and the most beautiful of the learned.”