Exhibition: In the Emperor's luggage. From Malmaison to St. Helena (July 1815)

The exhibition In the Emperor's Luggage invites you to travel through time and France to follow the Emperor on his final journey to the island of St Helena.

After his abdication on 21 June 1815, the day after Waterloo, Napoleon asked to go into exile in the United States. Forced by the provisional government to leave Paris, he arrived at Malmaison on 25 June. He had acknowledged full ownership of the estate to the Empress at the time of the divorce, and the château, which had been plunged into solitude since her death on 29 May 1814, with its linden-shaded avenues, seemed like a haven. The Emperor waited in vain for the Allies to decide his fate and agree to issue him the passes he needed to leave. On 29 June, Napoleon set off for Rochefort and, on 12 July, took up residence on the island of Aix in the garrison commander's house. Two frigates of the Rochefort squadron, the Saale and the Méduse, anchored in the roadstead of the Ile d'Aix, were prepared to transport him to America with his retinue and his voluminous luggage.

Blocked on the island of Aix, Napoleon soon realised that Fouché, the Minister of Police, had handed his fate over to the English. Rejecting the escape plans put to him, he had his aide-de-camp, General Gourgaud, take his letter of surrender to the Prince Regent of England to London. Then, on 15 July, he boarded the English ship the Bellérophon, the first stage of a four-month voyage that would eventually take him to St Helena.

Through a selection of works from the collections of the Musée National du Château de Malmaison, embark with the Emperor and discover his daily life during this last voyage.

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