Josephine Beauharnais timeline

Timeline

1798 – Josephine purchases Château de Malmaison while Napoleon leads the French army on a campaign in Egypt>
1800 -The European plant obsession ‘botanophilia’ reaches its height>
1800-1803 – Napoleon orders the Baudin & Hamelin expedition to the South Seas
1803 – Publication of Jardin de Malmaison an illustrated account of plants growing at Malmaison, by Pierre-Joseph Redouté
1803-1806 – Charles-Francois Mirbel appointed Superintendant Gardener at Malmaison>
1804 – Josephine crowned Empress of France by Napoleon in Notre Dame
1806-1808 – Jean-Baptiste Louis le Lieur replaces Mirbel
1804-1807 – Labillardière publishes Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen
1804-1814 – Assemblage of horticultural collections at Malmaison, in particular the rose and Nouvelle Hollande collections>
1808-1814 – With the death of Ventenat, Bonpland takes over as Botanist & Conservator at Malmaison>
1811 – Shares cost of plant collection by Scotsman James Niven at the Cape of Good Hope with English nurserymen Lee & Kennedy
1814 – Napoleon exiled to Elba, escapes to Paris where he assembles army
1815 – Napolean defeated by a coalition of English and Prussian armies at Waterloo, banished to St Helena, the end of French Empire coming with the signing of the Treaty of Paris: his letter of surrender to the British throws him to their mercy ‘like Themistocles‘
1817-1824 – Publication of Les Roses by botanical illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté