48 hours in Rueil-Malmaison

Paris - Île-de-France/2024

Close to Paris, Rueil-Malmaison has a taste for the countryside and the woods. The town invites you to stroll along the banks of the Seine and in its 180-hectare national forest. It also encourages you to put on Napoleon's boots and step back in time to look to the future. History buffs beware!

An RER ticket like a key to the countryside... Just 8 kilometers from the capital, Rueil-Malmaison already has the charm of a provincial town. Here, time seems to stretch and round out around the loops of the Seine. On the banks of the river, scenes from paintings glide before our eyes. Tiny details, if not something in the air, recall the brushstrokes of Renoir, Manet and Monet. Since their time, canoeing has become rarer, replaced by other sports. These include the 9-hole golf course or the 9 tennis courts, 6 boules courts and running track in the Bords-de-Seine park. Not forgetting, further afield, swimming pools and stadiums. What a sports facility! Still on the banks, little houses gaze out at the flowing waters, enveloped in a crazy poetry. This is Le Fruit Défendu, which had several lives, including one filled with pleasures, as Jo Privat sang on the accordion: "At the Relais du Fruit Défendu on the banks of the Seine, love is part of the menu, as is Suresnes wine... (...) At the Relais du Fruit Défendu, you lose your head and it lasts." As proof, the somewhat rickety walls, the oldest of which are said to be 300 years old, set Antoine Courtois' heart aflame. "I came here to play tennis and fell in love with the place almost ten years ago," explains the founder of the Ateliers de France group, which specializes in work on historic buildings and private homes. He bought the tennis club and, little by little, renovated, transformed and enlarged it. Today, in addition to indoor and outdoor clay and quick courts, Le Fruit Défendu boasts a tea room, two restaurants and a few hotel rooms. In summer, deckchairs laze on the lawn and a tent by the water welcomes large and small parties. Here and there, the extravagant decor makes up for the occasional faux pas. "It's probably the only clubhouse with gold leaf paint," laughs the owner. The only one with a striped ceiling in the shape of a tent. Some may see it as a nod to Bonaparte. His ghost hovers over the town and the Musée National du Château de Malmaison, just a few long strides away. From 1800 to 1802, this country house-style manor became the seat of government - along with the Tuileries, in Paris. There's a certain coquetry about it. Joséphine de Beauharnais surrounded herself with a veritable menagerie, including a cockatoo that screamed "Monsieur Bonaparte" at the top of its lungs. Numerous parties were organized. A female orang-utan entertained the guests for a while: "She ate at the table and used a knife and fork with great skill, especially when slicing turnips, a dish she was crazy about. When she had dined, one of her great joys was to cover her face with her napkin, then remove it, making a thousand laughable faces," recounts Mademoiselle d'Avrillion, Joséphine's first chambermaid, in her diary. You have to imagine these scenes as you wander from one room to the next, from Bonaparte's study to his library to the empress's two bedrooms. After her divorce, Josephine kept Malmaison, where she died in 1814. Her son Eugène inherited the 726-hectare estate. Divided up over time, it now comprises just 6 hectares of parkland, which is no less enchanting for all that. The Château de la Petite Malmaison, once home to rare tropical plants, has long since disappeared. Its owner opens its doors to visitors and, occasionally, to concerts on Sundays. Since 2022, the other part of the museum, the Château de Bois-Préau, has hosted exhibitions on the emperor and his family. It is just one street from the Église Saint-Pierre Saint-Paul, where the empress and her daughter, Hortense, are laid to rest. Place de l'Église is one of the heart of Rueil-Malmaison, where cafés and restaurants rub shoulders with food shops. It's a strange town," says Kevin Lebreton of Librairie Les Extraits. It's not Versailles or Issy-Les-Moulineaux. We're close to Paris, but at the same time far away, because the city is so spread out. Some people never come to the center of Rueil-Malmaison. The town will undoubtedly change by 2029-2030. Line 15 of the metro should finally arrive, to the delight of its 78,000 inhabitants and 70 corporate head offices (including Schneider Electric, Unilever, Danone...). History continues to be made. It's a long way from the days when Rueil had a population of 10,000, washed Paris's dirty laundry and even that of the Élysée Palace. That was at the beginning of the 20th century.