Two black swans face away from each other, arch their necks and almost form a love heart. It’s pretty much how I feel, too, about Chateau de Malmaison, about 15km outside Paris. We can see black swans any day on the Swan River in Perth, but in the grounds of this chateau, which was once home of Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte .
.. well, it’s unexpected.
Napoleon and Josephine had a deep interest in Australia and its wildlife and plants. They instructed expedition commander Nicolas Baudin to bring back a male and a female black swan from his four-year scientific voyage to Terra Australis Incognita. Napoleon had approved a fully equipped exploratory expedition to Australia in 1798, with Baudin in command.
He was an experienced naval officer, and the expedition included 23 scientists who specialised in zoology, botany, horticulture, geography, mineralogy and astronomy. The expedition’s two ships left Le Havre in October 19, 1800, and spent almost four years sailing Australia’s western and southern coasts, and Tasmania. They collected more than 200,000 specimens of flora and fauna, with 2542 new to science.
They brought back 200 live plants for Josephine’s garden at the Chateau de Malmaison. Perhaps even more impressively, they brought back live animals from Australia for the first time — including the two swans and one kangaroo that survived the trip. One should realise, of course, that it wasn’t just Napoleon and Josephine who were fascinated by Australia.
In.