Napoleon I

Napoleon I

Within twenty years of his death, Napoleon had been reborn and dominated the minds and imaginations of most of the French people. The exceptions were the royalists who forgave nothing and desired all and wanted France unencumbered by representative institutions. Soldiers cherished the memory of the Petit Caporal's who had joined them around the campfire and promoted without class prejudice. The peasants remembered the man who had protected them from the demands of the nobility. The proletariat had prospered under his rule and the middle class had grown in wealth and social acceptance. Napoleon dominated the minds and imaginations of men. "The world belongs to Napoleon." wrote Chateaubriand. "Living he failed to win the world; dead he possesses it."

When Great Britain was asked to return his body to France, the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne approved and suggested that "it would be well to inform the Duke." (Wellington) Britain responded quickly to the French request."The government of her Britannica Majesty hopes that the promptness of its answer may be considered by France as proof of its desire to blot out the last trace of those national animosities which during the life of the Emperor armed England and France against each other."

The King sent his own son, Francois, Prince de Joinville, to St. Helena to bring back the remains of Napoleon. The prince sailed from Toulon on July 7, 1840 accompanied by Napoleon's most intimate servant, Marchand, who together with two generals would decide on the authenticity of the corpse. They arrived at St. Helena on October 8 where after many formalities the body was exhumed and identified. Abbe Coquereau sprinkled holy water on the body. He recorded that "the whole body seemed to be covered with a light foam (adipocere, a greyish waxy substance produced by the decompostion of soft tissue in corpses exposed to moisture) as if we were looking at it through a diaphanous cloud. The head was unmistakeable, a pillow raised it slightly; we could distinguish his broad forehead and his eyes, the sockets of which were outlined beneath the eyelids, still fringed with a few lashes, his cheeks were swollen, only his nose had suffered; his mouth, which was half open, revealed three remarkably white teeth; on his chin the traces of a beard were perfectly clear; his two hands in particular seemed to belong to someone who still breathed, they were so fresh in tone and colouring ... his nails had grown after death; they were long and white. One of his boots had come unsewn and showed four dull-whit toes."

The funeral that followed was thought by many to be the longest in history. The coffin was taken to the steamer Normandie which took it to Val de lay Haye on the Seine River below Rouen where it was transferred to a river barge and borne in stately fashion leisurely up the Seine River making frequent stops at major towns along the bank for joyous celebrations by rapturous citizen.

Seine River photo by G. Wilson

On December 15, 1840 Napoleon's body arrived in Paris where millions of people greeted its arrival, shouting over and over againl, "Vive mon grand Napoleon." In a "gorgeous funeral car drawn by sixteen black horses followed by the imperial eages veiled in crepe", his coffin passed beneath the 164 foot Arc de Triomphe which he had commissioned and never saw completed but he was the first national figure to be honoured under its shadow for his coffin passed beneath the arch which was constructed to commemorate the glory of the Grande Armee.

Arc de Triomphe Crowns the Champs-Elysees photo by G. Wilson [Construction of the Arc was ordered by Napoleon in 1806 and completed in 1836]

This Arc de Triomphe relief depicts The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 or The Marseillaise. The Motherland with wings outstretched is exhorting volunteers to fight for France. photo by G. Wilson

This Arc de Triomphe relief depicts The Triumph of Napoleon in 1810. photo by G. Wilson

This Arc de Triomphe Crowns relief depicts The Resistance of 1814 photo by G. Wilson

This Arc de Triomphe relief depicts The Peace of 1815. photo by G. Wilson

From the Arc the procession proceeded down the Champs Elysees flanked on either side by cheering multitudes numbering nearly one million Frenchmen and 150 thousand soldiers, finally reaching the magnificently domed church of Hotel des Invalides [Veterans' hospital] late in the afternoonon on a bitterly cold day in a snow storm.

Hotel des Invalides - an impressive complex on the Left Bank of the Seine was founded by Louis XIV as a home for wounded soldiers.

At the entrance to the building Prince de Joinville announced to his father, the King, "Sire, I present the body of Emperor of France."

France's greatest hero lies within six coffins, two of which are made of metal. They are entombed in a spectacular sarcophagus made of porphyry, a purplish-red rock quarried in Finland. The magnificent mausoleum on a base of green granite is located in a large circular well around the rim of which tourists gaze upon Napoleon's tomb. Hundreds of thousands of people visit it each year.

A tourist gazes down at the Tomb photo by G. Wilson

The atmosphere of the place is solemn, almost sacred. And why not commented William Makepiece Thackery, "for who is god here but Napoleon."

Napoleon's Tomb photo by G. Wilson

Surrounding the tomb are Amazon-like figures each representing one of the Emperor's 12 major military successes.

Napoleon's Crypt and Tomb phot by G. Wilson

Closeby is an 8.5 foot high statue of Napoleon in his white and gold coronation robes.

Napoleon in his coronation robes. photo by G.Wilson

Here too lies the "King of Rome,' Napoleon's son, Francois. Francois or L'Aiglon (the Eaglet) suffered much of his brief life from various illnesses. He died in Vienna of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 21 on July 22, 1832. Napoleon had made him King of Rome at his birth in 1811 but he never lifed long enough to exercise any powers of the office. Initially interred in Austria, Francois was re-located to the feet of his father in Paris by order of a tourist who came as a conqueror.

When some claimed that France's interrment of Napoleon had to outdo Britain's celebration of Wellington's victory, Chateaubriand opposed overdoing it. "The translation of Napoleon's remains is an offence against fame. Napoleon's bones will not reproduce his genius; they will only teach his despotism to second rate soldiers." On cue Adolf Hitler entered the chapel at 6 a.m. on June 23, 1940.

Following the defeat of France, Hitler took a tour of Paris. He had the French capital all to himself and savoured the sites of the city he had long wished to visit. At Napoleon's tomb the Fuhrer stared in rapt concentration at the crypt of Europe's last great conqueror then murmured. "This is the finest moment of my life."

Allegedly on 10 December, 1940 Hitler, saying he "needed a present for the French", conveyed the following order to his underlings in Vienna. "You have a coffin in the Capuchin Tombs of the King of Rome, Napoleon's son. I want him sent to Paris." It was no sooner said than done. The iron gates of the Capuchin Tombs, where all the Hapsburgs are buried, was opened and the bronze sarcophagus weighing two thousand pounds was carried to a 'gala carriage' drawn by four horses. From there it was transported to a special railroad car. High ranking Wehrmacht officers boarded the train as a guard of honour. They arrived in Paris about midnight where the catafalque was carried through the silent streets of Paris to Les Invalides where German soldiers surrendered it to French gendarmes. At a special ceremony the archbishop celebrated the mass for the dead and Parisians were allowed to crowd into the Invalides that day, 14 December 1940, a hundred years to the day since Napoleon had been brought home to Paris from St. Helena. At last they said, "L'Aiglon est revenu pres de l'Aigle." [The Eaglet has come back to the Eagle.

Napoleon was the outstanding figure of his time. For tourists his tomb is one of the many must-see attractions in Paris. For the people of France, it is a place of pilgrimage.

The terrible tourist: Adolf Hitler .

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Copyright © 2008 W. R. Wilson