Napoleon's tomb
{{Short description|Repository for the remains of Napoleon in Paris}}
{{For|the painting by Horace Vernet|Napoleon's Tomb (painting)}}
{{Napoleon series}}
Napoleon's tomb ({{langx|fr|tombeau de Napoléon}}) is the monument erected at Les Invalides in Paris to keep the remains of Napoleon following their repatriation to France from Saint Helena in 1840, or {{lang|fr|retour des cendres}}, at the initiative of King Louis Philippe I and his minister Adolphe Thiers. While the tomb's planning started in 1840, it was only completed two decades later and inaugurated by Emperor Napoleon III on 2 April 1861, after its promoter Louis Philippe I, architect Louis Visconti, and main sculptors James Pradier and Pierre-Charles Simart had all died in the meantime.
Background
{{See also|Retour des cendres}}
In early 1840, the government led by Adolphe Thiers appointed a twelve-member committee ({{lang|fr|Commission des douze}}) to decide on the location and outline of the funerary monument and select its architect. The committee was chaired by politician Charles de Rémusat and included writers and artists such as Théophile Gautier, David d'Angers, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
In April 1840, the {{lang|fr|Commission des douze}} organised a competition in which 81 architects participated, whose projects were exhibited in the recently completed Palais des Beaux-Arts. After a protracted process, Louis Visconti was selected as project architect in 1842 and finalised his design around mid-1843.
Design and completion
Visconti created a circular hollow, or open crypt, beneath the soaring dome of the Invalides. The crypt is accessed through a door flanked by two atlantes by Francisque Joseph Duret, with an inscription above recalling Napoleon's wish to be buried in Paris.French text from Napoleon's testament: "{{lang|fr|Je désire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine au milieu de ce peuple français que j’ai tant aimé.}}" It is surrounded by a circular gallery supported by twelve pillars adorned with victories, sculpted by James Pradier until his death in June 1852. On the gallery's wall are ten large relief panels which celebrate Napoleon's achievements, by Pierre-Charles Simart: {{lang|fr|Pacification de la nation}}, {{lang|fr|centralisation administrative}}, {{lang|fr|Conseil d'Etat}}, {{lang|fr|Code civil}}, {{lang|fr|Concordat}}, {{lang|fr|Université impériale}}, {{lang|fr|Cour des comptes}}, {{lang|fr|Code du commerce}}, {{lang|fr|Grands travaux}}, {{lang|fr|Légion d'honneur}}. Two additional panels, by François Jouffroy, commemorate the retour des cendres. A cella contains a partly gilded statue of Napoleon in coronation attire, also by Simart.
File:Napoleone Bonaparte's Tomb.jpg
At its centre is a massive sarcophagus which has often been described as made of red porphyry, including in the Encyclopædia Britannica as of mid-2021,{{cite web |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |title=Les Invalides |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Hotel-des-Invalides |first=Robert |last=Lewis|date=5 April 2024 }} but is actually a purple Shoksha quartzite mined in Russian Karelia. The sarcophagus rests upon a base of green granite from the Vosges.Lagrange, François. (January 2006). "Les Invalides". L'estampille/L'objet d'art. N°21. p. 51.The stone cost around 200,000 francs, paid by France: L. Léouzon Le Duc, Études sur la Russie, p. 12, cited by Octave Aubry, Sainte-Hélène, Paris, Flammarion, coll. « L’histoire », 1973, p. 461 note 3. That green granite block rests, in turn, upon a slab of black marble, 5.5m × 1.2m × 0.65m, quarried at Sainte-Luce and transported to Paris with great difficulty.Raymond, René (1987). Énigmes, curiosités, singularités. (self-published). p. 158. In total the project used stone from no fewer than ten different quarries in and outside France, including Carrara marble from Italy and the quartzite from Russia.
The monument took years to complete, partly because of the exceptional requirements for the stone to be used. The Russian Shoksha quartzite, intended as an echo of the porphyry used for late Roman imperial burials, was quarried in 1848 by Italian engineer Giovanni Bujatti upon Tsar Nicholas I's special permission, and shipped via Kronstadt and Le Havre to Paris, where it arrived on 10 January 1849. The sarcophagus was then sculpted by marbler A. Seguin using innovative steam-machinery techniques. It was almost finished by December 1853, but the final stages were delayed by the sudden death of Visconti that month and by Napoleon III's alternative project to move his uncle's resting place to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which he eventually renounced after having commissioned plans for it from Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Visconti was succeeded by Jules Frédéric Bouchet and, following the latter's death in 1860, by {{ill|Alphonse-Nicolas Crépinet|fr}}.{{citation |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217176609.pdf |title=The Russian contribution to the edification of the Napoleon tombstone in Paris |first1=Jacques |last1=Touret |first2=Andrey |last2=Bulakh |year=2016 |journal=Vestnik of St Petersburg University |series=Series 15}}
File:Tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte - Crypt of Dôme des Invalides - Paris, France - 25 July 2009.jpg
On 2 April 1861, Napoleon's remains were finally transferred into the sarcophagus from the nearby chapel of Saint-Jérôme, where they had lain since 1840. The ceremony was somewhat subdued and only Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, other related princes, government ministers, and senior officials of the crown were present.{{cite web |website=Napoléon, prisonnier |title=Post-Mortem: L'Empereur repose aux Invalides. |trans-title=Post-Mortem: The Emperor Rests in The Invalides |url=http://www.napoleonprisonnier.com/postmortem/napoleon_aux_invalides.html |year=2011}}
Later developments
The tombs of Napoleon's brothers were completed shortly afterwards, also in the Dome church, namely that of Jérôme Bonaparte in 1862 and that of Joseph Bonaparte in 1864.{{cite web |first1=Karine |last1=Huguenot |first2=Marie |last2=de Bruchard |year=2020 |url=https://www.napoleon.org/magazine/lieux/les-invalides-le-tombeau-de-napoleon-paris/ |website=Fondation Napoléon |title=Les Invalides: Le tombeau de Napoléon - Paris}}
On 15 December 1940, the coffin of Napoleon II was transported from Vienna to be placed next to his father's, following a decision made by Adolf Hitler upon advice from his ambassador to France Otto Abetz. Intended to boost support for collaboration in the French public, that initiative ended up precipitating a political crisis in Vichy and the abrupt dismissal of Pierre Laval by Philippe Pétain two days before the ceremony.{{cite book |first=Georges |last=Poisson |title=Hitler's Gift to France: The Return of the Remains of Napoleon II |publisher=Enigma Books |date=28 October 2013 |page=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XRr9MA5k2P4C&q=dismissal+of+pierre+laval |isbn=978-1-9296-3167-4}}{{cite web |website=Reflections on A Journey to St Helena |title=December 1940: Return of L'Aiglon Part II |date=24 January 2020 |first=John |last=Tyrrell |url=http://johntyrrell.blogspot.com/2020/01/december-1940-return-of-laiglon-part-ii.html}} On 18 December 1969, the coffin was transferred underground in the cella and covered by a marble slab.{{cite news |newspaper=Le Monde |location=Paris |first=Jean |last=Couvreur |title=Les cendres du roi de Rome ont été transportées près du tombeau de Napoléon |trans-title=The ashes of the King of Rome were transported near Napoleon's tomb |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1969/12/19/les-cendres-du-roi-de-rome-ont-ete-transportees-pres-du-tombeau-de-napoleon_2405683_1819218.html |date=19 December 1969}}
In 2021, on the occasion of the second centenary of Napoleon's death, an installation titled Memento Marengo by French visual artist Pascal Convert was placed above the sarcophagus of Napoleon. It is a copy in synthetic materials of the skeleton of Napoleon's favorite horse Marengo, which is preserved as a war trophy (following Marengo's capture at the Battle of Waterloo) at the National Army Museum in London. The arrangement has generated controversy despite its temporary nature.{{cite web |website=Artnet |title=A French Artist Is Under Fire for Hanging a 'Disrespectful' Replica Skeleton of Napoleon's Horse Over the Military Leader's Tomb |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pascal-convert-napoleon-skeleton-1968297#:~:text=Titled%20Memento%20Marengo%20(2021)%2C,%E2%80%9D%2C%20opens%20on%20May%2019. |first=Anna |last=Sansom |date=13 May 2021}}
Gallery
File:President Trump's Trip to France (35879447286).jpg|The open crypt seen from the ground level of the {{lang|fr|Dôme des Invalides}}
File:Queen Victoria at the Tomb of Napoleon, 24 August 1855.jpg|Queen Victoria visiting Napoleon's temporary tomb in the Invalides, 1855
File:Expédition du procès-verbal de la translation des restes mortels de l’empereur Napoléon Ier- Archives-nationales-AE-I-21-7.jpg|Memorandum of the translation ceremony on {{date|1861/04/02}}
File:Tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte @ Dome @ Musée de l'Armée @ Les Invalides @ Paris (25163987844).jpg|Atlante holding the Crown of Napoleon and the {{lang|fr|{{ill|Main de justice|fr}}}} (Duret)
File:Statue à l'entrée crypte invalides.jpg|Atlante holding the imperial orb and sword (Duret)
File:Tombeau de Napoleon - entree - frise.JPG|Inscription recalling Napoleon's wish to be buried in Paris
File:Tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte @ Dome @ Musée de l'Armée @ Les Invalides @ Paris (25164013404).jpg|Circular gallery with Simart's reliefs
File:Paris invalides napoleon tomb bas relief 1 (30413117005).jpg|{{lang|fr|Grands travaux}} (Simart)
File:Tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte @ Dome @ Musée de l'Armée @ Les Invalides @ Paris (25493800370).jpg|{{lang|fr|Pacification}} (Simart)
File:Tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte @ Dome @ Musée de l'Armée @ Les Invalides @ Paris (25164032214).jpg|{{lang|fr|Université impériale}} (Simart)
File:Paris invalides napoleon tomb bas relief civil code (29781401953).jpg|{{lang|fr|Code civil}} (Simart)
File:Tomb of Napoleon II of France 2.jpg|Tomb of Napoleon II and Simart's statue in the cella
File:Paris Les Invalides Dome Innen Krypta Fußboden 3.jpg|Stone mosaic of the Legion of Honour
File:Paris Les Invalides Dome Innen Krypta Fußboden 4.jpg|Stone mosaic of the imperial eagle
File:Victoire @ Tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte @ Dome @ Musée de l'Armée @ Les Invalides @ Paris (25493803740).jpg|One of Pradier's victories
File:Memento Marengo.jpg|Memento Marengo installation by Pascal Convert above the tomb, 2021
See also
Notes
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{{Napoleon}}
{{Visitor attractions in Paris}}
Category:1861 establishments in France
Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1861