Epilogue: The Reign of Terror Meets its Own End

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The French people of 1793 did not immediately share Charlotte’s views regarding her sacrifice.  They did not see her as a martyr; nor did they take Marat for a madman. It was Marat’s body, not Corday’s, that received a hero’s funeral.  His body was placed in a proper coffin, paraded through the streets of Paris to the sound of weeping citizens, and buried at the Pantheon.

Charlotte’s headless remains, in contrast, were tossed among those of the other victims of the Revolution into an open, pestilent, public grave.

What’s more, Charlotte’s murder of Marat cast a long shadow of doubt over the remaining Girondin delegates to the National Convention. Already in trouble for standing against the king’s execution, they were believed by Robespierre and the other Jacobins to have been in cahoots with young Corday, even though she repeatedly insisted that they were not. Indeed, their presumed collaboration was never proven. However, all 21 Girondin delegates were put to death, just as Marat had wanted, on 29 October 1793.

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, would beat the 21 Girondins to the guillotine by a mere two weeks.

Not quite six months after losing her husband on 21 January 1793, she also lost her son, eight-year-old Louis Charles, heir apparent to the French throne. Exiled Royalists had declared the boy King Louis XVII upon his father’s death, so the revolutionaries took him from the bereaved wife and mother and placed him in solitary confinement to keep him from being rescued.  He died in captivity at the age of ten.

In the early hours of 2 August 1793, just two weeks after the death of young Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette was removed from her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and her daughter, Marie Thérèse, then aged 15.  The queen bade farewell to her first born, instructing her to obey her Aunt as she would a mother.

Marie Antoinette was then spirited away through the sleeping Paris streets to the Conciergerie Prison, with no crowds to hamper the progress of the carriage, and no witnesses.

On 14 and 15 October 1793, the Queen of France stood before the Revolutionary Tribunal as ‘Prisoner no. 280’, aged well beyond her almost 38 years.  She was accused of treason, aiding the enemy, and inciting a civil war.

The very next day, 16 October 1793, Charles Henri Sanson arrived at work early to cut the queen’s hair and bind her hands behind her back. She was loaded onto a tumbrel, made to sit with her back to the horses, and paraded through the streets of Paris before reaching the Place de la Revolution.

The day was fine and warm for the season. Huge crowds lined the route to Madame La Guillotine. Shouting “Long Live the Republic”, they spat on the queen’s cortège.  Marie Antoinette rode to her death calm, composed, and courageous.

Her head was cut clean at 12:15 and unceremoniously dumped, along with her body, into a common grave.  She had endured more than two months incarceration in the humid and airless Conciergerie, where she lacked all privacy - guarded both night and day - even for the most private of ministrations.

Two weeks after the fall of the Girondins, on 6 November 1793, cousin Philippe-Egalité also met his end at executioner Sanson’s blade. As many as 20,000 people, many innocent of any real crime, lost their lives during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. 

* * *

By 1795, the French people were tired of the bloodshed.  They realized, like Charlotte, that the promise of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that the Revolution once represented had long since been lost.  The most radical revolutionaries now began to turn on each other.  One-by-one, they, too, found their place at the base of Madame La Guillotine.

•   Camille Desmoulins: Executed, 5 April 1794

•   Georges Danton: Executed, 5 April 1794

•   Maximilien Robespierre: Executed, 28 July 1794

•   Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville:  Executed, 7 May 1795

With no one, neither Royalist nor Republican, left to run the country, power now shifted to the French Army and, in particular, to a promising young general who had already distinguished himself in battle against the Austrian and Prussian Empires. He was a young Corsican lad, who went by the name of...

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Please join us for the next story in the Time Traveler Tours Paris series:

Day of the Dead, The Napoleonic Era, 1799-1815.

Listen to Charlotte tell her story in her own words.

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Images:

Unknown. Bust of Marat, 18th c. Crédit photographique: Musée de la Révolution Françaises, Vizille, France, http://www.domaine-vizille.fr, Inv. MRF 1988-112.

Unknown. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (1755-1793) in Prison. Photographic reproduction of original [LC-USZ62-116784], courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Unknown. Trial of Marie Antoinette of Austria, 18th c. Crédit photographique: Musée de la Révolution Françaises, Vizille, France, http://www.domaine- vizille.fr, Inv. MRF 1983-323.

David, Jacques Louis (1748-1825). Napoleon I crossing the Alps at St. Bernard. Photomechanical print reproduction of original [LC-USZC4-7159], courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Today in French History: Napoleon becomes Emperor

But which one?  Well, both of them, in a manner of speaking.

David, Jacques-Louis, c. 1805. Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame de Paris, December 2, 1804.

On a cold December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned or, more rightly crowned himself, Emperor of the French. He did it amid much pomp and circumstance at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris – his choice – not at the Cathedral of Reims, the traditional location for royal coronations.  Although then Pope Pius VII was in attendance, he merely blessed the crown and other regalia.  Then, returning them to the altar from whence they came, he took his seat. That was Napoleon’s cue to advance on the now blessed replica of the Charlemagne crown (the original having been destroyed during the Revolution), which he placed briefly upon his own head, then touched it to the head of his empress, Josephine.  The crown of choice for the first Emperor of the French was a laurel wreath made of gold, the likes of which were worn by Roman Emperors.

 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominuque. Napoleon on his Imperial throne, 1806Exactly 47 years later to the day, on December 2, 1851, the nephew of Napoleon I, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, engineered a coup d’état that brought an abrupt end to the 2^nd French Republic and National Assembly.  Shortly thereafter, in 1852, he re-established the French Empire that had fallen with the capture and life-long imprisonment of his uncle in 1814 and 1815 and took the name, Napoleon III.  Being a modern Emperor, however, he opted to neither have a coronation nor wear a crown.  But he did have one specially made for his empress, Eugenie.

December 2 is also the date of Napoleon I’s victory over the Russo-Austrian army at Austerlitz, in Moravia (present day Czech Republic), which brought an end to the Holy Roman Empire.



Paris Bridges: The Pont des Arts

Paris' Seine River bridges symbolize the city's beauty and history like nothing else. Knitting together not just Paris’ left and right banks but also the city’s rich past and vibrant present, each bridge boasts its own unique story.  Indeed, the bridges of Paris have played a significant role in the life of the city for millennium.  Today I focus on one of my personal favorites:  the Pont des Arts.

The Pont des Arts is the pedestrian bridge linking the Cour Carré of the Louvre Museum with the dome of the Institut de France.  Though a bridge had been proposed for this location as far back as the mid-1600s, the original Pont des Arts would not be completed until 1804 under the direction of Napoleon I. 

The quintessential man of his time, Emperor Bonaparte wanted to be the first French leader to build an iron bridge in Paris.  His finished bridge consisted of nine arched metal spans supported by seven stone piers.  Though while the Emperor was satisfied with the delicate lines and light symmetry that set his bridge apart from its more sober stone cousins, universal appreciation for the Pont des Arts was not immediately forthcoming.  Critics called it “shabby”, “timid”, and “mean”, among other things.

History would prove Napoleon right on this point, however.  The Pont des Arts, so named for its bond to the Palais des Arts – as the Louvre was called after the Revolution – has held a favored place among artists for decades.  It has been the subject of countless paintings and photographs; has figured prominently in French literature and popular ballads; and has featured in numerous films and television programs, no doubt due to the extraordinary view from to bridge: east toward the Ile de la Cité and the towers of Notre Dame and west toward La Tour Eiffel. 

Today’s Pont Des Arts – rebuilt in the early 1980s to remedy the damage caused by wartime aerial bombardments and peacetime boat collisions – is a veritable studio en pleine air (open air studio).  Artists and musicians gather here daily to contribute to the magic of this now mythic location. Lovers flock to the bridge as well to secure for themselves a future of love and happiness by fixing to the structure a padlock bearing their names and symbolically tossing the key into the Seine.  Only in the city of Romance!

***********

How many bridges span the river Seine within the Paris city limits? 

Post your answer in the comments box below.  Tell us your story of the Pont des Arts while you’re at it.  Or let us know the name of your favorite Paris bridge.

Images:

Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919). The Pont des Arts, 1867.  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA.

Bruxelles5.  The Île de la Cité view from The Pont des Arts.  9 April 2010(2010-04-09), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.



Napoleon Bonaparte's Civic Legacy

Today, I'd like to share a recent Q&A I had with a FrancoFiles Fan and her Studious Son who is writing an extended essay on the larger-than-life character of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The two were interested in Napoleon's civic achievements, not just his battles, both successful and disastrous, about which much has been written.

Hi Sarah,

I found your blog on Google. I have a "stumper" for you, which I cannot find the answer online. Anywhere! Here goes: Under the dome, at Les Invalides, Napoleon's coffin is surrounded by bas relief sculptures that represent his most significant civic achievements. What are those achievements?

Surrounding Napoleon's porphyry sarcophagus under the dome of the Chapel at Les Invalides are first a ring of 12 statues of angels, called the "Winged Victories". They symbolize Emperor Napoleon's victorious military campaigns - of which there were 40 or so battles. Inscribed in the mosaic floor at the Victories' feet are the names of his eight greatest victories: Austerlitz, Marenco, Pyramides, Iena, Friedland, Wagram, Moscova, and Rivoli. The Winged Victories stand guard over Napoleon's remains with laurel wreaths in hand, a symbol of victory dating back to Roman times.

On the circular wall just behind the Victories can be found 10 bas relief sculptural panels that commemorate and honor Napoleon's administrative and political achievements as well as his public works. The most significant of these achievements is the Napoleonic Code, which represented the final and perhaps most lasting break from France's former rule by Absolute Monarchy. It placed all French people, no matter their family background, rank, or ties with the church or nobility, under the same system of justice and law. After the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, promulgated during the Revolution, the Napoleonic Code is perhaps one of the most important political documents in the history of democracy. Even today it remains the basis of law in some 80 countries.

The various public works celebrated in the bas relief panels include canals that brought potable drinking water to Paris; bridges; grand streets and boulevards such as the rue de Rivoli; building projects such as the Louvre extension; and monuments like the Carousel du Louvre, all spear-headed by Napoleon. He is remembered for institutionalizing the stock exchange in Paris and building La Bourse, which continues to house the exchange today. He is credited for the idea of centralized government, having carved France up into a series of departments and created localized governments that answered to him. Napoleon is also to be thanked for modernizing the postal system by numbering houses consecutively along odd and even sides of streets to ease delivery of letters and packages.

Any study of Napoleon Bonaparte should consider his great achievements in addition to his elusive military campaign for "La Gloire" that led, finally, to his being sent into exile half way around the world. For even the Emperor is remembered for having said: ...more important than the winning of 40 battles is the civil code, which will live forever.

***

If you have a question about French history and culture, please don't hesitate to ask!

Images:
by the author

Paris Catacombs Closed Indefinitely!

I know! I know! The most basic blogging tenet is to post regularly and often. And here I am, not even blogging for a year, and I’ve already blown it! But with good reason, readers, with good reason...

For The Time Traveler Tours are, indeed, going live! And I’ve spent the last month up to my eyeballs in administrative preparations such as: designing a logo; building a website; filing for incorporation and trademark rights; laying out the first prototype chapter for use by a group of 13-year-olds set to pilot the tour later this month; etc. It’s all very exciting!

But there’s a rub: One of my three start-up chapters may be stillborn thanks to the work of vandals...

Yesterday was All Saints’ Day in France, a culture whose many holidays and celebrations do not include Halloween. So I agreed to take the Lucky-one-and-only (Loo) and a few of her North American compatriots - all pining for the ghoulish festivities back “home” - to the Paris Catacombs for a romp among the once living. Arriving at the entrance at 1, Place Denfert-Rochereau, 14eme, however, we found the doors locked tight. A notice explained that the ossuary had been found vandalized on 20 Sept 2009; bones had been broken and strewn about every 20 meters along the 300-meter length of the tomb.

This is truly an immoral act. The Paris Catacombs are simultaneously a sacred memorial, a historical monument, and a work of public art. Their creation took place over the course of 80 years, beginning in Paris’ pre-revolutionary days (1780s) and continuing throughout the reigns of both Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew, Napoleon III, during the 1860 rebuilding of Paris.

Going back to 1780: Crowded churchyard cemeteries throughout Paris had become so overflowing with dead that killer diseases caused by insects and animals feeding off the rotting human flesh only produced more dead. It was a vicious cycle if there ever was one!

And then there was the stench! The smells emanating from these pestilent graveyards were said to have caused milk to curdle and wine to turn to vinegar. Not good for the dairy farmers and wine makers who came to Paris to sell their wares at the nearby Forum Les Halles, Paris’ main marketplace located right around the corner from the most crowded and offensive graveyard of all: Le Cimetière des Innocents.

Even the dead of Les Innocents seemed to protest. In 1780 they turned over in their graves, breaking through an underground wall and spilling their creepy contents into the basements of neighboring houses. This unleashed a stench so toxic it suffocated the innocent occupants right in their own homes!

It was then that King Louis XVI issued a royal proclamation calling a halt to any further burials within the Paris city limits. But what to do with all those bones and rotting cadavers?

The answer was to remove them - not just from Les Innocents, but from all of Paris' 23 churchyard graves - and to transfer them to the vast network of underground Roman-era rock quarries that lay to the south of the city.

The work went on in for eight decades. Gravediggers dug by day and moved the bones by night, in black-veiled, priest-led processions. The Church declared the former quarry a scared place and gave it an official name: Les Catacombs (the Catacombs), a Roman word meaning ‘underground cemetery’.

At first the bones were just tossed in, helter-skelter in piles of femers, tibias, and craniums. It was Napoleon’s idea to tidy the place up and make it presentable for family members wishing to pay homage to their ancestors. Under his orders, the bones would be stacked and organized in designs to rival their Roman counterparts.

The Paris Catacombs first opened as a public memorial in 1810. Visitors were escorted by torchlight through the narrow tunnels beneath the streets and buildings of Paris so they wouldn’t get lost in the 290km network of underground byways.

Many of the Revolution’s vicitims also found their way to the catacombs, as did the remains of older, forgotten cemeteries dug up during the Haussmannian-building boom of the 1860s.

In all, 6 million former Parisians have been laid to rest within the Catacombs. And for 200 years visitors have marveled at the ossuary sculptures created by Napoleon’s underground workers.

But now, because of the disrespectful and reprehensible actions of idiotic crazies, the sacred historic memorial, no less important to Paris’ past than the cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre Museum, or the Eiffel Tower, is off limits to the public... indefinitely.

And, sadly, the Time Traveler Paris Tours itinerary to the Napoleonic Era, featuring the Catacombs and the Montparnasse Cemetery, may be buried before it has had a chance to take its first breath.

***

Time Traveler Tours projected launch date: March 2010.

Images:

Time Traveler Tours logo, copyright 2009, Time Traveler Tours, LLC.

Photo of Catacombs ossuary, http://www.flickr.com/photos/albany_tim/2629170281/sizes/0/.

Engraving, artist unknown, of Le Cimetière des Innocents, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of a Catacombs worker by photographer Félix Nadar, 1870s.

Painting of the Catacombs by Viktor Alexandrovish Hartmann (1834-1873), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Right-Side vs. Left-Side Driving

This week, Samoa switched from right-side to left-side driving. Critiques say it will result in chaos. Advocates say it will make cars more affordable and accessible to more people as they can now be imported directly from neighboring left-equipped New Zealand rather than from Japan or the United States. That got me thinking. Why do some countries, like England, adhere to driving on the left side of the street, while in other places, like France, we drive on the right?

Left-side driving appears to date to the Middle Ages. People then traveled on the left side of the road for several reasons: Most folks, like now, were right-handed. They found it easier to wield a weapon against an enemy or welcome a friend with the right hand, which they preferred to keep on the passing side of the road. It was also safer to dismount a horse to the left while wearing a left-slung sword. And it was more advisable to dismount and mount, which can only be done from the left by right-handed people, on the outside, therefore left side of the road, rather than on the inside, right side, in the midst of oncoming traffic!

This left-side driving habit was transported from feudal England to the European continent and, later, to the far reaches of the British Empire. But at the time of both the French and American revolutions, folks felt it best to eschew everything from their monarchical pasts. In France, aristocrats and noblemen of the ancien régime had traveled the road on the left, forcing the peasantry to the right. From the outset of the Revolution, these former gentry found they could blend more easily with the general population by joining the right-moving crowd.

Simultaneously, in both France and the US in the late 1700s, teamsters began hauling farm products long distances in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. The wagons were not equipped with seats. So drivers sat on the left rear horse, using their right arm to lash the four-legged members of the team. In contrast to their feudal forebears, the teamsters preferred to pass on the right so they could better see and stay clear of the wheels of oncoming vehicles.

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte spread rightism throughout conquered Europe during his early 19^th century campaigns. This left England, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Portugal – the countries that resisted or were left untouched by Napoleon – to continue the old habit of left-side driving. This right-side/left-side division remained in Europe for more than 100 years, until after the First World War. At that point, the rest of continental Europe shifted to the right. Only Britain and the countries of the former British Empire kept to the left. But even Canada eventually switched in order to make border crossing with the US less complicated.

Now, in an odd and unprecedented move, Samoa is going from right back to left. Bon courage, les Samoans!

Images:

View of Upolu, Independent Samoa, by Kronocide, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

This print, entitled "The knight of the woeful countenance going to extirpate the National Assembly," shows Edmund Burke as Don Quixote, wearing armor, carrying lance and shield labeled "Shield of Aristocracy and Despotism," riding a donkey, emerging from the doorway to the "Dodsley Bookseller" the publisher of Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" which hangs from the horn of the saddle. The head of the donkey has a human face and wears the triple-tiered crown of the pope; depicted on the shield are scenes of torture and death, and a view of the Bastille. Found on Wikimedia Commons.

Driving on the left side in Australia, taken on 11.03.2006 on the Great Ocean Road (near Lorne) in Victoria (Australia), courtesy of Free Software Foundation, and found on Wikimedia Commons.

August in Paris: Parc de St. Cloud

Our final August in Paris, 2009, adventure took us to the 460-hectare (1136.68 acre) park of St. Cloud [san cloo], situated 10 kms (6 miles) southwest of Paris. The park, once punctuated by a glorious royal château, is perched atop a steep escarpment overlooking the River Seine. It offers magnificent views of the French capitol - a fitting location, indeed, for a place that loomed large over the political landscape of France for centuries.

The Château de Saint-Cloud dates back to 1572. Until the 18^th century, it was largely the country palace of the cadet branch of the royal family (i.e. the descendents of the younger brothers to the king). Louis XIV’s younger brother, Philippe duc d’Orléans, made perhaps the biggest mark on the estate when he acquired it 1658: He hired the same landscape-designer to renovate the gardens – André Le Notre – who would undertake his brother’s Versailles masterpiece just three years later.

In 1785, four years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the property became royal once again when King Louis XVI bought it from his cousin Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans. It was an extravagant expenditure at a time when French peasants were starving and the royal coffers were running dry. But the future King of France, young Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François, had been a sickly child and Queen Marie Antoinette was convinced that the air in St. Cloud would be healthier for him than that of Versailles. She, too, set about to upgrade the grounds, renovating the chateau and gardens with the help of Richard Mique who was just then adding the finishing touches to her Hameau (hamlet) at Versailles.

Alas, she and the children would never spend much time in St. Cloud. The future monarch died on 4 June 1789 and the Revolution broke out only weeks later. By October, the royal family was living under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

Following the Revolution, French governance fell for a short time to a corrupt arm called The Directory. In 1799, a coup d’état, aided by General Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrew the Directory. Guess where? That’s right, at the Château de St. Cloud!

Napoleon I climbed quickly from member of the tripartite Consul to Consul for Life to Emperor of France. The Château de St. Cloud became a favored home. Just as it would be preferred by Napoleon III, France’s second Emperor and Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew.

Napoleon III declared war on Prussia from the Château de St. Cloud on 28 July 1870. Ironically, it was the same spot from which the Prussians laid siege to Paris in the torturous months that followed.

As Parisians struggled to stay alive - feasting off cats and dogs and zoo animals once the meat of sheep, pigs, and cows ran out - the Prussians shelled them relentlessly from the elevated St. Cloud park grounds. On 13 October counter-fire from within the city hit the chateau. It caught fire and burned to the ground.

Today, the domaine de St. Cloud is owned and maintained by the French state. Among the daily joggers, dog-walkers, sunbathers, and picknickers, one can still detect many remnants of its illustrious past. That is, if you know what to look for:

• Outbuildings and a small museum near the chateau ruins provide clues to the estate’s 16^th century beginnings;
• Le Nôtre’s high-baroque cascade is one of ten fountains dating to his 17^th century renovations;
• Marie Antoinette's 18^th century flower garden today cultivates roses for exclusive use by the state;
• La Lanterne, so named because a lantern was lit there whenever Napoléon I was in residence, remains a favorite viewpoint of Paris among visitors;
• An English garden, the Jardin de Trocadero, has been blooming at St. Cloud since its planting in the 1820s, during France’s short-lived attempt to restore the Bourbon Monarchy.

*****

And now the lazy days of August are over. The sand of Paris Plage has been swept away and the Seine expressway hums with vehicles carrying passengers back to work. The leaves are turning brown and beginning to blanket the Allée of the Ile des Cygnes. Yesterday, sun-kissed vacationers faced hours of stressful traffic delays along the nation's auto-routes as they fought their way home for La Rentrée (The Return). Time to join the queues to buy books and pens and paper again. Starting today for the next 11 months we'll have to share Paris, and all her sleepy corners, once again!

Images:

Chateau and fountain at St. Cloud, around 1845. Engraving by Chamouin after a daguerrotype, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in Saint-Cloud, by François Bouchot (1800-1842), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Adolphe Braun (1811-1877), "Ruines du chateau de St. Cloud", Paris, 1871, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Saint-Cloud Chateau c1845.jpg

Paris Monuments - Arc de Triomphe

I'm in New York City at present, staying with my BFF and her Hero Husband in their historic Harlem brownstone. They put me and the Uber-Mensch up in the top floor bedroom facing the street. Why? They thought we'd feel right at home surrounded by wall decorations of Paris scenes, including a painting of the Arc de Triomphe.

The Arc de Triomphe, or Triumphal Arch, stands at the center of Paris' famous Place de l'Étoile (or Étoile Charles de Gaulle), a star-shaped traffic circle joining 12 avenues at the western end of the of the Champs-Élysées. It honors the many souls who have fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars.

Emperor Napoleon I commissioned the triumphal arch in 1806 after his victory at Austerlitz. Though work to lay the foundations began at the peak of his fortunes, Napoleon would not see his beloved arch realized before his demise in 1814-1815. It was only completed in 1833-36, during the reign of King Louis-Philippe. Napoleon's body did pass through the arch, however, in 1840, on his return trip from St. Helena - where he died - en route to his final resting place under the dome of the chapel at Les Invalides.

Designed by architect Jean Chalgrin, the Arc de Triomphe recalls the Roman Arch of Titus. The Paris arch is so colossal in proportions, that Charles Godefroy was able to fly his Nieuport biplane through it in a 1919 victory parade to mark the end of World War I.

The Arc reads like an encyclopedia of 18th & 19th century French wars and generals and gives pride of place to a WWI tomb of the unknown soldier. Visitors can climb the monument's 284 steps (or take the lift, if it's working, plus 46 steps) to reach the top and one of the most spectacular panoramic views of Paris. There, it's easy to see the city's L'Axe historique (historic axis) which draws a direct line from the Louvre Palace up the Champs-Élysées through the Arc de Triomphe to its modern counterpart at La Defense, the high-rise business district in Paris' north-western outskirts.

There are many replicas of the Arc de Triomphe throughout the world. One of them, right here in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, commemorates the victory of the Union Army in the American Civil War (1861-65). The cornerstone of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, designed by John H. Duncan,was laid on October 10, 1889, by General William Tecumseh Sherman himself. Three years later, in 1892, President Grover Cleveland helped unveil the monument which stands in the middle of Grand Army Plaza and serves as a gateway to Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Both Arch and Park are well worth a visit on your next trip to New York, as are the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Museum, located within Prospect Park and just steps from Grand Army Plaza. Take a break for lunch at the ever-popular Tom's Restaurant on Washington Avenue (closed Sunday). Then hop on the 2 or 3 subway line to Clark Street and walk to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Images:
Photo of Paris' Arc de Triomphe at night by Benh LIEU SONG, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of Brooklyn's Soldiers and Sailors Monument by Jeffrey O. Gustafson, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Paris Monuments - Napoleon's Tomb

It’s funny how quickly we take things for granted. Last night I bundled up a blanket, a bottle of red, and a batch of home-made gazpacho and I headed over to the Esplanade des Invalides for a dinner picnic with friends. I was on my second glass of chilled rosé – my first of the summer – before I took notice of the great gold dome that towered over us: the dome over the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first Emperor of France.

Bonaparte’s was a star that rose fast and fell far. He created important institutions that still survive today, but he also contributed to the violence and upheaval of a century marked by revolution, famine, and war.

His story begins in 1799, ten years after the start of the French Revolution. A corrupt government, called the Directory, then governed a France wracked by poverty and destruction. For seven years, the country had been at war with Austria and Prussia, faring badly against the better organized armies of Europe’s two greatest powers. But a young Corsican officer named Napoleon Bonparte distinguished himself by his keen sense of military strategy. He quickly advanced to general.

General Bonaparte returned from Egypt in 1799 to find that he and two other men had been chosen to head France’s new tripartite consulate. It took him mere months to throw off the others and name himself First Consul for Life. As the century turned from 1799 to 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself the sole ruler of 27 million French people. In 1804, he would crown himself Emperor.

The years of 1800-1805 saw Bonaparte working feverishly to rebuild his country. He centralized the French government, creating the Departments we know today with local administrations reporting directly to him. He established the basis of French civil law in the Napoleonic Code. He brought back taxation, structuring it so that everyone paid a fair share and levying heavy fines for lateness or default. For the first time in decades the government had money. So the Emperor founded the Bank of France. When business began picking up, he needed a Stock Exchange. So, he created La Bourse, the market.

While he was busy cleaning up the government and economy, Napoleon was also making plans to expand France’s territorial borders. He sought lands to the east, west, and north. He even had designs to invade England. Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Italy formed an alliance with Britain to stop Napoleon if he should attack.

And he did. Starting in October 1805, Bonaparte marched his Grande Armée all across Europe, overtaking armies at Austerlitz and Iena and Friedland, and setting up puppet regimes in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, and Naples. By 1807, Napoleon was the “Master of All Europe”.

But the war was costing France too much in both man-power and material. The economy, only recently revived, collapsed. New businesses stopped functioning. The Stock Exchange crashed. Those who had money withdrew it from the Bank and fled. To add to the already dire situation, England imposed an economic blockade on France, making it impossible for food and other goods to reach the people.

Then came the famine. Severe thunderstorms ruined France’s 1811 crop. By the beginning of 1812, grain reserves were spent. The price of bread shot beyond what many could afford. As before the revolution, French people began to starve.

The Grande Armée was hard hit as food no longer reached the front. Morale was low; desertion became rampant. And Napoleon began to lose. He was pushed back in Spain; he was laid low in Leipzig; and outside of Moscow, the Grande Armée was forced to retreat.

Still, Napoleon would not give up, in love with battle, in love with La Gloire (glory). In 1814, he raised an army again. And in the Battle of the Nations, fought at Leipzig, Germany, Napoleon was stopped for good…or so it was thought. It took the combined powers of all of Europe to do it, but he was packed him off to prison on Elba Island.

Within a year, however, he had escaped. He went directly to battle once more, facing his final defeat in 1815 in the famous battle of Waterloo. This time, his captors sent him to an island so remote that escape would mean certain death.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on St. Helena in 1821 at the age of 52.

With Napoleon banished, the brother of beheaded King Louis XVI moved in to restore the French Monarchy. Louis XVIII was succeeded by Charles I. But their “Restoration” government did not last long. It was overthrown in 1830 by the July Monarchy, led by cousin Louis-Philippe, who, in turn, was overthrown in 1848 by the nephew of...guess who? That’s right, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1852, just as his uncle had done almost 50 years before, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor of France. In 1861, Napoleon III saw to it that France's first Emperor was installed in a sarcophagus of porphyry under the same dome that shadowed our springtime picnic. The pink rays of the setting sun glinted off the gold that is the centerpiece of the Esplanade and can be seen for miles around, reminding me that I had failed to notice it for a good 45 minutes. It's funny how quickly we take things for granted.

Images:
Photo of Les Invalides from the Esplanade by Eric Gaba (Wikimedia Commons user: Sting), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Portrait of General Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David, 1797, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

First Consul Bonaparte, by Antoine-Jean Gros, c. 1802, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Portrait of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David, 1805, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, by Adolf Northern (1828-1876), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

Photo of Les Invalides Chapel, taken by Daniel Levine on 15 July 2003 and released to public domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

 

Napoleon at Saint Helena, by Francois-Joseph Sandmann, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of Napoleon's porphyry tomb, taken by Willtron, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.