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Napoleon's tomb (French:tombeau de Napoléon) is the monument erected atLes Invalides inParis to keep the remains ofNapoleon following their repatriation to France fromSaint Helena in 1840, orretour des cendres, at the initiative of KingLouis Philippe I and his ministerAdolphe Thiers. While the tomb's planning started in 1840, it was only completed two decades later and inaugurated by EmperorNapoleon III on 2 April 1861, after its promoter Louis Philippe I, architectLouis Visconti, and main sculptorsJames Pradier andPierre-Charles Simart had all died in the meantime.
In early 1840, the government led byAdolphe Thiers appointed a twelve-member committee (Commission des douze) to decide on the location and outline of the funerary monument and select its architect. The committee was chaired by politicianCharles de Rémusat and included writers and artists such asThéophile Gautier,David d'Angers, andJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
In April 1840, theCommission des douze organised a competition in which 81 architects participated, whose projects were exhibited in the recently completedPalais des Beaux-Arts. After a protracted process,Louis Visconti was selected as project architect in 1842 and finalised his design around mid-1843.[1]
Visconti created a circular hollow, or open crypt, beneath the soaring dome of the Invalides. The crypt is accessed through a door flanked by twoatlantes byFrancisque Joseph Duret, with an inscription above recalling Napoleon's wish to be buried in Paris.[2] It is surrounded by a circular gallery supported by twelve pillars adorned with victories, sculpted byJames Pradier until his death in June 1852. On the gallery's wall are ten largerelief panels which celebrate Napoleon's achievements, byPierre-Charles Simart:Pacification de la nation,centralisation administrative,Conseil d'Etat,Code civil,Concordat,Université impériale,Cour des comptes,Code du commerce,Grands travaux,Légion d'honneur. Two additional panels, byFrançois Jouffroy, commemorate theretour des cendres. Acella contains a partly gilded statue of Napoleon in coronation attire, also by Simart.[3]
At its centre is a massive sarcophagus which has often been described as made of red porphyry, including in theEncyclopædia Britannica as of mid-2021,[4] but is actually a purpleShoksha quartzite mined in RussianKarelia. The sarcophagus rests upon a base of green granite from theVosges.[5][6] That green granite block rests, in turn, upon a slab of black marble, 5.5m × 1.2m × 0.65m, quarried atSainte-Luce and transported to Paris with great difficulty.[7] In total the project used stone from no fewer than ten different quarries in and outside France, includingCarrara marble from Italy and the quartzite from Russia.[1]
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 theporphyry used for late Roman imperial burials, was quarried in 1848 by Italian engineer Giovanni Bujatti upon TsarNicholas I's special permission, and shipped viaKronstadt andLe 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 byNapoleon III's alternative project to move his uncle's resting place to theBasilica of Saint-Denis, which he eventually renounced after having commissioned plans for it fromEugène Viollet-le-Duc. Visconti was succeeded by Jules Frédéric Bouchet and, following the latter's death in 1860, byAlphonse-Nicolas Crépinet [fr].[1]
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, EmpressEugénie,Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, other related princes, government ministers, and senior officials of the crown were present.[8]
The tombs of Napoleon's brothers were completed shortly afterwards, also in the Dome church, namely that ofJérôme Bonaparte in 1862 and that ofJoseph Bonaparte in 1864.[3]
On 15 December 1940, the coffin ofNapoleon II was transported fromVienna to be placed next to his father's, following a decision made byAdolf Hitler upon advice from his ambassador to FranceOtto Abetz. Intended to boost support for collaboration in the French public, that initiative ended up precipitating a political crisis inVichy and the abrupt dismissal ofPierre Laval byPhilippe Pétain two days before the ceremony.[9][10] On 18 December 1969, the coffin was transferred underground in thecella and covered by a marble slab.[11]
In 2021, on the occasion of the second centenary of Napoleon's death, an installation titledMemento Marengo by French visual artistPascal Convert was placed above the sarcophagus of Napoleon. It is a copy in synthetic materials of the skeleton of Napoleon's favorite horseMarengo, which is preserved as a war trophy (following Marengo's capture at theBattle of Waterloo) at theNational Army Museum inLondon. The arrangement has generated controversy despite its temporary nature.[12]
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48°51′18″N2°18′45″E / 48.85505°N 2.312540°E /48.85505; 2.312540
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