Napoleon's tomb

• 1. Introduction

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  Napoleon's tomb sits beneath the dome of the Invalides in Paris, built to hold remains that had to be brought home first. In 1840, Napoleon's remains were repatriated to France from Saint Helena, an event that became known as the retour des cendres. It happened at the initiative of King Louis Philippe I and his minister Adolphe Thiers. Planning for the tomb began that same year, but the project took two decades to finish. When Emperor Napoleon III inaugurated it on the 2nd of April 1861, the king who had ordered it was already dead. So was the architect who designed it, and so were the two lead sculptors who had carved it. What kept a monument to Napoleon in progress for twenty years, and who were the people who saw the project through to the end?

• 2. Selecting An Architect

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  In early 1840, the government led by Adolphe Thiers appointed a twelve-member panel called the Commission des douze. Its task was to choose the tomb's location, decide its outline, and select an architect. Politician Charles de Rémusat chaired the group. The panel also included well-known writers and artists, among them Théophile Gautier, David d'Angers, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

  The commission opened its search to competition in April 1840, and 81 architects entered designs for consideration. Their projects were put on display in the recently completed Palais des Beaux-Arts. After a lengthy selection process, Louis Visconti was chosen as project architect in 1842, and he finalized his design around mid-1843.

  Visconti's design, once approved, still had to be carved and quarried into existence, piece by piece.

• 3. Twelve Pillars And Ten Panels

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  Visconti's design centered on a circular hollow beneath the dome of the Invalides, an open crypt sunk into the floor rather than hidden behind walls. Visitors reach it through a door flanked by two atlantes, sculpted by Francisque Joseph Duret. An inscription above recalls Napoleon's wish to be buried in Paris. A circular gallery encircles the crypt, held up by twelve pillars carved with figures of victory. James Pradier sculpted those pillars until his death in June 1852.

  Ten large relief panels line the gallery's walls, each one carved by Pierre-Charles Simart. Together the panels commemorate ten achievements of Napoleon's reign, among them Pacification de la nation, centralisation administrative, Conseil d'Etat, and Code civil. The remaining six honor Concordat, Université impériale, Cour des comptes, Code du commerce, Grands travaux, and Légion d'honneur. Two further panels, by François Jouffroy, commemorate the retour des cendres itself. Inside a cella off the gallery stands a partly gilded statue of Napoleon in his coronation attire, also carved by Simart.

  None of this, though, was the monument's true centerpiece. That distinction belonged to the massive sarcophagus at the crypt's heart, and getting its stone right would take years on its own.

• 4. The Stone Itself

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  At the crypt's center rests a massive sarcophagus that even the Encyclopædia Britannica misidentified as recently as mid-2021, describing it as red porphyry. It is actually purple Shoksha quartzite, quarried in Russian Karelia.

  A base of green granite from the Vosges holds up the sarcophagus. That base rests, in turn, on a slab of black marble measuring 5.5 by 1.2 by 0.65 meters, quarried at Sainte-Luce. Transporting that slab to Paris proved difficult. Altogether the monument drew stone from ten different quarries in and outside France, including Carrara marble from Italy alongside the Russian quartzite.

  Giovanni Bujatti, an Italian engineer, quarried the Shoksha quartzite in 1848, working under special permission from Tsar Nicholas I. The stone was chosen to echo the porphyry once used in the imperial burials of late Rome. It traveled by way of Kronstadt and Le Havre before reaching Paris on the 10th of January 1849. A marbler named A. Seguin then carved the sarcophagus itself, using steam-powered machinery that was innovative for its time. The work was nearly finished by December 1853.

  Nearly finished, though, was not the same as done. The sarcophagus would sit unfinished for a while longer.

• 5. A Monument Delayed

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  Louis Visconti, the tomb's architect, died suddenly in December 1853, before the sarcophagus could be finished under his direction. Around the same time, Napoleon III weighed an entirely different plan: moving his uncle's resting place to the Basilica of Saint-Denis. He went so far as to commission plans for the move from the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, before eventually abandoning the idea.

  Jules Frédéric Bouchet took over as architect after Visconti's death. When Bouchet himself died in 1860, another architect carried the project through to completion.

  On the 2nd of April 1861, Napoleon's remains were finally transferred into the sarcophagus. Since 1840 they had lain nearby in the chapel of Saint-Jérôme, waiting for the tomb to be ready. The transfer ceremony was a subdued affair. Only Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, Louis-Napoléon the Prince Imperial, other princes related to the family, government ministers, and senior officials of the crown attended.

  Napoleon's own resting place was settled at last, but the space around him was not finished growing.

• 6. After Napoleon

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  Napoleon's brothers Jérôme and Joseph Bonaparte received their own tombs soon after, both in the same Dome church. Jérôme's tomb was completed in 1862, and Joseph's followed in 1864.

  On the 15th of December 1940, the coffin of Napoleon II was moved from Vienna to lie beside his father's. The decision came from Adolf Hitler, acting on advice from his ambassador to France, Otto Abetz. The move was meant to boost French public support for collaboration. Instead, it triggered a political crisis in Vichy: Philippe Pétain abruptly dismissed Pierre Laval just two days before the ceremony.

  On the 18th of December 1969, Napoleon II's coffin was moved underground into the cella and sealed beneath a marble slab.

  In 2021, on the second centenary of Napoleon's death, French visual artist Pascal Convert installed a piece titled Memento Marengo directly above the sarcophagus. It is a synthetic copy of the skeleton of Marengo, Napoleon's favorite horse. The real skeleton is preserved at the National Army Museum in London as a war trophy, taken after Marengo's capture at the Battle of Waterloo. Despite being temporary, the installation has generated controversy.

  The real skeleton stays in London. Only its copy keeps watch over Napoleon's sarcophagus in Paris.