Places, museums, monuments

The facades and roofs of the southern part of the eastern wing of the former palace of the King of Rome in Rambouillet (Yvelines) have been classified officially as historical monuments, by decree of the Conseil d’Etat (February 2022). The building has been closed since…

During the second Empire, this neighbourhood, known as 'little Poland', underwent significant redevelopment following construction work by Haussmann – broad straight avenues were laid out and people flocked to live in the new houses built there, greatly increasing the population. A parish was therefore established and a church built, and great care was taken that […]

“The city of Paris has a great mast, made entirely of bronze, with sculpted Victories and Napoleon as its lookout”. Such were Balzac’s words on the Vendôme column, the obelisk which throughout the 19th century was seen as the most important symbol of Paris and upon which each government attempted to make its mark. Its […]

The decision to build the Trinité church was made in the Assemblée on the 22nd September 1855. The church, built in a neighbourhood turned upside-down by Haussmann's reconstruction of central Paris, was designed by the architect Théodore Ballu and building work lasted from 1861 to 1867. In fact, the clearing of the present-day place d'Estienne-d'Orves, […]

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (firmly anchored to the tradition of the ancient triumphal arches) was built by Percier and Fontaine in circa 1806 to 1808 to celebrate the Napoleonic victories of 1805, and it was originally intended as a monumental entrance to the Tuileries palace. When that palace was destroyed by fire in […]

It was on the immense 62.5-acre (25-hectare) stretch of wasteland between Belleville and La Villette that Haussmann and Alphand chose to construct one of the most extraordinary Parisian parks of the Second Empire, the “Parc de Buttes-Chaumont”. The name, derived from a contraction of the French words Monts chauves (bald hills), aptly describes the bare […]

In 1808, Napoleon had the head office of the military police of Paris demolished thus opening up the required space for Place Châtelet in the middle of which a fountain designed by Bralle was erected. Also called the “Palm-tree fountain”, it comprises a 70-feet high column topped by a statue representing Victory and the allegories […]

Work on the construction of the Bois de Vincennes (the forest of Vincennes) from the last remains of the forest to the East of Paris known as the Silva Lanchonia began in 1860. It was Napoleon III's desire to offer a place of recreation to the working class inhabitants of the XIIth and XIIIth arrondissements […]

Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul, the ninth-century parish church of Rueil-Malmaison, is the final resting place of the Empress Josephine and her daughter, Queen Hortense. The building itself however was altered many times over the centuries before its final restoration by Napoleon III in 1857. Josephine died in Malmaison on 29th May, 1814, and was buried four days later […]

When Napoleon named Milan the capital of the Cisalpine Republic on June 1st, 1797, he changed the city's destiny. In 1802 it became capital of the Italian Republic and then in 1805 capital of the Kingdom of Italy, firmly establishing its economic, political and administrative pre-eminence during the Napoleonic period. Furthermore, as a result of Milan's situation on […]