Places, museums, monuments

Created during the Empire, the Bois de Boulogne was a milestonefor garden and park construction in the French capital. In fact itmarked the starting point, in 1852, of the policy of the developmentof the green spaces in Paris. And the instigator of the project wasNapoleon III himself. The emperor took an interest in all the […]

The construction of the Palatine chapel, more commonly known as the 'Imperial Chapel', was the result of the last wishes of Cardinal Fesch: 'On the sale of my Great Gallery of paintings, my heirs should take the sum of two hundred thousand francs for the construction of a church in  Ajaccio…in which should be built […]

In 1860, the old village of Monceau (or Mousseaux) near Paris was annexed to the capital along with eleven other communes. The Monceau plain, which in those days was an immense wasteland, bordered on its outer sides by the Fermiers généraux farmland, was soon to become a giant housing development – not even “la Folie […]

On St Helena, as he lay dying Napoleon remembered the church of his childhood: 'If they forbid my corpse, as they have forbidden my body, a small piece of land in which to be laid, I desire to be buried with my ancestors in Ajaccio cathedral in Corsica'. This quotation, engraved on a marble plaque […]

It was as a result of Napoleon III's policy of creating, in Paris, urban green space at the four points of the compass that the Montsouris park was built on the plain of the same name between 1867 and 1878. The name Montsouris is a corruption of the word Moquesouris (mouse mocker), the ancient name […]

Napoleon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, only son of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie, met his death in South Africa in 1879 in tragic circumstances. In commemoration of this event, the province of KwaZulu created in 1995, a 'Napoleonic route' dedicated to the Prince Impérial. After the disaster at Sedan, the Imperial family […]

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 […]