Places, museums, monuments : 32
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Place, museum or monumentGarnier Opera House
On 29th September, 1860, Napoleon III ordered the construction of a new opera house to replace the one in rue Le Peletier, a temporary building both too narrow and situated in a congested area of Paris. A contest in which 171 applicants competed was launched in December. It was won by a young architect still unknown […]
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Place, museum or monumentCathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris
During the ancien regime, Notre-Dame de Paris did not host great occasions. This function was performed rather by other religious edifices in the capital and surrounding area – the Sainte-Chapelle was the receptacle of the crown of thorns brought back by Saint Louis, the cathedral at Reims was used for the coronation of the kings, […]
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Place, museum or monumentPanthéon
Conceived following a wish of Louis XV, Saint- Geneviève church was built by Soufflot then by Rondelet from 1764 to 1789. In 1791, the Constituent Assembly transformed the new church into a temple destined “to receive the great men of the epoch of French liberty.” Mirabeau, Voltaire, Le Peletier of Saint-Fargeau, Bara, Rousseau and Marat […]
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Place, museum or monumentPont des Arts Bridge
By a decree of 15th March 1801, Bonaparte ordered the construction of a bridge which would connect the Louvre and the Collège des Quatre-Nations, the present day Institut de France. And this work marks the introduction of a new building material, iron. An attempt had been made in Lyons but it was in Paris that […]
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Place, museum or monumentDomaine national de Saint Cloud – Park and Historical Museum
The Château de Saint-Cloud was the scene of some of the significant moments in French 19th century history, and most notably in Napoleonic history in that it saw the rise and fall of both the First and Second Empires. Bonaparte seized power there in his coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire, and the Empire was proclaimed […]
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Place, museum or monumentEcole Militaire – Champs-de-Mars Military School
After his schooling at Brienne, the young Bonaparte went to the Paris Ecole Militaire military school from 22nd October 1784 to 28th October 1785. He left as a second class lieutenant in the artillery, with a commission to join the La Fère regiment in Valence. In 1795 Bonaparte came back to the school to establish […]
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Place, museum or monumentAla Napoleonica in Piazza San Marco – Venice
One of the world's best-known historical sites, Piazza San Marco is surrounded by some remarkable monuments – the Basilica (originally the Doge's private chapel!), the Torre dell'Orologio, the Procuratie Nuove and the Procuratie Vecchie, Sansovino's Libreria Marciana, and finally the Ala Napoleonica which today houses the Museo Correr. Towards the end of 1805, Venice became […]
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Place, museum or monumentPalais de Justice Law Courts, Paris
On the Ile de la Cité stands today one of the oldest and most prestigious official buildings in Paris, the Palais de Justice law courts. As far back as Roman times the site was used as a place of government, and this example was followed by the succeeding Merovingian and Capetian dynasties. As the kings […]
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Place, museum or monumentBois de Boulogne
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 […]
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Place, museum or monumentImperial chapel – Ajaccio
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 […]