Napoleon’s funeral carriage crossing the Place de la Concorde, by Jacques Guiaud Although Nap

Napoleon’s funeral carriage crossing the Place de la Concorde, by Jacques Guiaud

AlthoughNapoleon died in 1821, his body was not transported to France until 1840. On December 15 of that year, his remains were conveyed through Paris in a grand funeral procession, culminating in a mass at the Dôme des Invalides.  One observer called it “the strangest mixture of sorrow and triumph that human ingenuity could have derived.”

Although the casket didn’t reach the Invalides until 3 p.m., people with tickets to the event started arriving as early as 8 a.m. One of them wrote:

Several hours elapsed ere the procession appeared, and here it is painful to have to remark how little dignity prevailed in the interim. In one place national guards were seen getting planks, and breaking them for the purpose of making fires; in another national guards, soldiers of the line, &c. formed a ring and danced round a flag; elsewhere an officer was in the centre; and in the third place a hat…. At length, however, the funeral car was perceived on the other side of the river, and some order was restored, the troops that had piled their arms hastened to snatch up their muskets and to form their ranks….As the car passed, each head was uncovered; and although the shouts of ‘Vive Napoleon! Vive l’Empereur!’ joined to the cries of ‘Vive le Roi! Vive le Prince de Joinville!’ were few and far between, a certain degree of emotion prevailed, and many an eye was suffused with tears. To be just, however, it must be said that far less enthusiasm prevailed than was expected on the occasion.

For more details and descriptions, see “Napoleon’s Funeral in Paris in 1840.”