Today, it is 212 years since Napoleon, dressed as a Roman emperor, dominates the Place Vendôme.
With, as you might expect, ups and downs, and a few interruptions, as the political changes of the 65 years following his installation at the top of the column took their toll.
Napoleon wanted to give a new purpose to this majestic and central square of the capital, which had been empty since the destruction on 12 August 1792 of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV that occupied its centre. In 1806, he decided to dedicate the square to the victories of the Grande Armée and to his own glory, by commissioning a column inspired by the Trajan column in Rome, whose 41.3 m high shaft would be decorated with bas-reliefs depicting trophies and battle scenes winding 280 m in a continuous spiral to the top, and which would be topped by a bronze statue of himself, by Antoine-Denis Chaudet. He was not present on the day of the official inauguration, which was also his 41st birthday, on 15 August 1810, as he thought it best to keep his distance from a monument recalling the Battle of Austerlitz, which on 2 December 1805 was a great defeat for Austria and Emperor Franz I, his father-in-law since his wedding in March 1810 to Marie-Louise of Austria.
This, of course, was not enough to calm the aspirations of France neighbouring states for revenge; when the European Allies entered Paris in March 1814, the statue was removed and, as a sign of appeasement and the return of royalty, replaced at the top of the column by a white flag with a fleur-de-lis. As the years went by, and the memory of the Napoleonic era remained very present, Louis-Philippe tried to rally the nostalgics of that period by having a new statue of Napoleon placed on the column in 1833, this time dressed as a military chief. This representation was not convincing, mocked by some who nicknamed it "the little corporal", leading Napoleon III in 1863 to return to the antique style and to have Auguste Dumont make a copy of the original statue by Chaudet showing his uncle as a Roman emperor. However, there was one small difference: Dumont placed the sword in his left hand and the globe surmounted by the winged victory in his right hand, in contrast to Chaudet's original statue. It is true that much has been said and written about the question "Is Napoleon right-handed or left-handed? One last episode, which could have been fatal: the column was knocked down during the Commune in 1871. But the column and the statue could be recovered and put aside until Paris and France came to their senses. In 1875, the President of the Third Republic, Mac Mahon, had the monument rebuilt identically and since then, the column and Napoleon have led a quiet life in the centre of the square. As for the “little corporal”, after a few twists and turns, the statue was placed in the Cour d'Honneur des Invalides in 1911.
To find out more about the columns of Paris in general, and the Vendôme Column in particular, please refer to Looking Up Paris, chapter "Columns and Towers". Enjoy your visit!
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