Ridley Scott’s Napoleon movie inspires some musings on Napoleon’s final, final resting place in a tomb in a museum in Paris.
Photo credit: M. Ciavardini
Watching actor Joaquin Phoenix play the leader of France in Ridley Scott’s 2023 film, Napoleon, one cannot help but wonder how a fellow, twice exiled from the country where he apparently had crowned himself as emperor, managed to return one last time to Paris, some 19 years after his death in 1821, to a most splendiferous tomb. Although it took awhile for Napoleon’s rehabilitation following those desolate years after the failed Russian invasion, after the losses at Waterloo, after that sendoff to the island of Saint Helena which was far, far away from France, even from Elba (the place of his first exile), far from Corsica (where he was born), 1,200 miles from Africa, 1,800 miles from South America. It seemed almost certain that Napoleon would never be back in France.
Where Is Napoleon’s Tomb?
But there he is, most grandly displayed at Les Invalides Dôme in Paris, in the Musee de L’Armee, just as if he had been there all along. Yet, when last we leave Napoleon in Ridley Scott’s film, he is dying at age 51 in that forlorn, faraway place in Saint Helena. Cast away, seemingly unremembered, Napoleon somehow managed a post-mortem comeback that seems most incredulously attained.
The Unbelievable Story of Napoleon’s Final Journey
The fellow who divorced his wife Josephine to marry Marie-Louise, a great-niece of Marie-Antoinette, just some 20 years after a most thorough revolution to rid France of a monarchy, to take down, in some measure, both church and state, managed to travel, after his death and burial on the island of Saint Helena, thousands of miles to a quite desirable spot in Paris.
Did you know? The French Revolution was so thorough that it even changed the calendar. Months were named for natural events. Hello, Thermidor, or the gift of heat (it fell during July and August). Napoleon abolished the revolutionary calendar in Fructidor (the month of fruit), known to the rest of us as September 1805, and France returned to the Gregorian calendar on Jan. 1, 1806.
Bashful Adventurer
How Did Napoleon’s Body End Up Back in Paris?
The guy did, after all, experience some stunning career setbacks. How extraordinary, then, that he is remembered—whether fondly or not—despite the depth of his losses. How often, in the end, do we recall the loser of a battle rather than the victor? Can you name the winners at Waterloo or the leader who took Napoleon’s place after he abdicated as emperor?
Why do we remember Napoleon when he had been cast out of France? The phrases “capable administrator” and “legally minded” would not be ones likely to be chosen for a word cloud describing Napoleon (dictator, brute, short, Josephine, warrior may be more likely terms to appear in his word mash), but his impact on law (heard of the Napoleonic Code?) and his educational reforms appear everlasting. Yet, he also re-established slavery in 1802 (after it had been abolished in France in 1794).
Napoleon’s Tomb at Les Invalides
At Napoleon’s Tomb, contemplate Napoleon’s accomplishments as well as his shortcomings—and the complicated post-revolutionary history of France that saw Napoleon and his relatives and relatives of Louis XVI, the king the French people guillotined, move in and out of power for decades after the storming of the Bastille prison and the Reign of Terror, when thousands of French people were put to death.
Contemplate, too, the odds of Napoleon making it back to Paris after his death on Saint Helena, which is so far away from Europe.
Consider that the Hôtel des Invalides was established by King Louis XIV in 1670 as an army hospital, and Napoleon visited it on several occasions. Napoleon’s final resting place is the place where injured warriors went to recover, or not. So, too, with Napoleon.
Napoleon’s horse at Les Invalides in Paris. Photo credit: M. Ciavardini
Then think about Saint Helena, patron saint of divorced people and new discoveries, mother of the Emperor Constantine and supposedly responsible for having the steps Jesus Christ walked up to face Pontius Pilate transported from Jerusalem to Rome in around the year 300.
It’s a small world, and an amazing one, where someone outcast can still be revered, and also reviled, centuries later.
Napoleon is a 2023 film starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Emperor and Vanessa Kirby as Empress Josephine Bonaparte, directed and produced by Ridley Scott.
—Lori Tripoli
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