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Napoleon Museum

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132-475: Napoleon Museum may refer to: The Louvre , named the Napoleon Museum between 1803 and 1814 Maison Bonaparte (Ajaccio, Corsica) Palace of Fontainebleau § Museum of Napoleon I Napoleon Museum (Havana) , Cuba Napoleon Museum (Monaco) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

264-513: A Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The new constitution was approved by plebiscite on 7 February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that a majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution. Historians have variously described Bonaparte's new regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite," "absolutist rule decked out in

396-656: A glass pyramid in the Louvre's central Cour Napoléon . The open spaces surrounding the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. New galleries of early modern French paintings on the 2nd floor of the Cour Carrée , for which the planning had started before the Grand Louvre , also opened in 1989. Further rooms in the same sequence, designed by Italo Rota , opened on 15 December 1992. On 18 November 1993, Mitterrand inaugurated

528-412: A Corsican accent and his French spelling was poor. In May, he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He

660-776: A French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan , the Sultan of Mysore , an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent . In May 1798, Bonaparte

792-680: A civil ceremony. Bonaparte now habitually styled himself "Napoleon Bonaparte" rather than using the Italian form "Napoleone di Buonaparte." Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign , he knocked

924-526: A coastal battery. In July 1793, he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire ), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was now heavily influenced by the Jacobins. In September, with the help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti , Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon which

1056-583: A consequence, the works were removed after Louis-Philippe was deposed in 1848, and were eventually auctioned away in 1853. The short-lived Second Republic had more ambitions for the Louvre. It initiated repair work, the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon and of the salle des sept-cheminées , and the overhaul of the Salon Carré (former site of the iconic yearly Salon ) and of the Grande Galerie. In 1848,

1188-509: A difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on 2 June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at Marengo on 14 June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised the French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under Desaix arrived on

1320-560: A more focused museum of French, Western and Near Eastern art, covering a space ranging from Iran to the Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's musée mexicain were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1887. As the Musée de Marine was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in the second-floor attic of the northern half of

1452-567: A new ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes (the former Salle La Caze ), a counterpoint to that of Braque installed in 1953 in the adjacent Salle Henri II . The room's floor and walls were redesigned in 2021 by Louvre architect Michel Goutal to revert the changes made by his predecessor Albert Ferran in the late 1930s, triggering protests from the Cy Twombly Foundation on grounds that the then-deceased painter's work had been created to fit with

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1584-620: A new section of the museum complex located in a suite of lavishly decorated rooms on the first floor of the South Wing of the Cour Carrée. The Egyptian collection, initially curated by Jean-François Champollion , formed the basis for what is now the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities . It was formed from the purchased collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand , Henry Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti (the first one having been purchased by Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia to form

1716-557: A position with the Bureau of Topography where he worked on military planning. On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in the Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III . The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post. On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared

1848-555: A promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics. Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across the Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After

1980-695: A rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras , a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction , knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of the forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace . Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be

2112-477: Is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor". One story of Napoleon at the school is that he led junior students to victory against senior students in a snowball fight, which allegedly showed his leadership abilities. But the story was only told after Napoleon had become famous. In his later years at Brienne, Napoleon became an outspoken Corsican nationalist and admirer of Paoli. In September 1784, Napoleon

2244-585: Is housed in the Louvre Palace , originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II . Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings . The building was redesigned and extended many times to form

2376-513: Is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden. Beginning in 2012, Nintendo 3DS portable video game systems were used as the official museum audio guides. The following year, the museum contracted Nintendo to create a 3DS-based audiovisual visitor guide. Entitled Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre , it contains over 30 hours of audio and over 1,000 photographs of artwork and the museum itself, including 3D views, and also provides navigation thanks to differential GPS transmitters installed within

2508-592: The Salle Henri II , next to the Salle La Caze . In the late 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the Grande Galerie . In 1972, the Salon Carré 's museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect Marc Saltet  [ fr ] with assistance from designers André Monpoix  [ fr ] , Joseph-André Motte and Paulin. In 1961,

2640-508: The Grande Galerie and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 by Edmond Guillaume  [ fr ] , Lefuel's successor as architect of the Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room. Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room at the northwest corner of the Cour Carrée , on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by Carolus-Duran , The Triumph of Marie de' Medici originally created in 1879 for

2772-493: The Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon . The expansion of the museum and its collections slowed after World War I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such as Georges de La Tour 's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild 's 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books. From the late 19th century, the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become

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2904-704: The Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation and on a design by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti . In 2007, German painter Anselm Kiefer was invited to create a work for the North stairs of the Perrault Colonnade , Athanor . This decision announces the museum's reengagement with contemporary art under the direction of Henri Loyrette , fifty years after the institution's last order to a contemporary artists, George Braque . In 2010, American painter Cy Twombly completed

3036-563: The Austrian government for the keeping of works such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection. For most of the 19th century, from Napoleon 's time to the Second Empire , the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's civil list and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas

3168-635: The Austrian Monarchy . This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the French Revolutionary Wars . It compelled Italian cities to contribute pieces of art and heritage to Napoleon's "parades of spoils" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum. The Horses of Saint Mark , which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after

3300-714: The Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben , about 100 km from Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben , signed on 18 April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries , and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender , ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized

3432-474: The Château de Valençay . On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement". In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre. New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from

3564-521: The Constitution of the Year VIII , under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as First Consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established a Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and

3696-588: The Council of Five Hundred and Directory: Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché to overthrow the government. On 9 November 1799 ( 18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup, and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls. On 15 December, Bonaparte introduced

3828-446: The Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under Louis XVI , the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition. The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which at that time contained the plans-reliefs or 3D models of key fortified sites in and around France – into

3960-771: The Coup of 18 Brumaire against the Directory , and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in the War of the Second Coalition , and in 1803 sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States . In December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further expanding his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to

4092-583: The Cour Carrée 's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment. In January 2020, under the direction of Jean-Luc Martinez , the museum inaugurated a new contemporary art commission, L'Onde du Midi by Venezuelan kinetic artist Elias Crespin . The sculpture hovers under the Escalier du Midi, the staircase on the South of the Perrault Colonnade . The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt

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4224-614: The French Navy created an exhibition of ship models in the Louvre in December 1827, initially named musée dauphin in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine , building on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau . This collection, renamed musée naval in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée national de la Marine , was initially located on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to

4356-533: The Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space under the Louvre Pyramid , or Hall Napoléon , which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the passage Richelieu connecting to

4488-568: The Guimet Museum in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of Islamic art opened in 1893. In the late 1920s, Louvre Director Henri Verne devised a master plan for the rationalization of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly implemented in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects Camille Lefèvre  [ fr ] and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The Cour du Sphinx in

4620-627: The Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War . In 1809, the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition , in which Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram . In summer 1812, he launched an invasion of Russia , which ended in the catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russia in

4752-562: The Knights Hospitaller . Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with the loss of only three men. Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks , Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped

4884-685: The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] ), is a national art museum in Paris , France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art , including the Mona Lisa , Venus de Milo , and Winged Victory . The museum

5016-575: The Luxembourg Palace . Meanwhile, during the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via donations, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. The 583-item Collection La Caze , donated in 1869 by Louis La Caze , included works by Chardin ; Fragonard , Rembrandt and Watteau . In 1883, the Winged Victory of Samothrace , which had been found in

5148-417: The Luxembourg Palace . A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the "king's paintings" ( Tableaux du Roy ) on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included Andrea del Sarto 's Charity and works by Raphael ; Titian ; Veronese ; Rembrandt ; Poussin or Van Dyck . It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to

5280-529: The Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise two months later, gave him a pretext to arrest about 100 suspected Jacobins and royalists, some of whom were shot and many others deported to penal colonies. After a decade of war, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Under the treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from most of the colonies it had recently captured from France and her allies, and France agreed to evacuate Naples. In April, Bonaparte publicly celebrated

5412-595: The Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic . The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities ; Near Eastern Antiquities ; Greek , Etruscan , and Roman Antiquities ; Islamic Art ; Sculpture; Decorative Arts ; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. The Musée du Louvre contains approximately 500,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 m (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to

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5544-532: The Treaty of Campo Formio . Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand , France's Foreign Minister, and took command of the Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain. After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the British Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India . Bonaparte wished to establish

5676-401: The Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo increased his popularity and political authority. However, he still faced royalist plots and feared Jacobin influence, especially in the army. Several assassination plots, including the Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and

5808-432: The War of the Sixth Coalition , in which Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig . The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. They exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba and restored the Bourbons to power . Ten months later, Napoleon escaped from Elba on a brig, landed in France with a thousand men, and marched on Paris, again taking control of

5940-486: The War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz , which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire . In the War of the Fourth Coalition , Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland . Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain , Napoleon invaded

6072-406: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage . It was closed for six months during French coronavirus lockdowns and saw visitor numbers plunge to 2.7 million in 2020, from 9.6 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018, which was a record year. In preparation for the 2024 Olympics , the Louvre staged an exhibit about the Games' history that links their ancient beginnings to

6204-415: The "French Museum". Many design proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, without a final decision being made on them. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution. The Louvre finally became a public museum during the French Revolution. In May 1791, the National Constituent Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all

6336-445: The 10.1 million visitors it received in 2018. The Louvre is the most-visited museum in the world , ahead of the Vatican Museums . The Louvre museum is located inside the Louvre Palace , in the center of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens . The two nearest Métro stations are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre , the latter having a direct underground access to the Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall. Before

6468-461: The 14th century, Charles V converted the building from its military role into a residence. In 1546, Francis I started its rebuilding in French Renaissance style. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, construction works slowed to a halt. The royal move away from Paris resulted in the Louvre being used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage. For example, four generations of craftsmen-artists from

6600-411: The 2nd-floor attic , where it remained for more than a century. Following the July Revolution , King Louis Philippe focused his interest on the repurposing of the Palace of Versailles into a Museum of French History conceived as a project of national reconciliation, and the Louvre was kept in comparative neglect. Louis-Philippe did, however, sponsor the creation of the musée assyrien to host

6732-412: The Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed as the focal point of the Escalier Daru . Major artifacts excavated at Susa in Iran, including the massive Apadana capital and glazed brick decoration from the Palace of Darius there, accrued to the Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the 1880s. The Société des amis du Louvre was established in 1897 and donated prominent works, such as

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6864-480: The Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The French then invaded the heartlands of the House of Habsburg . French forces in Southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning

6996-440: The Boulle family were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre. Meanwhile, the collections of the Louvre originated in the acquisitions of paintings and other artworks by the monarchs of the House of France . At the Palace of Fontainebleau , Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa . The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of

7128-557: The Council of State recommended a new plebiscite asking the French people to make "Napoleon Bonaparte" Consul for life. (It was the first time his first name was officially used by the regime.) About 3.6 million voted "yes" and 8,374 "no." 40%-60% of eligible Frenchmen voted, the highest turnout for a plebiscite since the Revolution. France had regained her overseas colonies under Amiens but did not control them all. The French National Convention had voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, but, in May 1802, Bonaparte reintroduced it in all

7260-400: The Cour Carrée, many of its significant holdings of non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to the Trocadéro ethnography museum, the National Antiquities Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye , and the Chinese Museum in the Palace of Fontainebleau . The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the Palais de Chaillot in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to

7392-412: The Finance Ministry accepted to leave the Pavillon de Flore at the southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Verne had recommended in his 1920s plan. New exhibition spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, on a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle. In 1981, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets ,

7524-411: The French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers and the island was now controlled by Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that the Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland. Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of

7656-477: The French fleet in the Battle of the Nile , preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee ). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish , Gaza , Jaffa , and Haifa . The attack on Jaffa

7788-436: The French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf , who became his patron and godfather to Napoleon. With Mabeuf's support, Carlo was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in France. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of

7920-448: The French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids . Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale. On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of

8052-468: The French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence. Bonaparte plunged into a complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He

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8184-511: The French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark . In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards . The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during the campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures. During

8316-409: The Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodeled Petite Galerie. Many of the king's paintings were placed in these rooms in 1673, when it became an art gallery, accessible to certain art lovers as a kind of museum. In 1681, after the court moved to Versailles, 26 of the paintings were transferred there, somewhat diminishing the collection, but it is mentioned in Paris guide books from 1684 on, and

8448-452: The Grand Louvre plan to relocate the Finance Ministry , until then housed in the North Wing of the Louvre, and thus devote almost the entire Louvre building (except its northwestern tip, which houses the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs ) to the museum which would be correspondingly restructured. In 1984 I. M. Pei , the architect personally selected by Mitterrand, proposed a master plan including an underground entrance space accessed through

8580-428: The Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities. After the French defeat at Waterloo , the looted works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrator, Denon, was loath to comply in absence of a treaty of restitution. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, though far from all. In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with

8712-420: The Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of evacuation of its art collection . When Germany occupied the Sudetenland , many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord . When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to

8844-423: The Louvre, upon a recommendation from his friend the art collector and dealer Jacques Kerchache  [ fr ] . On his initiative, a selection of highlights from the collections of what would become the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac was installed on the ground floor of the Pavillon des Sessions and opened in 2000, six years ahead of the Musée du Quai Branly itself. The main other initiative in

8976-404: The Naval Museum in the Cour Carrée's attic was brought under the common Louvre Museum management, a change which was again reversed in 1920. In 1850 under the leadership of curator Adrien de Longpérier , the musée mexicain opened within the Louvre as the first European museum dedicated to pre-Columbian art . The rule of Napoleon III was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and

9108-412: The Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on the Austrians, laying siege to Mantua . The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione , the Battle of Bassano , the Battle of Arcole , and the Battle of Rivoli . The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of

9240-440: The Ramolinos, descended from a noble family from Lombardy . Napoleon's parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino , lived in the Maison Bonaparte home in Ajaccio , where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. He had an elder brother, Joseph , and, later, six younger siblings: Lucien , Elisa , Louis , Pauline , Caroline , and Jérôme . Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon

9372-452: The Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of the temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber . Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By

9504-513: The South Wing was covered by a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of the North Wing of the Cour Carrée , including some of France's first period room displays. In the late 1930s, The La Caze donation was moved to a remodeled Salle La Caze above the salle des Caryatides , with reduced height to create more rooms on the second floor and a sober interior design by Albert Ferran. During World War II ,

9636-862: The Vatican, had opened in November 1800 in Anne of Austria 's former summer apartment, located on the ground floor just below the Galerie d'Apollon. On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed Dominique Vivant Denon , a scholar and polymath who had participated in the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti , painter Jacques-Louis David , sculptor Antonio Canova and architects Léon Dufourny or Pierre Fontaine . On Denon's suggestion in July 1803,

9768-526: The adjoining halls, in what is now the Richelieu Wing, were separately destroyed. But the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees led by curator Henry Barbet de Jouy . Following the end of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum in 1879, and in 1928 became its main entrance lobby. The large Salle des Etats that had been created by Lefuel between

9900-613: The aftermath of the Grand Louvre project was Chirac's decision to create a new department of Islamic Art, by executive order of 1 August 2003, and to move the corresponding collections from their prior underground location in the Richelieu Wing to a more prominent site in the Denon Wing. That new section opened on 22 September 2012, together with collections from the Roman-era Eastern Mediterranean, with financial support from

10032-522: The building, the museum was closed from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon , after the Napoleonic looting of art in Europe, Egypt and Syria , and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon , but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X , and during

10164-455: The building. Between 1852 and 1870, the museum added 20,000 new artefacts to its collections. The main change of that period was to the building itself. In the 1850s architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel created massive new spaces around what is now called the Cour Napoléon , some of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum. In the 1860s, Lefuel also led

10296-618: The campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to support a coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on 4 September—the Coup of 18 Fructidor . This left Barras and his republican allies in control again but more dependent upon Bonaparte who finalized peace terms with Austria by

10428-549: The child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time. In January 1779, at age 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French (his mother tongue was the Corsican dialect of Italian). Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke with

10560-491: The collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000  livres per year. In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere , to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty". The early days were hectic. Privileged artists continued to live in residence, and

10692-484: The collections. The Greek and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground floor of the southwestern side of the Cour Carrée was completed on designs by Percier and Fontaine . In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there until the mid-1820s. Charles X in 1826 created the Musée Égyptien and in 1827 included it in his broader Musée Charles X ,

10824-599: The core of the present Museo Egizio in Turin ). The Restoration period also saw the opening in 1824 of the Galerie d'Angoulême , a section of largely French sculptures on the ground floor of the Northwestern side of the Cour Carrée, many of whose artefacts came from the Palace of Versailles and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile,

10956-546: The country. His opponents responded by forming a Seventh Coalition , which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Napoleon is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through

11088-459: The creation of the pavillon des Sessions with a new Salle des Etats closer to Napoleon III's residence in the Tuileries Palace , with the effect of shortening the Grande Galerie by about a third of its previous length. A smaller but significant Second Empire project was the decoration of the salle des Empereurs below the Salon carré . The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage during

11220-472: The entry of blacks and mulattos into France, reduced the civil rights of women and children in France, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule. Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and his maternal ancestors,

11352-476: The expense of religious authorities. His conquests acted as a catalyst for political change and the development of nation states . However, he is controversial due to his role in wars which devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and jailed critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in France's colonies except for Haiti , banned

11484-468: The field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon Northern Italy. When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over the Austrians at Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed

11616-673: The first Corsican to graduate from the École militaire . Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment . He served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, but spent long periods of leave in Corsica which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789, he returned to Corsica and promoted

11748-534: The first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution , the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with

11880-407: The first six days of which were reserved for visits by artists and foreigners and the last three for visits by the general public. In the early 1800s, after the seven-day week had been reinstated, the general public had only four hours of museum access per weeks, between 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. In 1824, a new regulation allowed public access only on Sundays and holidays; the other days

12012-490: The fortress of Acre , so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. Bonaparte was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium to speed the retreat. Back in Egypt on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir . Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition . On 24 August 1799, fearing that

12144-484: The key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat , to seize cannons and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On 5 October 1795— 13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican calendar —he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (later called: "a whiff of grapeshot "). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family

12276-546: The late 12th century to protect the city from the attack from the West, as the Kingdom of England still held Normandy at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre are still visible in the crypt. Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, and it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. The origins of the name "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique ,

12408-453: The lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the Salle des Etats , where the Mona Lisa was first displayed in 1966. Around 1950, Louvre architect Jean-Jacques Haffner  [ fr ] streamlined the interior decoration of the Grande Galerie . In 1953, a new ceiling by Georges Braque was inaugurated in

12540-467: The modern era. Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I , was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He

12672-531: The modernizing legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, embodied in the Napoleonic Code . He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism , emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition , enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at

12804-454: The monarchy's demise, as Muséum central des Arts de la République . The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated". The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three-quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property ( biens nationaux ). To expand and organize

12936-434: The monumental Assyrian sculpture works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta , in the ground-floor gallery north of the eastern entrance of the Cour Carrée. The Assyrian Museum opened on 1 May 1847. Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery displayed in the Louvre from 7 January 1838, in five rooms on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's East ( Colonnade ) Wing, but the collection remained his personal property. As

13068-536: The most iconic collection remained that of paintings in the Grande Galerie , a number of other initiatives mushroomed in the vast building, named as if they were separate museums even though they were generally managed under the same administrative umbrella. Correspondingly, the museum complex was often referred to in the plural (" les musées du Louvre ") rather than singular. During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added to

13200-567: The mountains. From Ormea, it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge . After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France. After the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He

13332-416: The museum itself was renamed Musée Napoléon . The collection grew through successful military campaigns. Acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as the result of war looting or formalized by treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino . At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of

13464-468: The museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays. That changed in 1855 when the museum became open to the public all days except Mondays. It was free until 1922, when an entrance fee was introduced except on Sundays. Since its post- World War II reopening in 1946, the Louvre has been closed on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the public the rest of the week except for some holidays. The use of cameras and video recorders

13596-423: The museum. The upgraded 2013 Louvre guide was also announced in a special Nintendo Direct featuring Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrating it at the museum, and 3DS XLs pre-loaded with the guide are available to rent at the museum. As of August 2023, there are virtual tours through rooms and galleries accessible online. The Louvre Palace , which houses the museum, was begun by King Philip II in

13728-529: The museum. In 1852, he created the Musée des Souverains in the Colonnade Wing , an ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal legitimacy. In 1861, he bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection . For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named Musée Napoléon III , occupying a number of rooms in various parts of

13860-528: The name derives from an association with a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus , lower Empire: lupara ). In the 7th century, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess in Meaux, is said to have given part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery, even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre. The Louvre Palace has been subject to numerous renovations since its construction. In

13992-466: The nearby rue de Rivoli . A secondary entrance at the Porte des Lions , near the western end of the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 but is not permanently open. The museum's entrance conditions have varied over time. Prior to the 1850s, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (French: décades ),

14124-705: The next major phase of the Grand Louvre plan: the renovated North (Richelieu) Wing in the former Finance Ministry site, the museum's largest single expansion in its entire history, designed by Pei, his French associate Michel Macary, and Jean-Michel Wilmotte . Further underground spaces known as the Carrousel du Louvre , centered on the Inverted Pyramid and designed by Pei and Macary, had opened in October 1993. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened in 1994. The third and last main phase of

14256-779: The patronage of the new government, the French Directory . On 26 October, he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796 he was appointed head of the Army of Italy. Within weeks of the Vendémiaire uprising , Bonaparte was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais , the former mistress of Barras. Josephine had been born in the French colonies in the Lesser Antilles , and her family owned slaves on sugar plantations The couple married on 9 March 1796 in

14388-528: The peace and his controversial Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII under which the Pope recognized Bonaparte's regime and the regime recognized Catholicism as the majority religion of France. In a further step towards national reconciliation (known as "fusion"), Bonaparte offered an amnesty to most émigrés who wished to return to France. With Europe at peace and the economy recovering, Bonaparte became increasingly popular, both domestically and abroad. In May 1802,

14520-427: The permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art , paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 m (782,910 sq ft), making it the largest museum in the world . It received 8.9 million visitors in 2023, 14 percent more than in 2022, though below

14652-456: The plan unfolded mainly in 1997, with new renovated rooms in the Sully and Denon wings. A new entrance at the porte des Lions opened in 1998, leading on the first floor to new rooms of Spanish paintings. As of 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled from its pre-Grand-Louvre levels. President Jacques Chirac , who had succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, insisted on the return of non-Western art to

14784-517: The present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture , which in 1699 held

14916-563: The ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796, Napoleon commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition , scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798 which served as a springboard to political power. In November 1799, Napoleon engineered

15048-506: The room's prior decoration. That same year, the Louvre commissioned French artist François Morellet to create a work for the Lefuel stairs, on the first floor. For L'esprit d'escalier Morellet redesigned the stairscase's windows, echoing their original structures but distorting them to create a disturbing optical effect. On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of

15180-598: The sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1797. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, the two statues of the Nile and Tiber were taken to Paris from the Vatican in 1797, and were both kept in the Louvre until 1815. (The Nile was later returned to Rome, whereas the Tiber has remained in the Louvre to this day.) The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged

15312-482: The sciences and arts". On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display. The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of

15444-470: The spirit of the age," and "soft despotism." Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by a combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under

15576-593: The suppression of the Paris Commune . On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret  [ fr ] set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace . The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading to the north west wing of the museum next to it. The emperor's Louvre library ( Bibliothèque du Louvre ) and some of

15708-407: The time that he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by a series of victories. The Republic, however, was bankrupt and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him. Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of

15840-558: The title Napoleon Museum . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Napoleon_Museum&oldid=1176501805 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Napoleon museums Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Louvre The Louvre ( English: / ˈ l uː v ( r ə )/ LOOV( -rə) ), or

15972-439: The unlabeled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling". The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns. On 15 August 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with an exhibition of drawings. Meanwhile, the Louvre's Gallery of Antiquity sculpture ( musée des Antiques ), with artefacts brought from Florence and

16104-581: The younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre , a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794, he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia. The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794, and then advanced to seize Ormea in

16236-478: Was admitted to the École militaire in Paris where he trained to become an artillery officer. He excelled at mathematics, and read widely in geography, history and literature. However, he was poor at French and German. His father's death in February 1785 cut the family income and forced him to complete the two-year course in one year. In September he was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace and became

16368-465: Was arrested on 9 August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria and, in March 1795, he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the Royal Navy. From 1794, Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795, Bonaparte

16500-556: Was assigned to the Army of the West , which was engaged in the War in the Vendée —a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie , about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. In August, he obtained

16632-527: Was baptized as a Catholic , under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte . In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione , Nabulio , Napolionne , and Napulione . Napoleon was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France. His father fought alongside Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile in Britain, Carlo became friends with

16764-567: Was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences . His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone , and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Hospitaller Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by

16896-472: Was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and the French garrison in Ajaccio. In February 1793, Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia . Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent,

17028-406: Was occupied by British and allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the British to evacuate. The successful assault on the position on 16–17 December led to the capture of the city. Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre ,

17160-470: Was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered the garrison and some 1,500–5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days. Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease—mostly bubonic plague . He failed to reduce

17292-409: Was shown to ambassadors from Siam in 1686. By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery in the Louvre. Art critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV decided on a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of

17424-629: Was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815. Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789, and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through

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