The Column of the Grande Arm�e (French - Colonne de la grande Arm�e or Colonne

Napol�one) is a 53 metre high Corinthian order triumphal column (modelled on

Trajan's Column and other triumphal columns in Rome) on the Rue Napoleon in
Wimille, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 To 1815
1.2 1819-1853
1.3 1901-present
2 Description
3 References
4 Sources
5 External links
History[edit]
To 1815[edit]
The column was intended to commemorate a successful invasion of England (an
invasion that never occurred), but it now commemorates the first distribution of
the Imperial L�gion d'honneur at the "camp de Boulogne", by Napoleon to the
soldiers of the Army of England. In September Marshal Soult informed the emperor of
the army's wish to erect such a column and for its site the town of Boulogne bought
the estate of the old royalist, the widow Delahodde-Fourcroy, who reluctantly ceded
her field for a monument to the man she called "the usurper". The commission
created for its construction took on the architect �loi Labarre, the bronze-caster
Houdon and Jean Guillaume Moitte for the bas-reliefs, and the army, flotilla,
soldiers, sailors and sous-officiers all gave a half-day's pay to the project (with
the officers giving a full day's pay) once a month.

The first stone was put in place by Soult on 18 Brumaire, year 13 (9 October 1804),
amidst great festivities and awards of decorations. The stone was sourced from
local Marquis marble. The descriptions by C.P. Brard (1808) of the marbles of the
D�partement of the Pas-de-Calais includes the following quotation:

"What gave [me] the chance to discover this marble was this column that the troops
of the camp de Saint-Omer voted to be erected to the glory of the Emperor[1] at
Boulogne, on the sea edge, after a great victory; then they searched to find the
right materials and after several searches, Monsieur Piron discovered this marble"
In the 1808 edition he adds that Monsieur Piron then

"rushed to give the name of Napoleon to his career and to the marble which it had
led him to"[2]
After the invasion force became the Grande Arm�e on 16 August 1804 and left
Boulogne, work on the column became slow and erratic. On 3 December 1811, with the
statue and bas-reliefs still waiting in Paris and the column having reached only 20
of its planned 50 metres, the building site had to close since the project had run
out of funds and was 140,000 francs in debt (1 million francs had already been used
up, and another million would be spent before completion). Work stopped completely
in 1814 on Napoleon's fall and the statues and bas-reliefs were broken up and
melted down with the bronze of the Napoleon statue from the Place Vend�me column
for the Pont Neuf statue of Henry IV of France.

1819-1853[edit]

The Column of the Grande Arm�e, with its flanking pavilions

Work restarted in 1819 when the minister of the interior allocated it 30,000
francs, with additional credits granted in 1820. The platform on the top was put in
place in 1821 and a royal globe crowned with fleurs de lys and a royal crown placed
on top of that in 1823. After the regime change of the July Revolution, in 1831 the
column was voted 10,000 francs for maintenance, the crown was removed and the
fleurs de lys replaced by stars.

In 1831 the column was first named the Column of the Grande Arm�e and (also that
year) it was climbed by queen Hortense and her son Louis-Napol�on (later Napoleon
III). In 1838 it was decided to complete the works - Fran�ois Joseph Bosio was
charged with casting a new statue of the emperor and Lemaire and Th�ophile Bra new
bas-reliefs - and in June that year marshal Soult was officially received at the
column by the Boulogne National Guard, having not seen the column since 1805. In a
failed coup of 1840 Louis-Napoleon landed a small body of his supporters at
Boulogne, and ended up taking refuge in the park around the column and raising the
imperial flag atop it, before fleeing to the beach, where he was arrested.

In the meantime Bosio's statue of Napoleon in his coronation costume[3] (costing

60,000 francs and weighing 7,500 kilos) was completed in time for the return of
Napoleon's ashes to Paris on 15 December 1840 and exhibited on the banks of the
Seine, leaving Paris for Wimille on 21 July 1841. It arrived at the Column amidst
great celebration on 26 July - old soldiers were seen to weep and touch the
statue's hands - and placed on its top by the future Napoleon III on 15 August in
the presence of 50,000 people, with a special medallion being cast for the occasion
(though the bas-reliefs were not added until 1843).[4] Punch on 28 August 1841
noted that the new statue had "been turned, by design or accident, with its back to
England" and commented:[5]

Upon its lofty column's stand,

Napoleon takes his place;
His back still turned upon that land
That never saw his face.

The top of the Column of the Grande Arm�e today

Napoleon III and his empress arrived at Boulogne on 27 September 1853 and he
immediately gave orders to build an avenue leading up to the column (though this
was demolished in the 1970s). In anticipation of the Crimean War he gathered 10,000
troops on the Boulogne coast and held a major troop review in the famous
Terlincthun valley and plain on 30 September 1854 before the newly restored stela
or "pierre napol�one" of the monument to the L�gion d'honneur (inaugurated by
Boulogne's soci�t� d'agriculture et des arts on 3 December 1809, vandalised by
ultra-royalists in 1815 and reinaugurated on 24 October 1830).

1901-present[edit]
The column was declared a monument historique on 31 March 1905 and survived the
First World War intact. The column and the 1841 statue were seriously damaged by
bombing in 1944, with the park around the column being turned into a German naval
cemetery (with burials including that of Klaus D�nitz, son of admiral Karl D�nitz,
in 1944). The original statue was replaced by a 4.75m high statue of Napoleon in
chasseur uniform by Pierre Stenne).[6] The new statue and the completed restoration
works were inaugurated on 24 June 1962, in the presence of Charles de Gaulle, a
troop detachment and a large crowd. The column's top was struck by lightning on 19
November 1999 (causing very severe cracks and the fall of some blocks of marble,
though the statue survived) and again 2002. The restoration is now complete making
it possible once again to climb the Column.

Description[edit]
There is a pavilion to either side of the statue's base, and in the right-hand one
is a free museum, housing the 1841 statue, now restored. The bas-relief on one side
of the base, by Bra, shows the presentation of the plans for the column to Napoleon
by Soult, with general Bertrand beside Soult and admiral Bruix behind Soult. The
bas relief on the other side, by Lemaire, shows the first award of the L�gion
d'honneur on 16 August 1804, and also shows Soult, Lac�p�de, Louis Belmas (the
archbishop of Cambrai) and Hugues-Robert-J.-Ch. De La Tour d'Auvergne Lauragais
(the bishop of Arras) beside Napoleon. The base houses an archive room containing
copies of the busts of Napoleon. Guarding the entrance to the base are two bronze
lions sculpted by Jean-Guillaume Moitte, and the base is surrounded by railings
decorated with the golden French Imperial eagle.