La Colonne de la Grande Armée is a monument constructed in the 1840s and is a fifty-three metre-high column topped with a statue of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
It marks the location of the base camp where Napoleon assembled an army of eighty thousand men all reeking of garlic, singing ‘La Marseillaise’ and impatient to invade England. It was initially intended to commemorate a successful campaign, but this proved to be rather premature and as he didn’t quite manage that it now remembers instead the first distribution of the Imperial Légion d’honneur.
Have Bag, Will Travel 
emperor? he gave the title himself that is a dictator!
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He wasn’t all bad.
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Yes they are all bad
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I might do a post bout this.
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🙂
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France 1789 – 1815 was one of my specialist subjects at University. I have always thought of Napoleon as mad but not bad.
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France still uses much of his administration innovations
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Now there’s an interesting thought for a challenge: things that were constructed prematurely and turned out to be incorrect or inappropriate…
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What a good idea.
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I like this statue and find Bonaparte fascinating. I would be interested if you posted about this period of French history. It seems like you have done bits on this topic in the past. I am confused about your comment that it was premature, but constructed in the 1840s? I am misunderstanding what was intended to commemorate a successful campaign.
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Work on the column actually began in 1804 and was intended to commemorate the anticipated French victory but not completed until much later.
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Ah. Thank you for clarifying.
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