Dan Snow's History Hit - Napoleon in Paris

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

Napoleon Bonaparte dreamed Paris would be the 'capital city of the universe' and much of what we see - and love - about Paris is thanks to him. The long straight boulevards, the fountains, the galleries and museums- even the bread that comes with European cuisine were brought in by Napoleon. He wanted to make it a city that reflected his imperial ambition. But this city shaped him too - Paris is where he went through his most formative experiences as a young man, where he first tasted power, seduction and revolution.Dan joins historian and expert guide Stephanie Paul in Paris to explore the story of Napoleon's early life here, how the city shaped him and how he created the Paris we recognise today.Click here for Stephanie's Napoleonic Paris Tour.This episode is part of our 'Dan Snow's Guide to Europe' Series.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore. The production manager was Beth Donaldson.Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask!Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there. world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jesse Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend. I break down the biggest stories in pop culture,

but when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on.

Thank God, phone a friend with Jesse Corkshank, is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcast. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. acast.com. Hi, folks, welcome of Dan Snow's History. If you're a follower of this podcast, then you'll know that this August, this podcast is taking you on a whirlwind trip around Europe's greatest historical sites. What says some are more than travel escapism and history? Nothing, that's what. We started Notre Dame in Paris a few weeks ago. We whizzed over to Edinburgh to have a look

around its magnificent medieval castle. Now we're back to Paris. Because whilst I love a medieval cathedral, there's no way I'm going to Paris without indulging my passion for the Napoleonic era. And Paris is a metropolis with Napoleon's fingerprints all overhit. He was absolutely determined to make Paris the capital city of the universe, as he called it. After he took power in 1799, he began to transform the city into a great symbol of his self, really, certainly his imperial ambitions, always with an eye to teasing out the parallels team Paris and ancient Rome, which he was, of course, obsessed with. Did Napoleon think about ancient Rome every hour of every day?

Yes, yes, we can be sure he did. He established elite universities. He opened museums like that in the Louvre where he displayed looted art from all over Europe, intending to awe visitors, and enthroned Paris as the greatest city on earth. He built great monuments. He'll have seen the Arc de Triumph. There's also the Vendom column, which he modelled on Trajan's column in Rome. Even the urban planning of the city came to reflect Napoleon's minimal.

military mindset, there were the long straight boulevards. The straight shooting, straight marching, straight talking approach he took on and off the battlefield. So in this episode we're going to join a guide and local historian, Stephanie Paul, to walk Napoleon's Paris, see how he shaped this city, created it as a vision at the center of his empire, homage to his military victories, but also we're going to look at how the city itself shaped him. How these treats turned that young, unconfident Corsican student into the ruthless megalomaniac he became. It was here in Paris that he went through his formative

experiences. As a young student he was mercilessly bullied at military school, but it was here also in this city where he first tasted power, seduction and the chaos of revolution. This can be a real treat folks. Get those walking shoes on. Here we go. Stephanie, Bonjour. How are you? Nice to meet you. Thank you very much for doing this. Why have you brought me here to start?

What's this got to do with the young Napoleon? Well, I've started off with the Palais Royal because they're simply arriving here. We're at a real apex between old and modern Paris. Between us on the right-hand side, we have the Louvre, on the left-hand side as we enter into the Palais-Royal. we enter into the Palais Royal, we have a place which is going to go from being a royal den of iniquity and lechery to being a centre for political intrigue, where young Napoleon Bonaparte is going to become a man, should we say, but also where he's going to found the first directory and really redesign his role as a political leader at the end of the 18th and beginning.

of the 19th century. So we got, so the Louvre, we just left the Louvre. People are familiar, that's the famous art gallery now, but that was the palace of, well, Louis the 14th and the great kings of France the 18th century. Exactly, it was originally the palace started in 1541, France is the first, extended and developed by the Henrys and the Louise and the Francis's,

15, 1600s, and then becoming a museum during the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1800s, extending it out to showcase to a certain extent, his militaristic and colonial victories. Right, and because he nicked all the art from around the world and put it in there, didn't he? Absolutely. For this first time, this young man wanted to showcase his passion for the world that was under his control. Bring it all together. Exactly. Completely. Right. So we've moved into this beautiful colonnaded area now, the Palais Royal. So what was this place?

So originally this section here was the residence of the Orlionis, Louis XIV's brother. However, by the time we get to the late 1700s, the Orleanists have extended it out to turn it into the centre of cafes, clubs, bars, brothels. And it is here that after a night at the opera next door, that 18-year-old Napoleon, rather inexperienced, awkward and perhaps a little bit aware that he was not. yet a man decides to come here, strolling through to see the ladies of the night. Catching the eye of one, he engages her in conversation, which, tragically, she finds rather boring, suggesting they get down to it. And it is here, finally, that he was initiated into

the somewhat slightly, should we say, murky or, as he would go, mucky, experiences of sexuality. So this is late 18th century Paris's sort of Soho, the West Ends. Exactly, very much so. Today it's a little bit different. Today we have the Ministry of the Navy going on here and also the Conce d'Etat, the Council Estate, which was also founded by Napoleon, the early 1800s, where his new government could come together,

both his Senate and the Assembly Nacional, linking together both his empirical, but also democratic powers. How did this city shape him a child from the absolute fringes of the French world at the time from Corsica. Well, Napoleon Bonaparte, actually, in his youth, grows up as a sort of partisan.

On the one hand, he has this great passion for Corsica, which in his early youth, he was deeming sort of wild, an ancient place where people stuck to the old values. And France was this sort of dissolutionary monarchy. At the same time, however, his father, Carlo, who could see the potential that the monarchy had, really wanted to step forward and embrace being French for all that it could give.

But we've got to remember that at the very beginning of the French Revolution in France, Napoleon was not here. He was not actually even fulfilling his military duties to France, though he wore a French uniform. He was in Corsica fighting for Corsican independence, fighting for it to become either free or going one step further, to be fully integrated into France and have all those advantages.

He wasn't getting it. And also Paoli, the head of the Corscan independence movement at the time, is sidelining our little Napoleon de Bonaparte. And so perhaps his return to France and reinvention of himself in the chaos of the French Revolution. And here in Paris is going to put him on the trajectory to focus on becoming, as he does in his own words, the greatest Frenchman that's ever lived.

Isn't that interesting? So he tries to brand himself initially as a, well, of Corsican patriot, the separatist. that doesn't really go that well, so he goes to the other extreme, becomes a sort of passionate believer in France. Absolutely. And that transition takes place on these streets and these arcades that are walking along now. And I would also say very much in the institutions that we're here,

because you've got to remember that by the time we get to the middle of the 1790s, this area has become a centre for cafes where political discussion is taking place. And even before the revolution, and the examples of leaders such as Camille de Moulin giving their speeches here and picking up and writhing around with the political turmoil of the time, this was very much the place to launch those discussions. Really, that was all happening right here?

Absolutely, absolutely. So when you read about De Moulin, Dant, Dantan in the cafes, those ferocious debate, that was where we are now? 14th of July, 1789, this is where it's happening. Those early morning discussions where Camille de Moulin stands on a table riling up the people of Paris, telling them that the Monarch, telling them that the monarchy is coming to defeat them. It's literally happening here.

And so after the fall of the monarchy, as France is trying to re-establish itself, once again, these cafes and locations become centres for discussion. But also, most importantly, under the new shifting governments, there's also a sense of an undercurrent of instability. The governments are not lasting for more than six, eight weeks at a time. If ever there was a political system, more hate. Napoleon didn't know one, because he was looking for order, he was looking for sense, and no one seemed to be able to provide it.

So he starts coming through these arcades, listening to what people want, listening to the conversations. And perhaps the seedlings of coming into his mind is, I could do this. I could be the man to do this. Seems like an age where anything's possible, but why not me? Exactly. And so he makes reputation for himself, well, Toulon as an artillery officer, he's going to give an adjustment. He's going to give him a job in northern Italy. He does very well there.

And he comes back a rock star. Exactly. And this is a young man who essentially graduated from the Ecole Militaire as a lieutenant. And one which didn't speak French very well, had quite an atrocious accent, had been bullied all the way through, but seemed to have this personal drive that he would be able to push forward, that he would be able to conquer in the end. And so yet it is surprising. that even as we get to the dawn of what would be his coup d'etat, if you like, in 1796,

that even as he's being presented to the people with his lank hair, his thin demeanour, his somewhat sickly visage, that he still got this notion that he could take France to the next level. He was unprepossessing. He was somewhat shy in public. Yet underneath all of that himself in his heart, if you will, he's got this really fervent belief that he's the next Julius Caesar. And it's all coming together here over a glass of wine. Exactly. Where people are still drinking today.

I wonder how many people around us fancy they'd be the next Caesar in these bars today. What's really interesting about this area, particularly as we come to the post-French Revolution, is that, believe it or not, British cuisine was considered to be one of the greatest in Europe at the time. I mean, you wouldn't think Banning's and MASH today would compare to foie gras. But actually, one of the things that happens during the French Revolution is that a lot of the chefs that have previously been working for the nobles are free, let loose, and now can open up their own restaurants, as is going to happen here.

But Bonaparte is also incredibly clever in that respect, because we've got to know one thing about French Revolution is partly it was caused by famine. So what does Napoleon Bonaparte do? One of the first things he does when he actually takes. is he makes sure that French people will never go hungry again. He is going to introduce a law which says any citizen can sit down at a table for water and bread. And so in fact these institutions become a real melting pot for different social quarters. You've got the bourgeoisie drinking coffee in political discussion.

You've got the poor coming in to see how the other half live, allowed to have their bread. bread, and you've got, to a certain extent, a real sense of democracy coming in, because now you've got that coming together of the classes in a way never really seen before. Which way we're going to go this way now? Right, lead on. Well, also, you should thank him for the baguettes, because the traditional and humble baguette that we have today is actually something which was inspired later on by Napoleon Bonaparte's military campaigns when they were having to walk up to 17 miles a day. This means that they didn't really have time to stop for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So every morning they would be given a little flute of bread. They would put it

down their trousers and eat on the march. They were called piccolo in the time, like a little flute bread, like the military style flutes. And so afterwards as a sort of style of bread, it became popular, though of course being white bread is only relatively recent from the 1920s. So it would have been granary, but granary baguettes. Exactly. So coming down this one, We're also seeing a little bit of a contrast of the architecture as we come down the Rue de Louvre. On the left-hand side we have the 1600 constructions and then on the right the beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's vision. Now when you're walking through Paris you always want to look up at the buildings because that is going to tell you how older structure is. If you see buildings which have got no shutters on the front of them, they're coming from the 16, 15, 1400.

1400s. And so the Paris that Napoleon would have recognized in this period would have had narrow streets, dirty roads, no sewers. People were having to lift up their skirts to swayed through this gunk. There were literally people who were employed to take the mud and the muck off your shoes. We call them in French, le decrotter. And Napoleon Bonaparte saw this and loathed it. He felt that it was the symbol of an animalistic society. So when he finally takes part, he was. power, we're going to see what he starts doing. And that is opening up the streets. And so from Palis-Hoyal, as we make our way back down to the Rue Rivoli, what we can see is a sudden widening. Because if you see the wooden shutters, this is Napoleon Bonaparte. Okay. Here. Much wider. Exactly. And so this is about bringing light and cleanliness and order. Exactly. First pavements are being brought in so that the travellers weren't having to jostle with carts and buggies going through the street so they would be safe. So he actually is looking to clean Paris to open it up and also water.

Oh yeah, look at this. Exactly. It's a big public, huge public drinking fountain. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to make sure that disease does not spread through the city, once again causing revolutions and happiness. What he wants is that modern Paris would be clean, salubrious, bringing together the people to enjoy their city. So in the same way, I suppose he regards himself as sweeping away medieval anachronistic institutions, he's literally sweeping away the medieval fabric of a city. 100%.

And also you mentioned earlier that he was going to other countries and invading those countries. Well, he's also going to get a lot of influence from those countries. In Paris today, we have the Rue du Caire, Les Soucaux. So he's seeing the way the streets. are in Egypt. He's seeing how we have the great pavements and the great roads and the boulevards in Italy.

And so his vision, if we're going to say to create the new Rome, is actually perhaps to create a new capital that brings together all of the advantages that these cities have to make them just perfect in Paris. This whole civilian side of Napoleon is fascinating, which gets overlooked.

I think one thing that we have to remember about Napoleon is that if you put 100 historians in a room, there's going to be a hundred's opinions. And this is because at various periods in his life, he is a very shifting and transitory sort of figure. In his youth, he was shy. He was always under the shadow of his older brother on whom everything was placed.

Napoleon was the fourth child for whom they didn't really know what to do with. His brother was supposed to go into the church, become a bishop, have great orders. There was a future planned out for him, of course, which would come to nothing. Whereas Napoleon, to fulfill to a certain extent, his father's ambitions is going to head off to the military. He didn't want to be a soldier, most importantly. He dreamed of being an explorer in the Navy. He thought there was more military advancement that he could get there.

He even wanted to join the ill-fated voyage of Lapeurus. Just imagine if he had have gone on that. History would have been totally different. Of course, that's going to end with poor La Perouse being cannibalized in Vanuatu. So we might not have had Napoleon. and that totally would have redesigned the history of Europe. Because I spend a lot of time thinking about Napoleon's military campaigns. It's nice to me to come to Paris and think about him doing things in the civil space.

I would go so further as to say the romantic one. In fact, when we think of Napoleon, we think of a man of great military grandeur, style, pomp, ceremony. But in fact, down beneath all of that, he had a rather romantic soul. Did you know that he used to write romantic novels in his youth? Yes, he was a frustrated novelist. Exactly. Absolutely terrible. They were rejected at every stop. But he was very sentimental, very emotional. And then, of course, with his dealings with women, we know and understand that from 1795, once he's jumped back into life in Paris, he's very, very much under the pressure from his family to take a wife, to get married, to have children.

And so imagine, 1796, he's at a party given by Bachar, and a woman sidles up to him. beautiful, suave. Sophisticated. Exactly. And this is Rose Sasha, aka the future Empress Josephine. Whether it's love at first sight or not, certainly for him in that case,

we're going to see that this is going to be the great passion of his life, but also perhaps one of the most destructive forces. The passion that he has for her becomes toxic. Some might even say twisted by her by her own infidelities and superiority compared to him. So just now we're making our way down towards the Louvre and towards the Rue and Réveli.

One of the most important things that Napoleon Bonaparte gives us is the street signs and the street numberings that we have. So I live in the 19th District of Paris outside of the old medieval city. Now historically Paris has been a city enclosed by walls. Yes. Yes. Now, before the French Revolution, we had sort of eight sort of little districts within the city. You might know the name of them, such as Saint-Germain, Latin Quarter, and the Marais, etc.

Now, starting in 1726, there had been a desire to sort of add more organisation to the houses, street numbers and things like that. But it had never really been officiated, never really been finished. Sometimes you'd be walking down the street, you'd see house number two, and then there's number 19 slap-bang next to it. So what Napoleon did, when he first comes into power, we're starting in 1804 is to reorganise completely how we see Paris from the names of the streets establishing the in those days nine districts giving them roads named bringing together i should say

the important leaders shop signs with a bit of medieval history but also once again with a focus on the militaristic presence within the city we're going to walk down the road of napoleon in a moment And even the blue and green signs were something that he first created as well, as they were heavily influenced by the mosaics and the colour traditions of his home in Ejaccio. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's incredible that it still stayed with us today. Now, of course, as we walk up the boulevard d' operas,

we're looking perhaps at the continuation of Napoleon's vision, not that would be succeeded under Napoleon, but under his nephew Napoleon III, who's going to take the Napoleonic desire to knock down, rebuild and reform Paris and turn it into a modern city. Napoleon Bonaparte, of course, by 1810, to a certain extent on the losing foot,

is going to have to refocus funds, ideas and planning. So it would never complete his vision of the city. But it's Napoleon III from 1810. 58 onwards who's going to succeed in doing that. So we're walking along at a classic Parisian boulevard here. Straight as an arrow, very rational. Now, was this Napoleon's dream because he just liked straight roads and that suited his mind?

Or was there a military function as well? He thought that revolutionary activity sort of thrived in little narrow winding medieval streets. Exactly. And we've really got to imagine that in the 1800s, revolutions and uprisings are constant. In fact, between 1789 and 1871, we're going to have two emperors, three kings, three republics and four revolutions. So what he needs to do is create a city which is going to make it easier for an army to move around. So we have the creation of the Etois and Boulevard system.

Now, this is something that to a certain extent already existed in France, Louis XIV, in Versailles, and then, of course, which would then be translated to the American straight line grid pattern, system was already in place. However, the boulevards and etuille are a little bit different. We have these long boulevards, these long straight roads, coming to a, well, for one of the word, a place, rather than a square as we would have in English, but a rounded location where the, like, spokes of a wheel, if you like. So the idea was that during any form of uprising, the streets would be wide enough that you couldn't build barricades across they would have less street furniture which might be used for those barricaded ways and of course

that we would have enough to a certain extent space for armies to move down them very easily and after all Napoleon had really really come to the attention of France's rulers when he used cannon on rioting Parisians, so he knew all about lines of sight and fields of fire, isn't he? Well, very much so. We've got to understand that Napoleon Bonaparte, during the revolution, he's in a little bit of a difficult position because at the very beginning of the revolution,

he's still a French soldier. He wears a French uniform. He is working for the French crown, if you like. However, I don't think there's any doubt that Napoleon was in his heart, looking, if you like, away from monarchy. towards a more democratic style of government. However, he also very firmly believed that the peasantry needed a guiding hand to help them achieve this.

But also what Napoleon is going to do is he's going to raise the heights of the buildings. So already in old Paris, normally buildings were between sort of four to five stories. They were predominantly made of wood. They were easy to jump across if you're in a revolution. So firing down on soldiers below and then running away across the rooftops. So that had already been identified as a danger. So Napoleon Bonaparte with his reconstruction of Paris as he began it in the early 1800s has already started this idea of building up, having six, seven stories

so that it would be impossible to get a good angle of your musket to fire down, because the bullet would fall straight out of the gun. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. You listen to Dan Snow's history hit. The best is yet to come. Stick with us.

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And I'm Anthony Delaney and we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments. Step inside to Khamun's tomb, which is apparently cursed. Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England. Find us every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, Myths, Mist deeds and the Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. It's passing the Chateau-Voltaire Hotel, speaking of enlightened French philosophers, hoping to bring reason to the world. Reason and a certain amount of passion for coffee.

The man very famously drank 42 cups a day. Did he, Voltaire? We had to have all that energy to write those 2,000 political tracks. Coming this way, actually, we're walking through a part of Paris that played a key part in Napoleon Bonaparte's revolutionary development. This is what we call the Cartier de Jacobin. Jacobin. So it's here that we had the Jacobin Abbey, which is going to give its name famously to those ultra right-wing revolutionaries. The name such as Robespierre, Fouquetonville, jumping out at us here. So these are the ultras. Absolutely.

Though Napoleon Bonaparte himself perhaps didn't directly follow nor was 100%. down with their political stance in the French Revolution. Still, he's going to be taking the long view that as long as he picks a winning side in the end, everything will be okay. Yeah, he's a survivor. Exactly, very much so. But this is an area that Napoleon Bonaparte would have known very well

because actually in those first days of the directory, it's in this quarter of Paris that we had the first directorate. So this is the first... sort of little group, this little gaggle of men that take over the French state. Exactly. And to a certain extent, I think Napoleon played the part of the unwilling bride, the unwilling face of this, because all the rest of them, taillot, etc, had been already too tied up in the negative politics of the time. So he was this essentially unprepossessing face, which people could rally around. Now,

One of the interesting myths about Napoleon is that he was always the underdog. You know, you hear these stories that he came bottom of his class. Well, he was 42nd out of 48, so not quite the lowest possible. Or you hear the stories that he came from an impoverished family. Well, poverty certainly in Corsica was more pronounced than in Paris. But his father was well educated. His mother Letitia was a woman of beauty and drive. So he was actually coming perhaps not from great monetary wealth,

but a sense of nobility which always surrounded him. Though whether it was true nobility or not is up for debate. His father was actually accused of purchasing his Bueno Parte inheritance from the Bishop of Tuscany. So the directory was based around here. Yes, literally just at the... the end of the road there was actually previously on the site of where we have almost the Olympic balloon today straight ahead of us looming we have the Treelui Gardens just to the left-hand side of that we had actually the former stables of the French

Royal family and this is where they decided because it had a large enough space but it was also great quality building thanks to the creation of Louis Levo we had a quality building where they could set up this first government now Napoleon Bonaparte actually had another visage and that was that they would create a new Concee d'Etat, a new power centre, actually where we have the Mise d'Orsay today. So that Cé d'Orsay, which would later on become a train station, actually was where he was planning to build his brand new temple

to governmental success. Okay, so we've been still just walking around really the edge of the Louvre, haven't we? Exactly. So the Tullery would be the former garden in the royal period, the Garden of the Louvre. Exactly. Right, so there's the big indoor rindore. riding school, that's where they met, and that's where the revolutionary government was based.

Exactly. And also, we've got to remember that Napoleon Bonaparte, he's not going to move back into the Louvre as a palace. He had no intention, even when he was an emperor, of moving and relating and linking himself back up with the monarchy. What he wanted to have was a sort of safe location. That's going to be the Tuileries, actually. So he would be based in the Twilier Gardens during his time as emperor. But even, So it is, I think, true that Napoleon Bonaparte didn't like the trappings of monarchy. Now, interestingly, he very famously says this about his father, that his father Carlo passed away when he was about 14 years old. He said that he was a man who loved the fropperies, the fripperies of rulership.

Napoleon wasn't down with that, which is also why I think that his new city, moving away from the curls, the twelts, the asymmetry of the... Louis the 15th period is going to be so militaristically organised. He wants a city as straight as organised and as under control as he was himself. Well, you say that the Louvre, the Tullery Gardens, the Place Vondo, it almost feels like the centre of Paris used to be like the forbidden city in Beijing. It was sort of this giant royal area at the heart of it. And it's Napoleon and the revolution let people back in there.

Very much so. And we've got to remember that Paris was the capital of France, until 1682. However, from 1682 until 1789, the power of the French kings had shifted and was all going to be in Versailles. So to a certain extent, Paris had become somewhat neglected. Imagine it as a sort of shrubbery

that's been left to grow of its own accord, with new districts of wealth popping up, new districts of influence, and Napoleon Bonaparte, seeing that this old royal tree has become somewhat wild, begins to have a bit of a prune, if you will. Bring it back under his control. And we can really see that here, of course, with the Place von Dumb.

So, this gorgeous octagonal square was originally created by Louis XIV. It was his royal square. There was a statue of him nobly on a horse in the centre. Now, he's also going to turn it into one of the most desirable residents in the city. with also the Ministry of War coming in, Ministry of Justice, having their hot seats here in Paris. Now, today, however, it's dominated by this incredible sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte, based on the column of Trajan. So right there in the middle of the square or the place, you have, it really is very similar to the column of Trajan in Rome, isn't it? You've got a so diorama stretching all the way up, showing Napoleon's army, presumably the Grand Armée doing all sorts of things.

And on the top, the man himself dressed as a Roman in his toga, Napoleon. It was to celebrate his Battle of Osteleitz. Now, during the battle, he captured many, many cannon from the enemy, well over 350 cannon. So he decided that he was going to melt down 312 of them and turn it into this. So starting at the bottom, yes, we begin with essentially a Greco-Roman re-representation of how Nabilian Bonaparte is going to single-handedly, with pluck, daring do, and his own sense of a righteous power, defeat his enemies. Now, some it would say it was his own leadership, some would say that it was the help of his marechal.

But at the end of the day, it was a decisive and definitive battle, which is actually going to give him the necessary power to really take control of France. And there's one special way that he's going to do that. And for that, we have to see something quite unique in Paris, just over here. This is where we have today the only remaining official meter. The new system, the Napoleon Benefort, is going to include. So Napoleon is going to transition to the metric system. Exactly. Well, one of the things he realised when he came to power

is that a foot in Paris was not the same as a foot in Bordeaux, that a cup of salt was not the same as in Paris as it was in Toulouse. And so he had this grand vision of creating a system which would once and for all unite all of France. And so here it is today. So, basing on the Roman system, the National Convention is actually going to introduce these.

So starting in 1796 until 1799, so under Napoleon's directory period, we're going to see this standardisation of, the metre, centimetres. Now, these used to be all over the city, and they were used for measuring everything, from sausages to materials, and even to bread, which you could buy in the metre as well.

There you go, I'm just testing it. My wingspan is two metres, and that does feel about right, so that's good to come to the original layout of me. And is this the first metric system in the world? Does anyone else go into metric by this point? No, no, no. Napoleon was the first one who...

Wow. So this is the original meter? Exactly, the original metre. That is exciting. Well, we've got to remember that the Romans themselves also used the measurement of deca manus. So they used the notion of ten hands, which was also rather, well, depending on the size of the hand, should we say, could be a little bit different as well. So no, he takes that Roman idea of the deca manus and makes it into the ten centimetres, the meter that we have today. We're going to go this way.

So we're going to go straight down to the Tweedoo Gardens. Now I'm finished with that view of Concord and Arvelli's and everything like that. Yeah. So remember that he'd been to Venice. He'd seen the beauties of Venice. And he had a project to create in Paris a single long road running straight the way through the centre of the city. Well, he can't do that because the Louvre is in the way.

So rather than smashing through the Louvre, he decided that he was going to create the Rue Rivoli. And along the Rue Rue Rivelli, he wanted to create a series of beautiful passages and archwayed galleries. Oh, interesting. And as we walk down here, look at the beautiful mosaics that we have. This is full on a copy of what you can see

around the Piazza San Marco with these gorgeous polychromactic marbles and originally even above us in the ceilings, though bland and unadorned today, there would have been a plan for mosaics here. Of course, Napoleon Bonaparte would never realise this project, unfortunately. Even the Rue Rivelli itself was going to have its construction stopped around 1812, which is why, as you go down the Rue Riverley today, though the buildings

may look symmetrical and similar all the way down, we're actually going to notice the half of them are missing their shutters. Didn't even have time to finish those. Okay, well, that's why they haven't got shutters on. That's interesting. Well, I think actually it's even more interesting for the construction of these because later on this is going to become the centres where we have the the grand hotels the Regina the Maurice in the 18 and 1900s because what this does is all of a sudden it turns Paris into one of the must-come locations on people's grand tours believe it or not really before this period it had not been top of the list it was dangerous dirty

malign yeah everyone wanted to go to Italy everyone wanted to to see the perfection of those Italian cities. So Napoleon Bonaparte, to a certain extent, might even have contributed to Paris becoming the touristic city that we have today. In a way, given that Paris is now one of the world's great, most desirable cities, millions of people come here, in a way Napoleon got some way towards his goal, didn't he, of making this the centre of the universe?

Without a doubt. And I particularly think that for a young man from Ajaxio, with, let's say, in his youth, nobody believed that this is what he could become. What he achieved is nothing really short of a miracle. But this is the Rue Rue Ville, and so this is Napoleon Bonaparte's grand route that he would create in the end.

It's actually, if you put it together, the single longest selection of roads that we have in the city, running right the way from Nassion to even the end of Paris at Port-Malieu. Key features, of course, being the Louvre, and the ever-important, Art to Triumph. So let's head this way.

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Find us every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, Myths, Mist deeds and the Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. So entering into the treelry gardens, we're going to head down this gorgeous corridor just here. And so we wouldn't have been able to come in here back in the Ancian regime when the kings were on the throne. Was this exclusively for the royal? Not necessarily, actually.

The garden itself was created in the 1500s by Catherine D'Amitici. It was her sort of hunting ground, if you will, where she could enjoy herself, getting loose, pigs, rabbits and the odd baby deer and do a little bit of hunting. But public gardens were a very, very important part of Parisian life. Going for strolls, le promenade was very much part of the culture at the time. You could come for a promenade in here and the Queen might dash past chasing some rabbits. Absolutely. That's nice.

The joys of the 1500s. But before that it gets its name because this is originally outside of the city. It's where we have the tile factories which were making the... red tiles for old Paris. Imagine in the 1500s the city was known as the city of white walls and red tiles. So completely different

from the grey roofs and the beige walls that we have today. Isn't that strange? Total rebrand. Because this would have been outside the medieval heart of Perth. Exactly, yeah. And in fact even at the time of the French Revolution the Place de la Concorde was outside

of the city. That's actually why we're going to have Madame la Guartin placed here in all her ferocious glory, principally because the bloodshed as we get to the height of the terror is threatening disease in the city with so many heads rolling, the blood congealing, it was a danger of it getting into the water system. So Napoleon Bonaparte would have been very familiar with this part of Paris. Of course, very famously, it would be here on Place de la Concorde 16th of October, 1793, that he would stand in what is today the Hotel de Marie de la Marine on the balcony

and watch the Queen be beheaded. Right, so he witnessed that, did he? Exactly. And here it is, this is Place La Concorde, which I think was called Place La Revolution at the time. Well, originally it was called Place Royale, then, of course, Place de la Revolution, and then, of course, Place de la Concorde,

and Napoleon Bonaparte. And this is where the guillotine was set up. Exactly. So as a young man, so the height of the terror, 1793... To 94. To 94. He was here in Paris watching that upheaval, was he?

Exactly. And I would also say that perhaps witnessing the execution of people who had been considered monarchs chosen by God, might perhaps have been the decision why he decided to become an emperor rather than a king. Amberlead is just over here. Just over there. Eiffel Tower, we've got the Assamie National, just there as well. So this huge plass here, what importance is Napoleon attached to it? So for him, this was the halfway point, if you like, for his great triumphal march of 1809. Because Napoleon Bonabata has won the battle of Oostelitz. He's victorious.

He promises his troops a triumphal march in that great style of the Empress of Rome. Now, of course, if you're going to have a triumphal march, you need a triumphal arch. Now, the whole point and focus of triumphal arches was to purify troops coming back into the city. And so Napoleon Bonaparte perhaps sees it in the same way, that he's allowing troops to return to their families, shocking their violence and death of the military, bringing with them only the glory that this battle entailed. So starting in 1805, we're going to have the beginning of the construction of, the Ark of Triumph. Based on, once again, the Ark of Trajan, he's going to have this single arch 55 metres a high, 50 metres wide for his army of almost a quarter of a million to

march through in its glory. Victorious soldiers returning home. Tragedly, it wouldn't quite end like that. By 1807, when he arrives to oversee the construction, they've done about six feet. he wasn't that impressed. So actually what he's going to do, he's going to close down the construction of the Art of Triumph and he's going to order the construction of the smaller tri-party arch

based on Septimus Severus here, which is in front of his new museum of the Louvre as it was. Of course, the troops aren't going to be able to walk under that because it's only 20 metres high. So it was called the Art of Triumph de Carousel because the troops were able to go around it. That was the idea.

But in the very sense, here there was a military band playing there was paper machet creations of the great triumphs of Napoleon Bonaparte and this was really the moment when this young man I think takes onto himself not only the role of general not only the role of emperor perhaps even in his own mind now there's that whispering of the demi-god. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, he was all too

mortal, wasn't he? Because we're now also looking over here at Lesain Valide, where he would eventually well, he was exiled after the Battle of Waterloo, he was imprisoned on St Elina. He was buried there, but his body was returned and ended up in Lesan Valid. It did. Much to, I think, his

chagrein, Napoleon Bonaparte, never wanted to be buried in the grand tomb in Lisand Valid. That was something which was totally fabricated later. What his greatest desire was that his ashes would be scattered in the Sen at the heart of the people that he loved the most because perhaps even after everything

Napoleon Bonaparte was still a man of the people if you like and in death liberty equality and brotherhood was how he wanted to perhaps remind them of that so yes unfortunately after his death in 1821 he would be laying in repose in San Helena until the 1840s when, ironically, not his own nephew, Napoleon, the third, but Louis-Philippe, the last king of the French, the elected monarch from 1832, is going to come in and wanting to make a symbol,

not out of his own family, with the spendthrift, the revolution, the over-deccadence and the unending hatred of the people, but by putting Napoleon on that pedestal. And perhaps he's the one who's going to create that, vision, with its seven tombs, with its glorified statuary, it's not just a tomb, it's a temple to Napoleon. And I suppose after that last King Louis-Philippe, you get Napoleon's nephew comes back and forms the second empire. He in many ways finishes or continues a lot of the work Napoleon had begun in Paris. He gives it this classic street pattern that we recognise and love

today? Very much so. Napoleon the 3rd comes in and this time he's had a wider influence on his life and that is principally London. He's spent his formative years if you like in exile in London he'd seen the new city and also to a certain extent he'd seen the stability of the reign of Queen Victoria

and so that's to certain extent what he wants to replicate is he wants to come back and rather than creating the modern Rome perhaps he wants to cade the new better London. And so he's going to now create a system with standardisation, going even further than the Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood, with the buildings with their standard height, with their standard design. But he's also going to industrialise the process. The buildings of Paris that

we see today laid out in this organisation is essentially the world's first IKEA flatpack city. And I think Napoleon Bonaparte would have, if he'd have had the technology of the time, absolutely embraced that because Napoleon was a man not afraid of technology he built the first metal bridge in Paris he also was the one who first really focused on this idea of symmetry with his buildings as we can see on the right-hand side with the Madeline with its dedication to military glory that would become a church later and on the left-hand side the Assembler Nacional with its timpurnum of great leaders both of them in the Roman style this idea of order speed

efficiency, militarism. He would have been 100% down with his nephew's innovative measures. So it sounds to me, you've convinced me that the Paris that the world knows and loves today is a product of the mind of Napoleon and continued by the man who saw himself as there, Napoleon III. It's their city. 100%. And I think today perhaps history has given both of these men more of a negative touch, because of course we are going to see France's major colonial endeavours. We are also going to see both the return and abolition of slavery. We are going to see France under Napoleon III continue Napoleon Bonaparte's movements into North Africa, into the Middle East.

And maybe in today's politics, that is something which we can look back on on the negative front. But what are we looking at on the positives here is that this. These men took a France, which had known a chaos of a monarchy, and turned it into the pinnacle of power in Europe. Thank you so much for showing me around. If people want to replicate this tour or go on many of the other tours you offer, we'll put the links in the show notes below the podcast. Fabulous. Thank you very much. That's a huge thank you to Stephanie. We're just sheltering in the shade here.

It is now a touching 40 degrees centigrade in Paris. That's well over 100 Fahrenheit folks And that means the time has come To retreat to a little shady spot And have a cool refreshing beverage So we're going to go and do that now This day might be coming to them But the European trip certainly isn't

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