The Arc de Triomphe in Paris

The Cultural Tutor

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is one of the world’s most recognisable landmarks. But… what actually is it?

Here’s one clue: it has a statue of Napoleon as a Roman emperor being crowned by the goddess of victory.

And it was Napoleon who had the Arc de Triomphe built…

The Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile is its full name — the Triumphal Arch of the Star.

That comes from its location, formerly called the Place de l’Étoile and now the Place Charles de Gaulle, at the junction and heart of twelve different avenues.

It was commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, after his famous victory at the Battle of Austerlitz.

This was a large-scale project and it wasn’t completed, amid several interruptions, until 1836.

And it’s huge — far bigger than most people realise.

At fifty metres tall it was the largest such monument in the world until the Monumento a la Revolución was built in Mexico City in 1938.

There’s even a museum inside.

Triumphal arches were created by the Ancient Romans as monuments to commemorate their military conquests.

Like the Arch of Septimus Severus in Rome, built in 203 AD to mark his victories over the Parthians.

The Arc de Triomphe was broadly modelled on the Arch of Titus, which was built in 81 AD by the Emperor Domitian in memory of his brother and their victories in Judea.

There had been a few during the days of the Roman Republic, but the first emperor, Augustus, ruled that only emperors could commission triumphal arches.

Soon enough they became statements of imperial glory and power — in Rome alone thirty six would be built.

These triumphal arches were covered in sculptures of the individuals they commemorated, along with scenes relating to the battles they had won.

They were a record for posterity of an emperor’s might, carved in stone and intended to last for centuries.

And so Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe was a clear allusion to the Roman Empire.

Which isn’t surprising; Napoleon made no secret of his desire to imitate Rome. He adopted their civil and military iconography and made his soldiers carry golden eagles, just like the Roman legions.

He was a master of image; our current view of Napoleon was partly shaped by the man’s own propaganda.

Just compare a portrait of him from 1796 with one made only five years later — from a fairly unremarkable military portrait to a pristine image of heroism.

The Italian sculptor Antonio Canova even made a sculpture of him called Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker. Here he was depicted, literally, as the god of war.

Canova also made a sculpture of his sister, Pauline Bonaparte, as the goddess Venus.

This portrait was made in the same year Napoleon commissioned the Arc de Triomphe.

Wearing a laurel wreath like Julius Caesar and bearing the Scepter of Charlemagne, here was a man with megalomaniacal ambition.

A triumphal arch was only the next logical step…

And he built more than one.

There’s also the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, more similar in style to the Arch of Septimus Severus, which was started in 1806 and finished two years later.

But Napoleon was defeated and exiled before his grand Arc de Triomphe could be finished.

And so, rather than being solely about the Battle of Austerlitz, it became a broader testament to Napoleon and his French Empire, and to the Republic that had preceded it.

Just like those Roman triumphal arches of ancient times, the Arc de Triomphe was decorated with sculptures and reliefs of Napoleon’s victories, whether at Aboukir, Alexandria, or Arcole.

And, similarly, they portrayed heroic and patriotic soldiers pitted against barbarians.

One of the larger sculptures depicts Napoleon as a Roman emperor being crowned by the goddess of victory — using a propagandistic iconography he had established for himself.

This is how he had always wanted to go down in history, just like Augustus.

The names of battles where the French had been victorious were written on its pillars, alongside even more relief sculptures of those battles.

This was a monument in both words and art to the military conquests and glories of Napoleon and his country.

But it wasn’t all about him. The internal walls of the Arc de Triomphe were also inscribed with the names of generals who had served the French Empire.

And another one of the main sculptures, called the Peace of 1815, memorialises Napoleon’s abdication.

Unlike those Roman triumphal arches, this one tells the full story of the man it remembers, including his eventual defeat and downfall.

In 1920 an unidentified soldier was interred alongside an eternal flame as a memorial to the millions who had died during the endless catastrophe that was the First World War.

A sign that the Arc was about more than Napoleon or Revolution.

And now the Arc de Triomphe has become a globally recognised symbol, which is probably what Napoleon hoped for.

Except that its original purpose — to glorify his military victories — has been supplanted by its status as a monument to all of France rather than just one man.