History

article | Reading time5 min

History of the monument

The Legion of Honour, a dream of conquest, a symbol of power... Discover the history of the Grande Armée column, a key witness to Napoleon's epic in the heart of the Boulonnais region!

Camp de Boulogne and the Legion of Honour

Following the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens signed in 1802, Napoleon planned to invade England, and from 1803 regrouped his imperial army at Boulogne-sur-Mer with this aim in mind. While shipyards all over France were busy building the necessary fleet, tens of thousands of soldiers gathered at the Camp de Boulogne.

Napoléon au camp de Boulogne

© Reproduction Patrick Cadet / Centre des monuments nationaux

On 16 August 1804, the day after his birthday, the emperor awarded the Légion d'Honneur to two thousand soldiers. It was only the second award ceremony for this decoration, created in 1802, and the first on this scale.

It was the day after the ceremony that Marshal Soult conveyed to Napoleon the soldiers' wish to erect a marble column at their own expense to commemorate these events. An inaugural stone was laid in November 1804.

Programme de la Fête de Saint-Napoléon

© Reproduction Patrick Cadet / Centre des monuments nationaux

A column to the glory of power! Yes, but which one?

In 1805, following the coalition between England, Russia and Austria, the imperial army finally left for the Rhine, and construction work came to a halt. Work resumed from 1809 to 1811, when the Empire fell, but the column only rose to a height of around twenty metres.

Completed between 1819 and 1821 under the Restoration, the fifty-metre-high edifice was crowned with the Globe of Legitimacy to the glory of the monarchy in 1823.

It was not until the July Monarchy that the Empire was rehabilitated, and a monumental statue of Napoleon in coronation robes was commissioned from the sculptor François-Joseph Bosio. Made of bronze, it was installed in 1841 and is the one that can be seen today in the Musée de la colonne, located at the entrance to the monument's grounds.

Colonne de la Grande Armée, vue de l'avenue de la Colonne

© Benjamin Gavaudo / Centre des monuments nationaux

And in the XXᵉ century?

Classified as a historic monument by decree on 31 March 1905, the Grande Armée column nevertheless suffered the torments of contemporary history. At the end of the Second World War, the column and statue were badly damaged by shells and fighting during the liberation of Boulogne in September 1944.

The sculpture was removed and replaced in 1962 by a statue by Pierre Stenne, an artist from Boulogne, showing Napoleon in the uniform of a colonel of the Guard, a statue that is still in place today. In 1984, the Bosio statue was moved to one of the two pavilions at the entrance to the site, specially designed to house it.

Colonne de la Grande Armée, statue de Napoléon en tenue de petit caporal

© Benjamin Gavaudo / Centre des monuments nationaux