Triumph is what Napoleon asked for, and triumph is what he got. The Arc de Triomphe is a monumental slab of architecture, commissioned by the Emperor in 1806 to glorify his victories. But it has since taken on a life of its own. While this grand arch was to be a marker of Napoleon's battlefield successes, in the 200 years since its foundations were laid, it has been a monument to peace, defeat and personal loss, as well as victory. Leaders, enemies and armies of four French Republics have paraded underneath (or around) its 49-metre high arch.
You can walk around and underneath its pillars too, for free. But the best view to be had, from the terrasse at the top, requires a ticket. Here you can look beyond the river of traffic swarming at its base, to the City of Light beyond, lying in the curls of the Seine to the south and east. The arch sits on the north-west end of the Champs-Élysées, in a twelve-pointed star of roads. Although Napoleon wanted the arch for his victorious armies to march through, he never got to see them. Final defeat caught up with him in 1815, before the arch was even half-finished. It was only completed in 1836, under the King Louis-Philippe.
Since then, it has been intertwined with the rise and fall of the French nation. In 1840, Napoleon's remains were returned from exile, and he finally got to pass under his arch. Then in 1871, the victorious Prussian army marched beneath, so sealing their defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian war. According to legend, a sword carried by the 'Republic' on the Marseillaise relief dropped to the ground, the moment the guns started the Battle of Verdun in 1916.
And gloriously, the Americans and Free French forces also paid a visit when they liberated the city from German occupation in 1944. More solemnly, the Arc de Triomphe is the final resting place of the unknown Warrior, commemorating the sacrifice of two generations of France in the First and Second World Wars, and sheltering the Eternal Flame of Remembrance. France continues to parade the pride of its fighting forces past the arch every Bastille Day, when the nation recalls the glory days of the French Revolution. Napoleon would no doubt be pleased.
