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Showing posts with the label crypt

Napoleon Bonaparte I and the Tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides in Paris

Les Invalides is a fascinating tourist attraction in Paris with many museums, fantastic architecture, amazing history and others to keep you entertained but one of the things you can also visit is the famous Tomb of Napoleon. A bit of history on the well known emperor can help give an insight to the past history and what happened before we move onto the crypt or the tomb of Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte I was from the island, Corsica, born in 1769 he was educated in military school and soon made his way through the ranks until he was commander of the French army in Italy, where he forced Austria and their allies to make peace. Some years later a new threat loomed when Russia and Austria allied with Britain and Bonaparte returned to Paris as the government were in a crisis. The year 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte I defeated the Austrians and negotiated a peace treaty, making France have the controlling power over Europe.. Thanks to that victory he was made a Consul for life and saw the maki

From basilica to The Pantheon that became a famous burial place

Back in 507AD King Clovis converted to Christianity and decided to build a basilica on the very site where The Pantheon stands today and Saint Genevieve, who was the patron saint of Paris that protected the city from the barbarians, was buried in this basilica in 512AD. This meant that the basilica and further churches were dedicated to Saint Genevieve and in 1744 after King Louis XV had been seriously ill, he attributed his recovery to the prayers of Saint Genevieve and decided that he would have a prestigious church built on the same spot as the original basilica dedicated to her. So, in 1755 the design for the new basilica was entrusted to Jacques-Germain Soufflot, the chief architect of King Louis, and the overall design was that of a Greek cross with a very impressive portico of Corinthian columns, but the then Basilica has a combination of different styles like Greek architecture and also a Gothic system that utilised flying buttresses and arches to make it as light as possible