The French Revolution spanned from 1789 to 1799. It was a period of fundamental political and social change that removed the monarchy and the feudal system. However, it got off to a rocky start. After only four years the Reign of Terror began. This brutal one year period saw mass executions of suspected counter-revolutionaries. Approximately 17,000 people were executed by guillotine or other means. An additional 10,000 to 20,000 people died in prison or were killed without a trial, bringing the total death toll to 30,000 to 50,000. In 1793 the guillotine also claimed the heads of the last King, Louis XVI, and last Queen, Marie Antoinette. So the revolution got rid of the King, executed tens of thousands of citizens, and then gave the people an Emperor in place of the King. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in November 1799.

Napoleon is revered in France. That can be sensed in the first photo above, a sculpture of Napoleon that is just a short distance from the sarcophagus that contains his remains. Napoleon died in exile on a remote island in 1821. His remains were not repatriated to France until 1840, after a decree by King Louis-Philippe (and you thought the French got rid of Kings!). The massive sarcophagus, seen in the middle photo above, contains a series of six nested coffins: one of tin, one of mahogany, two of lead, one of ebony, and finally the thick outer stone sarcophagus.

Napoleon’s Tomb is visited by 1.5 million people each year. Visitors can walk around the massive red quartz sarcophagus, which is surrounded by 12 colossal statues of victory and a floor mosaic depicting Napoleon’s greatest military campaigns. One such visitor came on June 28, 1940. He visited Paris for two days, and was taken by Napoleon’s Tomb. In his white raincoat, surrounded by his generals, Adolf Hitler stood for a long time gazing down at his hero, his cap removed in deference. He was said later to have described this moment as “one of the proudest of my life.” The next day, during his official sightseeing tour of Paris, Hitler again visited Napoleon's tomb to salute him. The famous photograph of him staring down into the crypt was taken by his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, as a piece of Nazi propaganda (it is the third photo above - the first two are mine).