Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.

We are so lucky.

Today we have the great Charles McKay joining us once again.

How are you, Charles?

Good.

John, how are you?

Thanks for inviting me back.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's my pleasure.

For those of you don't know Charles, one of our most popular guests of all time on this show, he's been here many times.

And for the uninitiated, Charles, for anyone who's not heard you before, did you talk about your educational background with Napoleon and, you know, Florida State and all that good stuff?

Sure.

So I did my PhD in Florida State, where the Institute of French Revolution and Napoleonic Studies is.

I graduated with a PhD there in 95 under the direction of Doctor Donald Horward.

And I spent most of my research time on General Juno, who spent a lot of time in the Peninsula.

And then I taught at several universities on and off, and then retired from there.

And I'm a businessman, yeah.

Yeah, well, we're happy to have Charles on the show.

Really good insights.

Today we're going to discuss something that may seem macabre, but it's actually very fascinating and I think it just shows respect to Napoleon, which is Napoleons funeral.

And this is I don't, I don't think even the organizers of the event could predicted how many people turned up.

Don't you agree, Charles?

Yeah, absolutely.

There were.

There were hundreds of thousands of people between the Normandy coast and and Paris, perhaps millions of folks that came out for the procession.

Right.

Which is amazing because he hadn't been in France, Napoleon in what, 25 years?

I mean, this was 1840.

Correct.

He was exiled in 1815.

So just amazing that that many people showed up.

But we'll get into that.

So I kind of want to walk through how we got to this point.

So following his defeat at Waterloo in his final abdication, Napoleon is banished for life on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

Can you give us an idea of how remote and isolated St.

Helena is?

So it's it's literally in the middle of the South Atlantic.

It's thousands of miles from Brazil and about 1500 miles from from South Africa.

It wasn't until very, very recently, within the last decade, that they have an airport that would take commercial flights to Saint Helena.

So it is a lonely rock in the middle of the Atlantic that the British used primarily to to refit and resupply ships that might have gotten damaged, or in this case, to exile Napoleon.

Right.

And the allies learned like we can't have him on Saint on Elba.

Yeah, the first Isle of Exile did not work.

No, no.

He was not getting out of Saint Helena, though.

No, no, no, that did not work.

But after six years of declining health, the Emperor dies in May 1821, and I know his will request that his remains be buried.

Quote.

On the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people whom I love so much.

End Quote.

So why was he originally buried in Saint Helena and not France?

Well, bluntly, the Bourbons had no the restored Bourbons had no interest in bringing Napoleon back to France.

The British were rather indifferent at that point.

They didn't much care, but the Bourbons had had less than 0 interest in bringing Napoleon back to to Paris.

Is that just I mean the guy is dead but is that just cause of the ideas he stood for or people would copy him?

Yeah, absolutely.

The restoration had not been popular in in France, which of course is why Napoleon came back in 18/18/15 and then France was occupied by the Allied powers for three years after that, which which wasn't popular at all.

A lot of that frustration was was bent against the Bourbons.

A lot of the ideas of the revolution have been overrun or ignored by the Bourbon restoration.

People were not happy with the situation, so the Bourbons did not want to introduce a possible rallying point.

Rallying figure even dead back-to-back to Paris.

Right.

And as we'll get to later, there's other branches of the Bonaparte family that could claim.

Sure, and we're right and we're trying to claim the throne.

Yes, absolutely.

OK, so it is clear that Napoleon's remains won't be repatriated while the Borbons are on the French throne.

But what happens in July 1830?

And who is King Louis Philippe so?

There was a wave of revolutions that swept throughout Europe in 1830, not just in France, but in in modern day Belgium and Poland and Italy, in different parts of Europe.

A good chunk of 19th century history, particularly the first half of the 19th century, it throughout Europe is is spent making some sense of what happened during the French Revolution and a sense that that power came from people rather than from some divine authority, or at least that's what they're trying to work out.

And a lot of promises, a lot of the advances in the revolution were were actively undone by the Bourbons or similar governments in in other states in Europe and in France in particular, it was the working classes, particularly Parisians, that led a revolt that eventually overturned the Bourbons and brought in Louis Philippe to form what they called not affectionately but not affectionately, the July monarchy.

Because the revolutions happened in in July of 1830.

And Louis Philippe, coming from a cadet branch of the Bourbons, was placed on the on the throne in France with the the sort of provides us that he adopt A number of liberal reforms, including an expansion of the franchise, although it wasn't expanded that much.

About 1% of the total population could vote, which of course wasn't that great, but at least freedom of the press was introduced and, and there could be opposition parties and things.

So there was some, I mean there were some, there were some reforms that that that stuck.

Well, and the other thing he seemed more respectful of Napoleon's memory and Napoleon's soldiers and marshals.

Well, he certainly wasn't overtly hostile as the Bourbons had been.

A lot of the Marshals had been exiled.

Some of them deserved it, but others did not.

The Bonaparte family, of course, are all exiled from France.

And, you know, if you're a soldier who fought in the French armies because it was your duty, or at least that's what you felt like, you know, there was a measure of, of perceived and gratefulness.

Why don't we say, yeah, from the Bourbon Restoration that that wasn't there under the July Monarchy, but I don't want to go too far with that.

I wouldn't say that the July monarchy, you know, has a full on embracing of Napoleonic values and and Napoleonic veterans and soldiers and things.

Right, right.

And it takes about 10 years, but King Louis Philippe's policy of regaining quote all the glories of France End Quote gets the wheels in motion to return Napoleon's body to France.

Was this just APR move by Louis Philippe to gain favor amongst the masses?

Like was his popularity waning at this point?

Well, it it, you know, the prime mover in this really isn't Louis Philippe.

It's his chief minister at the time, Adolph Tierre.

And Tierre has a storied history throughout France.

He starts as a journalist.

He's a liberal.

He was a prolific historian.

He wrote a 10 volume history of the revolution, which he had started during the Bourbon Restoration, which that in the itself was an act of, of political courage.

And then he would go on and write 20 volumes of history on the Napoleonic era.

So Tier is the one who's really sort of pushing Louis Philippe to let's bring Napoleon's ashes back.

And in fact, when he's the Prime Minister, he takes it on his own initiative to write to the British and say, you know, we we'd really like to have, you know, the remains of Napoleon repatriated to, to France.

The British, somewhat comically, Lord Palmerston replied in in a letter to one of his friends that this was quote, the most French idea ever, which I thought was kind of hilarious.

So the British are fine with it.

Whatever they don't.

Yeah, they don't really care.

And finally, Tierre convinces Louis Philippe that that this would be a good idea.

Now, part of this is because the July monarchy is not especially popular.

Louis Philippe does not inspire a lot of passion, a lot of loyalty.

There's not a lot of dynamism or or creativity coming out of this period.

Francis increasingly finding itself isolated diplomatically because of some of the foreign interventions that have not worked.

The conquest of Algeria is taking forever.

They get bogged down in the in an Egyptian crisis where France is on one side and all the rest of the European powers are on the other.

So this seems like a great time to, in a sense, get a, get a shot in the arm, get some, get some glory, or at least get reminded of of, you know, France's.

Heyday.

That's a really good point.

Let's distract the masses with something nice about the heyday.

You know, let's make a big deal of this and let's not focus on our colonial disasters going on.

Or potential colonial disasters in the case of Egypt.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the French ministers then introduced a bill to authorize 1,000,000 francs in funding for the construction of a tomb.

I know the town of Saint Denis petitions that he be buried there because that's the traditional burial place of French kings.

How does he Napoleon end up in lacing Villade in Paris then?

You know, that's actually quite interesting.

They have a long discussion.

The ministers, there was a council of 12 set up to kind of put together in a sense of a plan or at least discuss some options.

And they considered a lot of places.

They considered the the von Dome, the Plasta von Dome in Paris and the Church of the Madeleine.

But it was thought that both of those locations were were too central Paris and they did not want a natural sort of meeting, gathering spot for Bonapartists.

Gathering Place.

Right in the heart of of Paris.

And so those two were rejected.

As to Santani, Santani very much got a Bourbon association with it.

Your listeners will no doubt recall that during the revolution, you know, revolutionary storm Sultani and cut the heads off of all of the statues.

So there was definitely some symbolic overload with Sultani.

And also Louis Philippe was a little concerned, as were some of the, the critics of this plan that put it in Sultani, that they didn't want to give Bonaparte any legitimacy, any legitimacy by tying him to French Bourbon kings.

So ultimately, they, they rejected Sultani.

They, they actually considered burying him at the arc of Arc de Triomphe, but both for logistical reasons that that didn't seem like a good idea.

And they also thought that it would make future military parades a little awkward and difficult because, you know, here you're, you're, are you having a parade because you're celebrating this victory?

Or are we we we celebrating Napoleon again?

Right and.

There were actually some French deputies who who complained or or that the the arc of triumph itself was it was too much of A Pagan symbol because of its, you know, Roman arch.

I think Les Symbolitas is an interesting spot though, because, I mean, they probably literally still had Napoleonic veterans.

I mean, it's a military hospital originally.

Yeah, absolutely.

Marshall Monsey is the governor of it, so I think it's a nice touch, yeah.

They consider one other they they actually consider the July column, which is in the Place de Bastille, where of course the Bastille was.

But you know, Napoleon had no connection really with with the July Revolution.

That monument had only been finished, by the way, in 1840.

And it was Louis Philippe who had commissioned its its place there at at Bastille.

So eventually they decide Les on the lead for all the reasons that you just mentioned.

And I think the one that appealed to the most, well, the two reasons that appealed most.

First of all, at least on the lead, they can they can restrain Napoleon to strictly a military, you know, sort of realm.

And then also at the time, it would be hard to believe this if you've been to Paris recently, it was kind of still out in the boonies.

I mean, it wasn't boonies, boonies, but I mean, you had to go there on purpose that it wasn't, it wasn't in the heart of town like like you would consider today.

It also did happen to be on the banks of the Seine because you know, the Esplanade, the green stretches all the way out to the Seine and that that Mansard Dome that's on liaison believe, you know, gilt and gold, I mean, can be seen throughout the city.

So nobody could accuse them of treating Napoleon shabbily.

Right, right.

And there's a church there like it, you know, it has everything you need.

It checked all the boxes.

It also could be gated, which was handy.

So the French government felt like it could control access to the tomb.

So instead of, you know, having throngs of hero worshippers come, you know, that that they could sort of control the crowds a little bit.

So that's the political calculation that made liaison lead the the right place.

OK.

Well, things began moving quickly.

Now, who does the King send to Saint Hana to retrieve the Emperor's remains?

Well.

He sends his own son, the Duke of Jean Vie, who happened to be a naval officer.

So this was a good person to send.

And they send a frigate out to Saint Helena to go retrieve the remains.

And on this frigate is not only the King's son, but two or several former officers who have been with Napoleon during his exile.

They don't actually beat it to Saint Helena as quickly as possible.

They they take their time, especially in the Mediterranean and some of the more pleasant ports.

At least initially, it was rather more of a pleasure cruise and a partying time.

I know, but like that General Bertrand already spent six years of his life on this island with Napoleon, and now he has to go back there.

I mean that that I guess he just shows his dedication to him.

He would not have been deterred.

He, he was a, of all of the members of the cortege, he would be the one, he was the one that was most emotionally attached to Napoleon.

So he he was not going to be, he wasn't going to not go.

Well, the the group leaves July 1840, and the voyage, as you mentioned, is a long one.

They make a few stops, it's 93 days, but they reach Saint Helena in October 1840.

How does the exhumation go?

It seems like Napoleon's body was immediately recognizable.

Yeah, and typical for someone of his stature, he was buried in multiple coffins.

The first one was bronze, and then they had one that was mahogany.

And then there was one that was lead.

When they finally, you know, unsoldered the lead and and, and took the sarcophagus top off, the initial reaction was that it was nothing in there but a white BLOB, which initially excited some fears that maybe the British had stolen the body or he was of London or whatever.

But it was actually just the SAT sealed top of the that had fallen onto the onto the body.

And when they unrolled the the satin cover they found the emperors body remarkably well intact.

His eyes were still closed and and yes, he was immediately recognizable.

Yeah, they they depart Saint Helena and they arrive back in France in December 1840.

The reburial is scheduled for December 15th.

And despite some freezing temperatures, how many people line up along the funeral procession route?

Because as you mentioned, they got to get to a port and then and then I think it's a horse drawn carriage all the way back in, right?

But if, if you'll permit me, I want to back up just a, a minute because as the ship is going to Saint Helena, some stuff happens that that sort of clouds this whole thing.

So out of the blue, Louie Napoleon the the son of Louie who who's going to be eventually Napoleon third tries to stage a military coup in August of 1840.

So he lands it belong with a handful of soldiers and tries to get the military Garrison there to come to his side so they can overthrow Louis Philippe.

The Garrison refuses.

It was a bit of a clown show.

God bless Lou Napoleon.

He had attached, he's sort of fastened to the epaulets of his jacket a couple of eagles because those are the symbols of the Napoleonic regime.

And as the troops approach him on the beach, the eagles get spooked and and, you know, try and fly away.

Well, these are big birds.

So they're dragging Louie Napoleon through the sand.

So it's a bit of a comedy.

He's arrested.

He is taken to the Conciergerie in in Paris, put on trial, found guilty of trying to overthrow the government, and sentenced to life in prison in in Ham, which, spoiler alert, he'll escape from in the not too distant future.

But then, and it was also in between, when the ship, you know, has left for Saint Helena and gets back.

The Egyptian crisis is bubbling to the top, and so suddenly the government is like.

Right.

Yeah, like maybe this wasn't a good idea.

Not a good idea.

Tier, who had been the Prime Minister, gets dismissed because of his handling of the Egyptian affair.

Gizo takes over, who is not a Napoleon fan.

But they've already made the announcements.

They've already set the wheels in motion.

In fact, the French deputies, you mentioned $1,000,000, which was the initial, initial proposal.

They, they increased that to 2,000,000.

So I mean, the public is all anticipating this.

Now the ship has left.

They made a big deal of it.

So now the government is like, what are we?

What are we?

What are we going to do?

Well, that's a big I mean, $2,000,000 in that time was a lot of money and it still is.

And at this point, they really didn't have a choice.

I mean, they had to go with the through with the process.

So the preparations are rushed.

They're not handled with a lot of reverence.

Interesting.

A lot of the decorations that are set up, all of them are temporary.

They're made of plaster and of wood and of canvas because the government doesn't want to make a permanent memorial of his return other than the tune at this point, they just want to do this thing and get out of it as quickly as they can.

Yeah, there's a great artwork, I think it's called Retour Descendses.

It's like Napoleon's body being removed from the boat and brought ashore and it's just a beautiful piece of our not the post of when we do this episode.

And actually that some of the decorations that they had planned are not fully complete because the weather had been so awful, not just the temperatures, it was one of the colder winters France had had experienced, but also the winds were pretty intense.

So they had plans for, for, for some pretty impressive decorations, but ultimately a lot of them were scaled back because of weather and just because of the government's sort of lack of enthusiasm.

However, and you hinted to this, this is not a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the public.

The public was quite enthused about this.

And all the way from Normandy, the Norman coast where Napoleon arrived, up the sand towards Paris, crowds lined the river.

They they they were on all of the bridges.

Big, big, big crowds.

Yeah, And I've read, you know, some say it was 100,000, others say it was a million people lining the route.

Was this.

Does this just speak to Napoleon's popularity, fame, or just respect for the glory days of France?

You know from from the contemporary accounts, you know, if you put these in like a polling thing, what what seems to be the biggest driver?

I think curiosity was, was probably at the top, but then at that point it it, it sort of deviates because the, the lower classes in general were far more enthusiastic about the return of Napoleon's remains and lined the streets everywhere along the route and sometimes getting there hours and hours and hours before just to make sure they had a good viewing point.

So I think the lower classes were, were far more enthusiastic about the return.

The middle class was a little bit more guarded because, you know, the July monarchy, that's their people, right?

If, if there was pressure as, as we get towards the 1848 revolutions to expand the, the, you know, his franchise, expand the right to vote.

Gizo basically said, well, if you want to, you want to vote, get rich.

So, you know, for the middle classes, they were happy with the way things were going.

There was a little boomlet of, of economic activity between 1837 and 1840 in France.

Industrialism is just starting in France.

So they're kind of happy with the way things are.

They don't want to get the lower classes all excited and, and worked up.

And of course they don't want their their economic prospects ruined.

And then the upper classes are really not enthusiastic about this return at all.

Yeah, just interesting that so many people turned out in awful weather to to line the streets for hours just to see a glimpse.

Accounts did have though, I mean it did mention there there was a mixing of the of the of the different classes.

Especially in Paris, on the route you would, you would find people of humble origins and and you know who work for a living along with, you know, industrialists who did not standing next to each other watching the processions or cheering or just looking at a curiosity sake.

Well, you wonder also.

I mean, there's a whole generation of Frenchmen and Parisians who were not alive when Napoleon was around.

So maybe just like you said, curiosity.

Well, and, and this is a particularly interesting thing that that historians like to talk about, you know, people's memories get faulty and sometimes people tend to remember what they want to remember.

It's 25 years after the fact.

And what they're remembering is, you know, all the glorious battles and all the successes and all the, you know, soldiers wearing medals on their chests with pride.

Never mind the fact that millions were killed and and millions more remained and injured and and never made whole again.

Right.

They they, they choose not to remember Paris falling to the Allies or, you know, the Dark Times.

You know, a lot of the institutions that the revolutions have promoted, that the revolution are promoted and that Napoleon had had continued, you know, still existed.

And, you know, they still have departments.

The education system is what Napoleon set up, the tax system, the religious settlements, all of this stuff had been preserved through the restorations.

So they're obviously aware of all the contributions that Napoleon made to modern day France.

Yeah.

But then you layer on that glory, you know, and all of that success or perceived success misremembered, you know, success or success that was bought at a really dear price for lots of families in France.

That part, that part got a little hazy.

You know they don't remember that as as as well.

Yeah, you know, rose colored glasses after a few decades, Yeah.

Yeah, the funeral procession itself, I mean, it goes through the Arc de Triomphe.

It comes all the way down the Champs Liza into the Place de la Concord, which is where they'd set up the guillotine, where the king and queen had been executed.

It then crosses the sand towards liaison bleed.

I think that part's nice because Napoleon had a big hand in design or redesigning the city of Paris.

And so they're just crowds all along that way.

And, you know, the military veterans that were still alive, you know, they dig their uniforms out of out of trunks that they probably haven't put on in in, in at this point maybe decades.

And you know, they're wearing them some pride and and you know, for them, this is an apotheosis.

Yeah, I've read that like the Imperial Guard had like threadbare uniforms that they put on.

Absolutely.

There were art, spectacles and things which compared Napoleon to Jesus as a savior.

I mean, the Napoleonic legend, you know, really started it with a publication, Lacostas, when he published Napoleon's memoirs in 1821.

So the myth of Napoleon had grown to just incredible proportions.

When he died in 1821, there was a boom of, of people wanted to acquire anything associated with Napoleon, you know, hats or, or whatever Napoleon had at that point.

So there was tremendous nostalgia.

And you know, our, our English friends will, will talk about the Napoleonic myth run amok at this point, which it, which it had, I mean, it, it, it was in a full fevered pitch, which is why Louis Philippe and the government are really like, I don't know, do we want to do this?

Yeah, well, the procession arrives at Lazing Believe around 1:30 PM, which are of Napoins.

Marshalls are president because I know Doctor Larry, the famous Army surgeon, is there.

Like we discussed, Imperial Guard members are there.

Do we know who is there?

You know, this is a little bit harder to nail down.

Seoul is certainly there because he's, he's the titular Prime Minister.

So he's, he's definitely there.

And Muncie, God bless him, he's 86 years old, the governor of Liaison Bolid, He's he's mostly restricted to a wheelchair.

Is there.

In fact, you know, he begged his doctors to make Herculean efforts to keep him alive so that he could participate in this ceremony.

Who'd know?

God bless him, Another one that you would not, you know, 30 some odd wounds.

And and there he is welcoming the emperor back.

And then Marshall Grushy is also there, although a lot of his contemporary still blamed him for, you know, the loss at Waterloo.

So he was received a little coolly.

And Victor Marshall.

Victor was in Paris.

He doesn't die until 1841, and he was in Paris at the time, but he was not welcome and did not attend.

Yeah, nor did any members of the Bonaparte family, because of course they were all exiled.

And Marshall Marmont was not there.

No, no, famously, Marshall Marmont would not have been there.

Yeah, the Duke of Argusa not welcomed.

No, not welcome.

He never returned to France after his exile.

I think there's an interesting I mean, this just shows the emotion of the event.

King Louis Philippe as a general, Bertrand to place the Emperor's sword upon his coffin.

But Bertrand is too overcome with emotion, right?

Yeah, and it's funny that you mentioned that in this context because a lot of the contemporary memoirs talk about how, in a sense unemotional this whole process was.

Because frankly, apart from these Marshalls, there's nobody there that frankly gives a damn about Napoleon.

The Prince, the son of the king, was supposed to give a speech, but apparently nobody told him he was supposed to give a speech.

So they looked at him to give a speech and he's like, so I mean, he got up and mumbled a few things.

Well, you, you think 25 years later, like, like how many people at the event actually knew Napoleon personally?

It's probably very few.

And it's just such a stark contrast between the the love and, and curiosity and attention that that all of those onlookers gave him as the, you know, Cortage approaches.

And then how shabbily, in a sense, the actual the the ceremony itself lasted about an hour.

Bertrand was the only one who really showed any real emotion.

So, you know, the the sort of Napoleon that he wore at Marengo and Austerlitz was was going to be laid on the coffin and, and Bertrand just just couldn't, couldn't bring himself to do it.

What?

Marshall Montse famously says afterwards quote and now let us go home to die and quote.

And I, I, I think this is the end of 1 great era, which is Napoleon's, but it's kind of the start of Napoleon the third coming soon, right?

Like it's a weird in between between the two Napoleon's.

Yeah, God bless Marshall Muncie.

So 86 years old in a wheelchair.

When, when the, when the casket arrives, when the, the, you know, the coffin arrives, he tries to stand and he just can't do it.

He falls back into the chair.

But after the priest has sprinkled some holy water, he was able to get himself out of the chair and also sprinkled some holy water.

And that's where he says the and now let us go home to die, which, you know, would have been a great movie thing if the next day or two he would have in fact died.

But in fact, he lasted another 15 months.

Right, Right.

But nevertheless, you could say that's a closing of a chapter.

The problem is that the tomb wasn't ready for Napoleon yet.

He's shunted off into a side Chapel.

And it's really not until 1861, when the tomb itself is completed, that finally, you know, this body gets to remain in peace.

Yeah, you and I have been lucky enough to to visit Napoleon's tomb in Paris.

For those who haven't been, could you describe Lay, Simbelid and and the Tomb to us?

I'll try.

It's an impressive structure, as you might imagine that the thing I think is most remarkable about it is that the, the tomb in a sense, you, you walk in on the ground level and you, you do mount some steps, but then there's a large circle.

Well, I think is the best way to say it, where Napoleon's tomb is set into that well.

And you know, we're talking here probably 304050 feet down.

And, and then there's a sarcophagus made of, of granite from Russia.

It's, it's red in color.

It's it, it's very striking on a, on a huge pedestal.

So when you go in and when you first see it, you're in fact looking down on it, which I don't know, caught me off guard when I saw it in my 20s for the first time.

Of course I'd seen pictures.

You know, seeing it in person doesn't do it any justice.

More math than you think it's going to be.

You're like, wow, it's, it's stunning.

And then you are able to, they, they have access where you can go down into the crypt itself.

So you can get the eye level.

And in fact, at that point you're, you're looking up at it because it's, you know, it's on so many platforms and, and things, and it's surrounded by statues of, of, you know, signs of French military glory and, and things of that, of that nature.

It, it's far more impressive looking at it from above than it is, I think on, on ground level.

But then when you, when you're on, on the ground level, they have side chapels and in the side chapels are also buried or interred.

Some of France's greatest military officers, Wilbon, who designed all those Wilbon fortresses, which are such a feature in Western European siege warfare.

Turin is there.

Yeah, I think Jerome and Jerome Bonaparte is there, and I think his son Napoleon 2 is there as well.

Yeah, so it's it's an impressive structure.

And then that's just part of that.

That's the tomb itself that lays on the lead today is France's military History Museum from, you know, medieval's where they got rooms and rooms and rooms, and I mean rooms and rooms and rooms of medieval armor.

There's a great statue when you walk in of Napoleon, like looking down in the courtyard at you and it's it's just very striking.

Yeah, and they have artillery pieces, of course, and they have that famous breastplate to the Corossier at the Waterloo that you know, the the cannon shot through the breastplate.

Yeah.

It's a it's a stunning museum.

You you could spend as much time there or as little time there as you want.

It's, yeah, it's there's a like there's a Chapel there.

You can hang out in there and see some of the captured standards, I think on the ceiling.

It's just a neat place.

Yeah, a lot of the the Napoleonic flags captured from enemies, particularly the Austrians are are there.

Well, yeah.

And I think like Charles mentioned, you could, you could zip through it in maybe an hour or two or you could spend all the day there.

It's there's, there's a lot to do there.

Sure.

And I the most moving portion of it, besides the tomb itself, the World War One portion of that museum, it's sort of overwhelming.

So I would recommend to your to your listeners, if they have not been and if they've not spent any time at the World War One portion of of the History Museum, it lays on the lead, then then they should do that.

OK, well, Charles, we thank you for that.

I appreciate the the overview of Napoleon's funeral.

I thought it was a just a unique event that I want to make sure I covered and, you know, give my proper respect to the emperor on his his burial.

So thank you for that.

Sure, absolutely.

For those of you who don't know Charles all that well, wanna follow him, you can follow his Blue Sky account.

It's a Bubbles vampire on Blue Sky, and I recommend you check that out as well.

And Charles, Yeah, we thank you as always, my friend.

Appreciate it, John.

Thanks for having me on.