Paris under Napoleon Each of the twelve arrondissements had its own mayor, but their power was limited to enforcing the decrees of Napoleon's ministers. After he crowned himself Emperor on December 2, 1804, Napoleon began a series of projects to make Paris into an imperial capital to rival ancient Rome. He built monuments to French military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the column in Place Vendôme, and the future church of the Madeleine, intended as a temple to military heroes; and began the Arc de Triomphe. To improve the circulation of traffic in central Paris, he built a wide new
Imperial Guard (Napoleon III) Kearny was attached to a cavalry unit of the Imperial Guard at the 1859 Battle of Solferino. Imperial Guard (Napoleon III) The Imperial Guard of Napoleon III was a military corps in the French Army formed by Napoleon III as a re-establishment of his uncle Napoleon I's Imperial Guard, with an updated version of the original uniforms and almost the same privileges. The Imperial Guard was formed by a decree of the emperor on 1 May 1854, and was made up of 17 regiments of cavalry, artillery and infantry, squadrons of train (supply and administration) and mounted gendarmes, and a