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
Napoleon and Protestants payroll. There had been only forty-eight ministers in France in 1750, all practising underground because it was a capital offence to preach in a Protestant church. The presidents of twenty-seven Reformed consistories were present when Bonaparte was crowned Emperor Napoleon I in 1804. By the end of his reign, Napoleon had 137 Reformed pastors in his pay. With the expansion of the First French Empire and the direct incorporation of the Netherlands, as well as western and northwestern German regions, France was now in possession of vast Protestant majority areas. As a result of Napoleon's actions, French Protestants generally considered