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Groupe du Louvre or Louvre Hotel Group is a French company operating several hotel brands with over 1700 locations headquartered in La Défense in Nanterre , France .

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83-767: The luxury hotels division (previously known as Société du Louvre) can trace its origins to a company founded on 26 March 1855 to operate Les Galeries du Louvre, later Grands Magasins du Louvre , a department store and the Grand Hôtel du Louvre . These shared a large building on the Place du Palais Royal in Paris, France. The company was owned by the American investment company Starwood Capital Group following its earlier purchase of Société du Louvre in December 2005. Since 2009,

166-414: A Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and a Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The new constitution was approved by plebiscite on 7 February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that

249-716: A Seventh Coalition , which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Napoleon is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the modernizing legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, embodied in

332-525: A coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on 4 September—the Coup of 18 Fructidor . This left Barras and his republican allies in control again but more dependent upon Bonaparte who finalized peace terms with Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio . Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand , France's Foreign Minister, and took command of

415-687: A basement, the street level and the first floor. It also hosted occasional temporary exhibitions. The upper floors were commercialized as an office building, the Centre d'Affaires Le Louvre , with tenants that included the Ministry of Finance , Bank of France , Crédit Lyonnais , Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur , Industrial Bank of Japan , and U.S. Embassy . In 1987, the Louvre des Antiquaires opened an offshoot in New York City , but that

498-445: A combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under a promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics. Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across

581-502: A commercial mall with 41 luxury shops at the time of inauguration. Much of it was taken by Les Galeries du Louvre , the second modern department store in Paris after Le Bon Marché which had opened in 1852, which opened on 9 July 1855. The Galeries was operated by Alfred Chauchard  [ fr ] , who had previously been a clerk at a store named Au Pauvre Diable with a salary of 25 Francs per month, and his partners Auguste Hériot  [ fr ] and Léonce Faré, through

664-737: A commercial venture formed on 26 March 1855 that rented the space from the Pereires' landlord entity, itself renamed in 1858 the Compagnie immobilière de Paris . Faré withdrew in 1857 and the company became Chauchard, Hériot et Compagnie , in which the Pereires took shares in the early 1860s. In 1863, the mall was rebranded as the Grands Magasins du Louvre . In 1865, it realised 15 million in sales and 41 million ten years later. It employed about 2,400 people, and Chauchard and Hériot became extremely rich. Following remodeling that started in

747-484: A complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and

830-667: A group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone , and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Hospitaller Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller . Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with

913-483: A majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution. Historians have variously described Bonaparte's new regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite," "absolutist rule decked out in the spirit of the age," and "soft despotism." Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by

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996-746: A military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition , scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798 which served as a springboard to political power. In November 1799, Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the Directory , and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in

1079-627: A plebiscite since the Revolution. France had regained her overseas colonies under Amiens but did not control them all. The French National Convention had voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, but, in May 1802, Bonaparte reintroduced it in all the recovered colonies except Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe which were under the control of rebel generals. A French military expedition under Antoine Richepanse regained control of Guadeloupe and slavery

1162-566: A series of victories. The Republic, however, was bankrupt and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him. Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of the Council of Five Hundred and Directory: Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché to overthrow

1245-516: A temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee ). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish , Gaza , Jaffa , and Haifa . The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered

1328-584: A typical Corsican of the time. In January 1779, at age 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French (his mother tongue was the Corsican dialect of Italian). Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke with a Corsican accent and his French spelling was poor. In May, he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he

1411-468: The Compagnie de l'Hôtel et des Immeubles de la rue de Rivoli . They directed the construction of the massive urban block along the thoroughfare while Napoleon III's Louvre expansion was being completed across it. They commissioned their customary architect Alfred Armand  [ fr ] , who was assisted for the project by Jacques Ignace Hittorff , Charles Rohault de Fleury and Auguste Pellechet  [ fr ] , and strictly adhered for

1494-643: The Grand Hôtel closed in 1887, the Grands Magasins expanded and kept operating in the building until 1974. From 1978 to 2016 they were succeeded by a specialized mall of antiques shops, the Louvre des Antiquaires , while the upper floors were repurposed as rented office space. Since 2020, the building's lower levels have been undergoing conversion to become the new flagship home of the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain . The completion of

1577-755: The Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise two months later, gave him a pretext to arrest about 100 suspected Jacobins and royalists, some of whom were shot and many others deported to penal colonies. After a decade of war, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Under

1660-577: The Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He was arrested on 9 August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria and, in March 1795, he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by

1743-694: The French Republican calendar —he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (later called: "a whiff of grapeshot "). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family the patronage of the new government, the French Directory . On 26 October, he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796 he

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1826-731: The Gare Saint-Lazare (later Hilton Paris Opéra ), whose hall was designed by Gustave Eiffel . In 1909, the company opened the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde , after its renovation. In 1930, the shares were registered in the official list of the Paris Bourse . In 1909, the Grands Magasins expanded into an annex across rue de Marengo, connected to the main building by an underground passage. In 1914, following

1909-593: The Maison Bonaparte home in Ajaccio , where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. He had an elder brother, Joseph , and, later, six younger siblings: Lucien , Elisa , Louis , Pauline , Caroline , and Jérôme . Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic , under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte . In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione , Nabulio , Napolionne , and Napulione . Napoleon

1992-543: The Napoleonic Code . He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism , emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition , enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests acted as a catalyst for political change and

2075-659: The Peninsular War . In 1809, the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition , in which Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram . In summer 1812, he launched an invasion of Russia , which ended in the catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition , in which Napoleon

2158-775: The Sultan of Mysore , an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent . In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences . His Egyptian expedition included

2241-607: The War of the Second Coalition , and in 1803 sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States . In December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further expanding his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz , which led to the dissolution of

2324-575: The place du Palais-Royal , the rue Saint-Honoré , and the rue de Marengo  [ fr ] , with a total floor surface of 47,000 square meters. It was originally erected in the early 1850s by the Pereire brothers who in 1855 opened an iconic hotel, the Grand Hôtel du Louvre , and an innovative street-level department store , branded from 1863 the Grands Magasins du Louvre . While

2407-486: The rue de Rivoli between the place du Louvre and the place des Pyramides was an early project of Haussmann's renovation of Paris as desired by Napoleon III , and coincided with the preparation of the Exposition Universelle (1855) . The Pereire brothers were eager to contribute and in 1854 established the société immobilière des terrains de la rue de Rivoli , complemented in December 1854 with

2490-608: The Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain. After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the British Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India . Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan ,

2573-413: The Austrians at Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo increased his popularity and political authority. However, he still faced royalist plots and feared Jacobin influence, especially in the army. Several assassination plots, including

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2656-891: The Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben , signed on 18 April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries , and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender , ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark . In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards . The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during

2739-584: The Austrians, laying siege to Mantua . The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione , the Battle of Bassano , the Battle of Arcole , and the Battle of Rivoli . The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The French then invaded

2822-658: The Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland. Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of a coastal battery. In July 1793, he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire ), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was now heavily influenced by the Jacobins. In September, with

2905-596: The French garrison in Ajaccio. In February 1793, Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia . Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent, the French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers and the island was now controlled by Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that

2988-561: The French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon Northern Italy. When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over

3071-664: The Golden Tulip hotels were integrated into the group following their purchase of Golden Tulip Hospitality Group from administration by Starwood Capital. The group previously owned the Paris Hôtel de Crillon but sold it at the end of 2010. The company sold the perfume firm Annick Goutal to the South Korean giant Amore Pacific in 2011. The range of hotel brands was extended in 2009 with the purchase of Golden Tulip Hospitality Group. Groupe du Louvre and Louvre Hotels Group

3154-524: The Grand Hôtel du Louvre as "a huge, palatial edifice, the construction of which cost upwards of 50,000 £." The hotel closed on 1 November 1887 to allow for the expansion of the Grands Magasins du Louvre . In 1888 the Hôtel du Louvre opened on the other side of the Place du Palais Royal, and has remained in the same location since then. As the hotel opened in 1855, the building's street level and mezzanine ( French : entresol ) were devoted to

3237-677: The Holy Roman Empire . In the War of the Fourth Coalition , Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland . Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain , Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking

3320-406: The Italian form "Napoleone di Buonaparte." Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign , he knocked the Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on

3403-421: The Kingdom of Sardinia. The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794, and then advanced to seize Ormea in the mountains. From Ormea, it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge . After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France. After

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3486-409: The Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale. On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile , preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in

3569-445: The Royal Navy. From 1794, Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795, Bonaparte was assigned to the Army of the West , which was engaged in the War in the Vendée —a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general and he pleaded poor health to avoid

3652-436: The Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on 2 June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at Marengo on 14 June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised

3735-404: The Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III . The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post. On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras , a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction , knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of

3818-448: The administrators, and subsequently tasked architect Henry Dubois with its remodeling including the transformation of the main interior courtyards into covered atriums. Initially they kept the hotel in operation, but eventually closed it on 1 November 1887 for another expansion of the department store, which was completed in 1888. After Auguste Hériot died in 1879, his brother Olympe Hériot  [ fr ] inherited his shares of

3901-453: The building while leaving the exterior walls standing. The Canadian pilot, Joe Douglas Hogan, and six crew members were all killed. Repairs and additional structural changes were made in the immediate postwar period. From the mid-1950s, the Société du Louvre started renting out office space in the upper levels to prestige tenants, e.g. IBM , and street-level commercial space to third-party retailers, e.g. Prisunic . On 10 January 1973, it sold

3984-452: The campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures. During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to support

4067-513: The civil rights of women and children in France, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule. Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and his maternal ancestors, the Ramolinos, descended from a noble family from Lombardy . Napoleon's parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino , lived in

4150-403: The company. Chauchard sold his shares in 1885. Olympe in 1887 married Cyprienne Dubernet , a former saleswoman at the store, and directed the company alone until 1888, when first signs of his mental illness forced his resignation. He was succeeded by one of Émile Pereire's sons. In 1889, the company was renamed Société du Louvre and opened a second hotel, the Grand Hotel Terminus in front of

4233-432: The development of nation states . However, he is controversial due to his role in wars which devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and jailed critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in France's colonies except for Haiti , banned the entry of blacks and mulattos into France, reduced

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4316-411: The economy recovering, Bonaparte became increasingly popular, both domestically and abroad. In May 1802, the Council of State recommended a new plebiscite asking the French people to make "Napoleon Bonaparte" Consul for life. (It was the first time his first name was officially used by the regime.) About 3.6 million voted "yes" and 8,374 "no." 40%-60% of eligible Frenchmen voted, the highest turnout for

4399-537: The entire property to the Société de Financement et de Participation Immobilière (FIPARIM), which closed the department store and Prisunic on 15 June 1974. The building was entirely reconstructed by its new owner, with demolition works starting in February 1976, on a design by architect Wladimir Lentzy that only kept from the prior structure the street facades as well as the façades of the westernmost inner courtyard. The Louvre des Antiquaires opened on 26 October 1978 with 240 antiques shops on three levels, namely

4482-439: The external facades to Percier and Fontaine 's stern design guidelines for the rue de Rivoli dating from the time of Napoleon I . The Grand Hôtel du Louvre was inaugurated on 9 July 1855, a few weeks into the Exposition Universelle that had opened on 1 May 1855, but its actual operations only started on 15 October 1855 and reached a steady state in early 1856. Partly inspired by the Great Western Royal Hotel in London , it

4565-424: The facades, to host central offices of the French Ministry of Culture . The Grands Magasins du Louvre, however, suffered from the crisis of the 1930s and their activity declined significantly in 1933–1934. An Avro Lancaster airplane from the No. 57 Squadron RAF , based at RAF East Kirkby , was hit by German flak and crashed into the building on the night of September 23, 1943, causing significant damage inside

4648-411: The forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace . Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat , to seize cannons and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On 5 October 1795— 13 Vendémiaire An IV in

4731-411: The garrison and some 1,500–5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days. Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease—mostly bubonic plague . He failed to reduce the fortress of Acre , so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. Bonaparte

4814-672: The government. On 9 November 1799 ( 18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup, and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls. On 15 December, Bonaparte introduced the Constitution of the Year VIII , under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as First Consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established

4897-464: The heartlands of the House of Habsburg . French forces in Southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben , about 100 km from Vienna,

4980-423: The help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti , Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon which was occupied by British and allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the British to evacuate. The successful assault on

5063-424: The island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789, and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796, Napoleon commanded

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5146-404: The late 1860s, on 17 March 1873 the department store opened an expansion that brought it to a floor surface of 13,700 square meters, which its boasted as the world's largest. Following the difficulties faced by the Pereires in the late 1860s, the Compagnie immobilière de Paris was dissolved on 30 June 1872. On 14 August 1875, Chauchard, Hériot et Compagnie bought the whole building from

5229-429: The loss of only three men. Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks , Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids . Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of

5312-412: The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, but spent long periods of leave in Corsica which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789, he returned to Corsica and promoted the French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence. Bonaparte plunged into

5395-419: The position on 16–17 December led to the capture of the city. Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre , the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre , a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794, he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack

5478-399: The posting. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie , about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. In August, he obtained a position with the Bureau of Topography where he worked on military planning. On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in

5561-547: The redevelopment, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain will use 6,000 square meters on the former footprint of the Louvre des Antiquaires, as a new site branded Fondation Cartier – Louvre Palais Royal . As of late 2022, the opening date was expected in 2024 or 2025. The Grands Magasins du Louvre inspired Émile Zola 's novel Au Bonheur des Dames (1883). Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I ,

5644-536: The school is that he led junior students to victory against senior students in a snowball fight, which allegedly showed his leadership abilities. But the story was only told after Napoleon had become famous. In his later years at Brienne, Napoleon became an outspoken Corsican nationalist and admirer of Paoli. In September 1784, Napoleon was admitted to the École militaire in Paris where he trained to become an artillery officer. He excelled at mathematics, and read widely in geography, history and literature. However, he

5727-428: The start of World War I , part of the complex was repurposed as a military hospital managed by the Val-de-Grâce . In 1919, another annex was created for the expansion of reserve space across rue Saint-Honoré , designed by architect Georges Vaudoyer  [ fr ] . That building was repurposed in 2002–2005 on a design by architect Francis Soler  [ fr ] with a distinctive metal screen in front of

5810-478: The temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber . Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By the time that he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by

5893-570: The treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from most of the colonies it had recently captured from France and her allies, and France agreed to evacuate Naples. In April, Bonaparte publicly celebrated the peace and his controversial Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII under which the Pope recognized Bonaparte's regime and the regime recognized Catholicism as the majority religion of France. In a further step towards national reconciliation (known as "fusion"), Bonaparte offered an amnesty to most émigrés who wished to return to France. With Europe at peace and

5976-682: Was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815. Born on

6059-421: Was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium to speed the retreat. Back in Egypt on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir . Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition . On 24 August 1799, fearing that the Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of

6142-408: Was also a more expensive restaurant, a salon 41 metres (135 ft) in length and a large billiard room . The modern hotel included many bathrooms and twenty lavatories. Another innovative feature was a pair of steam-powered lifts. Félix-Joseph Barrias was commissioned to paint frescoes in the monumental dining room, which was 40 meters long and 30 meters wide. An 1872 Baedeker guide described

6225-573: Was appointed head of the Army of Italy. Within weeks of the Vendémiaire uprising , Bonaparte was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais , the former mistress of Barras. Josephine had been born in the French colonies in the Lesser Antilles , and her family owned slaves on sugar plantations The couple married on 9 March 1796 in a civil ceremony. Bonaparte now habitually styled himself "Napoleon Bonaparte" rather than using

6308-478: Was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France. His father fought alongside Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile in Britain, Carlo became friends with the French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf , who became his patron and godfather to Napoleon. With Mabeuf's support, Carlo

6391-504: Was closed in 1992. In 1995, the Société foncière lyonnaise  [ fr ] (SFL) acquired FIPARIM, and fully absorbed it in 2004. After years of financial trouble and an increasing number of vacancies, the Louvre des Antiquaires closed in 2016. Since 2020, the SFL has redeveloped the property on designs by architecture firms B.Architecture and Ateliers Jean Nouvel . As part of

6474-598: Was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig . The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. They exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba and restored the Bourbons to power . Ten months later, Napoleon escaped from Elba on a brig, landed in France with a thousand men, and marched on Paris, again taking control of the country. His opponents responded by forming

6557-470: Was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in France. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to

6640-631: Was poor at French and German. His father's death in February 1785 cut the family income and forced him to complete the two-year course in one year. In September he was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace and became the first Corsican to graduate from the École militaire . Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment . He served in Valence and Auxonne until after

6723-410: Was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor". One story of Napoleon at

6806-528: Was sold to Jinjiang International in 2015. As of 2024, Groupe du Louvre owns and operates over 1700 hotels under the following brands: [REDACTED] Media related to Groupe du Louvre at Wikimedia Commons Grands Magasins du Louvre The Louvre Saint-Honoré building is a historic structure in Paris , occupying an entire urban block between the rue de Rivoli (across the Louvre Palace ),

6889-491: Was the largest hotel in Europe, with over 700 rooms and a staff of 1,250. It provided interpreters and guides, a post office, a telegraph room and a bureau de change . Although the hotel's common spaces were spectacularly opulent, it also catered to tourists with modest budgets as well as to the wealthy. A massive stairway led from the courtyard to the table d'hôte dining room, which often accommodated over 300 diners. There

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