Column of the Grande Armée

The Column of the Grande Armée (French - Colonne de la grande Armée or Colonne Napoléone) is a 53 metre high Corinthian order triumphal column (modelled on Trajan's Column and other triumphal columns in Rome) on the Rue Napoleon in Wimille, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

The column was intended to commemorate a successful invasion of England (an invasion that never occurred), but it now commemorates the first distribution of the Imperial Légion d'honneur at the "camp de Boulogne", by Napoleon to the soldiers of the Army of England. In September Marshal Soult informed the emperor of the army's wish to erect such a column and for its site the town of Boulogne bought the estate of the old royalist, the widow Delahodde-Fourcroy, who reluctantly ceded her field for a monument to the man she called "the usurper". The commission created for its construction took on the architect Éloi Labarre, the bronze-caster Houdon and Jean Guillaume Moitte for the bas-reliefs, and the army, flotilla, soldiers, sailors and sous-officiers all gave a half-day's pay to the project (with the officers giving a full day's pay) once a month.

The first stone was put in place by Soult on 18 Brumaire, year 13 (9 October 1804), amidst great festivities and awards of decorations. The stone was sourced from local Marquis marble. The descriptions by C.P. Brard (1808) of the marbles of the Département of the Pas-de-Calais includes the following quotation:

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