At Les Invalides, France’s discreet homage to Napoleon

VS’is a frozen scene for history. At the end of the morning, this Thursday, December 2, Austerlitz’s anniversary, the first rays of the day begin to pierce the heavy autumnal clouds piled up above the main courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides. The ringing of the dead takes over from Tchaikovsky when a great sun appears behind the dome of the church and covers the coffin draped in tricolor which rests on the uneven paving stones of the courtyard with light. “The sun of Austerlitz! »Exclaims an amateur, referring to the famous formula of Napoleon the 1^er December 1805, which would augur one of his greatest military successes.

It is not a question of honoring the career of the emperor, but that of one of his most valiant generals, Charles Étienne Gudin, who died in action in Smolensk in Russia on August 22, 1812, as a result of his wounds received at the battle of Valoutina Gora three days earlier. His remains will have taken two centuries to return to us, at the end of a veritable archaeological epic followed since its beginnings by Point. And it took all the self-sacrifice of a 34-year-old hussar, Pierre Malinowski, for the Elysee to accept the principle of a military ceremony, in the presence of Geneviève Darrieussecq, Minister Delegate in charge of Memory and Veterans Affairs, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (Céma), the military governors and the Invalides, and Russian diplomats and dignitaries.

Tremendous soft power operation for Russia

For the Kremlin, the archaeological project, carried by Pierre Malinowski’s Foundation for the Development of Franco-Russian Historical Initiatives, was a fine soft power operation, in a period of diplomatic tensions between France and Russia. According to our information, the project was followed closely enough by the Castle for it to be considered, on the occasion of the burial of General Gudin, a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine, which ultimately did not take place.

Still, the ceremony was an opportunity for the government to pay a discreet tribute to Napoleon, a contrasting figure in our modern history. Installed on a desk in a corner of the main courtyard, Geneviève Darrieussecq read a long speech on behalf of Jean Castex, the Prime Minister.

“Russian people whose heroism is well established”

On the return of the soldier’s remains, the Minister thus wished to express her thanks to the Russian government “for this gesture full of nobility. “And wished to underline, in his speech of homage to General Gudin, how the” Great Nation “, in 1812, suddenly saw” the Great Russia rise before it “, a” Russian people whose heroism does not is more to demonstrate ”.

And the Minister to underline the role that the Empire had on History. “This History whose glory but also shadows still deeply mark our country and Europe today. At Eylau, where he sees the emperor on horseback, the young Hegel designates him as this soul of the world without which progress would not have been possible. Today we are obviously more nuanced than the German philosopher, but it would be futile to deny the place that the legacy of the Empire occupies today in our law and our institutions. “