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Why were Napoleon I’s remains returned from St. Helena to Paris in 1840?

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Jacques-Louis David: The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries — Napoleon I *The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries*, oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1812; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The return of Napoleon I’s remains to Paris in 1840 was primarily a response to the growing "Napoleonic legend" and the political necessity for the government of Louis-Philippe to embrace it.1

Following the July Revolution of 1830, public sentiment in France increasingly idealized the former emperor, and the government found it prudent to promote this legacy rather than suppress it. By 1840, the administration sought to honor Napoleon’s own final wishes to be buried on the banks of the Seine. Consequently, the king’s son, François, prince de Joinville, was dispatched to St. Helena to retrieve the remains.1

This repatriation culminated in a magnificent state funeral in December 1840, after which Napoleon was entombed under the dome of Les Invalides. This act of state recognition served to solidify his place in French history, though it also provided political fuel for his nephew, Louis-Napoléon, to later exploit the legend to seize power.21