Today in History—July 29: A Monument Built for Glory Opened Quietly
It was meant to be a triumph. But on July 29, 1836, the inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe unfolded almost in secret.
French King Louis-Philippe, fearing assassination, cancelled the ceremony planned for one of Paris’s most ambitious monuments. Only 11 people attended. For a structure built to proclaim glory, its beginning was strikingly quiet.
The Arc de Triomphe had been 30 years in the making. Napoleon commissioned it in 1806 to celebrate the French army’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Architect Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin designed a massive Neoclassical structure at the western end of the Champs-Élysées—where it could be seen from the imperial residence at the Tuileries Palace.
The freestanding triumphal arch originated in ancient Rome, where victorious generals entered the city through the porta triumphalis. Crossing that threshold symbolically surrendered the extraordinary military authority granted for war and marked a conflict’s end.
Their processions were spectacles of power, featuring senators, spoils, and chained prisoners, followed by feasts and games. Later, permanent arches turned these fleeting parades into stone. Under the emperors, triumphal arches were constructed to commemorate victories, public works, and imperial virtue. Several still stand, including the arches of Titus (81 ce), Septimius Severus (c. 203–205 ce), and Constantine (312–315 ce).
A massive elephant sculpture was once proposed for the site of the Arc de Triomphe. Its trunk would have functioned as a fountain.
Napoleon understood the symbolic power of the triumphal arch perfectly. But his own monument remained unfinished when he abdicated in 1814. Louis XVIII revived the project in 1823 with a Bourbon meaning, and after the July Revolution of 1830, Louis-Philippe rededicated the design to the armies of the revolution and the empire.
After the Arc de Triomphe opened, the monument kept acquiring meaning: Amid Baron Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris, the edifice transformed into the centerpiece of a 12-avenue junction; in the 1920s it became the burial place for France’s unknown soldier; and in 2018 it turned into the focal point of the yellow vest protests.
Born as Napoleon’s victory monument, the Arc de Triomphe grew into France’s stone record of glory, rupture, reconciliation, and remembrance.
- 164 feet by 148 feet: Height and width of the Arc de Triomphe, the largest triumphal arch in the world
- 6:30 pm: Time the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is relit every evening
- 660: Military personnel whose names are inscribed on the walls of the Arc de Triomphe
- 1835: King Kamehameha III leases the first sugar plantation land in Hawaii
- 1872: The first known ascent of Grand Teton of the Teton Range is made
- 1958: NASA is established
