An honorific arch commissioned by Napoleon in 1806, after Austerlitz, to
celebrate the Grande Armée. It takes the imperial Roman arches as its model (the
Arch of Titus above all) and pushes them to a monumental scale: 50 metres high.
Four sculptural groups decorate it (La Marseillaise by Rude is the best known)
along with the engraved names of 660 generals and 158 battles of the First
Empire. It was inaugurated under Louis Philippe in 1836 and has held the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier since 1920. The twelve avenues of the Étoile radiate from
it, on the axis running from the Concorde to La Défense.
