I started at Hotel Invalides, which was built as a hospital for French soldiers and has since been turned into a set or museums and the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. The AEF stood through long speeches in full uniform tobegin their ceremony that July day 100 years ago. I chose to spent a few hours touring the Museum of the Armed Forces, which has military artifacts from the stone ages to the 20th century. The collection or armor was very cool – Game of Thrones stuff – and I loved the WWI and WWII exhibits as they showed the war from a French perspective. The highlight of the Invalides was definitely the tomb of Napoleon. It’s located in a historic chapel, centered under an amazing dome. It’s surrounded by reliefs glorifying his rule (he did have a high opinion of himself, of course), and my favorites were the two telling the story of his body being exhumed from St. Helena and returned to Paris. Marshall Ferdinand Foch is also entombed in the Dome Chapel in a beautiful and heroic sarcophagus.
After grabbing an ice cream sandwich, I set out for my own journey through the streets (actually sidewalks) of down town Paris. As you can see from the different sets of pictures, my march had a few different environmental aspects to it. (1917 pics and captions from www.16thinfassn.org,)
The final location was the key to my march – the Picpus Cemetery. The AEF ended there with another ceremony at the grave of the Marquis de Lafayette, a strong symbolic connection between the US and France. The ceremony featured General George Pershing speaking but the most famous quote was uttered by Colonel Charles Stanton – “Nous voir, Lafayette”, or “Lafayette, we are here!” Francine told me that the cemetery is difficult to find, but I am part bloodhound and very adept at using street maps. However, this time my sniffer let me down I followed the route and made my way to Boulevard de Picpus, certain to be final destination. I didn’t find it, and it was after 5:00 (I knew the cemetery closed at 6), so I did what you should do – ask for directions in a gas station. A gentleman overheard me, told me to follow him while he asked his wife about the location of the cemetery. The had me hop in the back and drove me to the site (after he made a few wrong turns, which is on Rue de Picpus – my bad. I may have eventually found the site, but possibly not by 6:00, so Channeau and Patrick were historical life savers. There was a little bit of divine intervention – me heading to a site that demonstrates the friendship and mutual assistance of France and the US, and I wouldn’t have made it without my historical friends. It makes for a great story – and it’s true. As I stood at Lafayette’s grave, I realized I was closing the books on a long, exhausting march – not just that day, but for seven days across France. It was definitely bittersweet, knowing by WWIpalooza was at its end – but seeing the American flag over his grave and placing a beneath the phrase “Requiescat en pace” made it a fitting ending for my week in Belgium and France.
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