The last Bonaparte emperor

St Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire Exiled from France in 1870, Napoleon III and his son lie buried in England. In the second of two articles, Anthony Geraghty explains how their Mausoleum, which remains a flourishing monastery, is inspired by French and Spanish precedent

- Will Pryce

Fig 1: The magnificent crypt houses the tombs of Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III and the couple’s son, the Prince Imperial

IN last week’s issue, we saw how the exiled Empress Eugénie, the widow of Napoleon III (d. 1873), bought the Farnborough Hill estate in 1880 and remained there until her death in 1920. Inside the house, she created a museum-like display that recounted the history of the Bonaparte dynasty from the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, her husband’s uncle, up to the death of the Prince Imperial, her only son, in 1879. All of this was dismantled in 1927.

Her most important act of memorialisation, however, was the Mausoleum that she built within sight of the house in 1883–88. She had intended to build this at Camden Place, Chislehurst, in Kent, where the family had settled after the collapse of the imperial regime in 1870, but she faced opposition and was unable to buy enough land. It was primarily for this reason that she relocated to Hampshire. The bodies of the Emperor and the Prince were translated there in 1888.

Fig 2 above: The west front of the Mausoleum, now the conventual church of the abbey, built between 1883 and 1888 by Hippolyte Destailleur.

The Mausoleum stands to the south of the house, on the brow of a hill close by. Located in an estate of its own, it is separated from the grounds of the house by a railway line, but it was always meant to be seen across the parkland of Farnborough Hill and the view is essentially unchanged. Indeed, the sight of the Mausoleum, with its lofty dome rising through the pine trees of Hampshire, is one of the great unknown views of England.