On This Day in Napoleonic History – 20 November 1801

211.5_Les_Tuileries_vues_du_LouvreNapoleon appoints the first functionaries for the Tuileries Palace

Whenย Napoleon moved to the Tuileries, he had become the first ruler to live there after the unfortunate Louis XVI. He created a large entourage of chamberlains, chancellors, almoners, equerries, footmen and even meat carvers. These courtiers received instruction in etiquette from Marie-Antoinette’s former first lady of the bedchamber.

Within six months the Prussian ambassador to Paris noted that ‘everything around First Consul and his wife is resuming the general character and etiquette of Versailles.’ It got to a point when some people were wondering why France had bothered to decapitate Louis XVI only to get another monarch.

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