The body was conveyed to the Church of the Invalides, which adjoins the tomb.

The Prince de Joinville brought the body from Saint Helena, and Louis Philippe received it.
At that time each soldier had a little patch of land to decorate as he pleased, in which many scenes from their great battles were illustrated.
One represented Napoleon crossing the Alps.

There were the cannon, the soldiers, Napoleon on horseback, all toiling up the steep ascent, perfect in miniature.

In another was Napoleon, flag in hand, leading the charge across the bridge of Lodi.

In still another was Napoleon in Egypt, before the Pyramids, seated, impassive, on his horse, gazing at the Sphinx, as if about to utter his immortal words to his soldiers: "Here, forty centuries look down upon us." These object lessons of the past are all gone now and the land used for more prosaic purposes.
I little thought, as I witnessed that great event in France in 1840, that fifty-seven years later I should witness a similar pageant in the American Republic, when our nation paid its last tributes to General Grant.