Q 01/05

Which dictator had the coffin of Napoleon's son moved from Vienna to Les Invalides in December 1940?

A) Benito Mussolini

B) Adolf Hitler

C) António Salazar

D) Joseph Stalin

Answer · why

B) Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler ordered the transfer hoping to win French support for collaboration. Instead it helped set off a crisis at Vichy, where Pierre Laval was ...

Q 02/05

Which part of the fortress engineer Vauban did Napoleon have reburied under the Dome of Les Invalides in 1808?

A) His skull

B) His right hand

C) His heart

D) His ashes

Answer · why

C) His heart

His heart was moved to the Dome on Napoleon's orders, a century after Vauban died. He had been buried at Bazoches, the Burgundy village where he owned...

Q 03/05

In 2021 an artist hung a replica skeleton of which animal above Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides?

A) A horse

B) An eagle

C) A lion

D) A camel

Answer · why

A) A horse

It was a horse: the piece copied the bones of Marengo, said to be Napoleon's favourite mount, whose real skeleton sits in a London museum. The install...

Q 04/05

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, once pharmacist at Les Invalides, is famous for championing which food in France?

A) Tomatoes

B) Sweet corn

C) Sugar beet

D) Potatoes

Answer · why

D) Potatoes

Potatoes were known to the French only as hog feed until Parmentier, who had eaten them as a prisoner in Prussia, championed them. The religious commu...

Q 05/05

Crowds who seized thousands of muskets from Les Invalides marched the same day on which stronghold?

A) The Conciergerie

B) Château de Vincennes

C) The Temple

D) The Bastille

Answer · why

D) The Bastille

The Bastille was the next stop that same day, 14 July 1789, because the muskets came without powder or shot, and about 250 barrels of gunpowder were s...