The Barbed Crown
“Adjacent to the gigantic Invalides—the Bourbon hospital for wounded soldiers that was also a church, then a “Temple of Mars” under the revolution, and now a marble stage for national pageantry—was a new, makeshift shipyard for boats being built for the invasion of England.
While larger craft were under construction on the Channel, the Seine was being used to build the péniche, sixty feet long and ten wide, which was capable of carrying sixty-six soldiers and two howitzers. The completed ves...sels would be floated down the river to Le Havre, then up to Channel ports to join the armada being assembled for attack. On July 15, 1804, when Napoleon’s Legion of Honor was ceremonially inaugurated, many of the boats were still half planked, ribs jutting like combs and guards posted to prevent thievery of firewood. Royal woodlands were being cut to build an invasion fleet of at least two thousand landing craft, fifty of them here.
The line of cradled péniche was a fist of war made visible.MoreLess
While larger craft were under construction on the Channel, the Seine was being used to build the péniche, sixty feet long and ten wide, which was capable of carrying sixty-six soldiers and two howitzers. The completed ves...sels would be floated down the river to Le Havre, then up to Channel ports to join the armada being assembled for attack. On July 15, 1804, when Napoleon’s Legion of Honor was ceremonially inaugurated, many of the boats were still half planked, ribs jutting like combs and guards posted to prevent thievery of firewood. Royal woodlands were being cut to build an invasion fleet of at least two thousand landing craft, fifty of them here.
The line of cradled péniche was a fist of war made visible.MoreLess
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