Paris (AFP)

The Napoleon 1st canoe, a jewel of French heritage, was unveiled to the public on Wednesday in Brest, after having spent sixteen months in a protective box. He thus found his home port, 77 years after his shelter in Paris.

"It is in good condition!" welcomed Admiral Vincent Campredon, director of the National Maritime Museum, by removing the last tarp covering the boat, almost 19 m long and 210 years old.

"It is the most beautiful piece in the collection of the Musée de la Marine", he assured, explaining that there were until the 19th century ceremonial canoes in all the ports of France but also in abroad. "There is only one left," he noted, referring to the canoe built in 1810.

The boat was unveiled to the public in the Capuchin workshops, an emblematic place in the maritime history of the port city and a new place of culture and life in the city. Since 1943 and until its transfer to Brest, in October 2018, the canoe was in Paris.

"It was promised that the canoe would return to Brest, its home port," said Admiral Campredon, assuring that "its entire history was here".

After having remained sixteen months locked in a rigid box to protect it from light and allow its acclimatization to the temperature and humidity of the site, the work was released from its formwork, while remaining on its transport chassis, which will be partially disassembled over the next few days.

It will be installed on February 5 on its final cradle, on Place des Machines, a free space of 1,000 square meters on three levels.

The Capuchin workshops, huge buildings located in the heart of the city and which once housed the mechanical workshops of the Arsenal, are the largest covered public space in Europe.

- For a visit to Antwerp in 1810 -

The construction of the canoe had been launched in the greatest secrecy in the spring of 1810, when the Emperor had decided to go to Antwerp to visit the arsenal which he had ordered the creation a few years earlier.

On April 30, 1810, the boat, with Napoleon and the young Empress Marie-Louise on board, made a remarkable entry into Antwerp. For several days, the canoe had ensured the travel of the Emperor in the port city.

In 1814, at the time of the fall of the Empire, Louis XVIII had the canoe transferred to Brest. Its ornamentation had been completed while remaining sober, with an eagle at the bow. Before the visit to Brest in 1858 of Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, its decoration had again been modified.

The current sculpted elements date from this period, in particular the figurehead representing Neptune, the rear group with imperial arms and the large crown supported by four cherubs and surmounted by a cross, which had to be removed in transport.

To protect the canoe from bombardment, it was transferred in 1943 to Paris. "The canoe was (...) rotting and the bombing caused the German occupier to send it to Paris," said the mayor of the city of Ponant, François Cuillandre, saying "very happy to welcome "the imperial craft again.

The canoe, which, due to its size, could not have been installed until 1945 in one of the wings of the Palais Chaillot, where the National Maritime Museum is located, still needs to be restored. The works should end in May, just before the maritime festivals which will be held from July 10 to 16 in Brest.

© 2020 AFP