Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Here's a fun way to think about what you're looking at right now. You might be thinking of the big Arc de Triomphe up the Champs-Élysées? This is the mini version. And honestly, it's the only one Napoleon actually lived to see finished. 

He built it between 1806 and 1808 as the grand entrance gate to the Tuileries Palace. The problem was, the palace sat right behind it and completely blocked the view west. The famous view you can enjoy today, that sweeping corridor from the Louvre all the way to the Arc de Triomphe, only opened up in 1871, when the Paris Commune burned the palace to the ground.

Now look up at the four bronze horses on top. Napoleon had those stolen from Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1798. After Waterloo in 1815, he lost the war and the horses. They were shipped back to Venice, and these are replicas. He did the same with the Quadriga at the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.

The eight granite columns holding it all up were salvaged from a demolished castle in Meudon. Even the reliefs carved into the stone celebrate Napoleon's military victories. A monument to ambition, built by a man who never quite got the view he imagined.