Napoleon's 'car' collection on display at Versailles

New York

IF NAPOLEON had lived to see the year 2016, he might be zipping across the French countryside in a Bugatti. Yet that US$2.6 million beauty wouldn't warrant a test drive compared to the rides he sported back in the 18th and 19th centuries: fully gilded carriages with crimson velvet interiors, retractable stairs, monogrammed wood carvings, and eight-stallion horsepower. A dozen of these carriages - used by Napoleon and his kin for weddings, coronations, baptisms, and more - are now the focus of a new museum on the grounds of Versailles, La Gallerie Des Carrosses, which reopened in the palace's former stables on May 10 after a nine-year closure and restoration.

Its curators are calling it "the best auto show of the 18th and 19th centuries", but the Gallerie is more than a collection of shiny vintage cars. Even after a tour of the palace, with its toile-covered bedchambers, hallowed cathedral, and nearly 2,000-acre gardens, the carriage collection makes a strong statement about life during the pre-revolutionary Ancien Regime.