What French emperor had Charlemagne's remains investigated in 1804?

Napoleon Bonaparte had Charlemagne’s remains investigated in 1804. The examination took place at Aachen, where Charlemagne had been buried in the Palatine Chapel after his death in 814.

Napoleon visited Aachen during the year he became Emperor of the French. Charlemagne’s tomb had already been opened in 1165, when Emperor Frederick Barbarossa promoted Charlemagne’s imperial cult and transferred relics into a shrine. By 1804, therefore, the medieval burial site was not untouched, although the investigation renewed interest in the tomb and its contents.

The episode fitted Napoleon’s deliberate use of Charlemagne as a political predecessor. Both rulers were presented as builders of a powerful western European empire, and Napoleon drew on Carolingian imagery, ceremonies, and symbols to strengthen his new imperial regime.

A common mix-up is Napoleon III, who ruled France later, from 1852 to 1870. The 1804 investigation belongs to Napoleon I, better known as Napoleon Bonaparte.