Marshal Marmont’s Gloriette

Near Kamerlengo Castle you’ll notice a small, discreet pavilion: the gloriette of Marshal Marmont. It dates back to the short period between 1806 and 1814 when Trogir was under French rule as part of the Illyrian Provinces, governed by Auguste de Marmont, Marshal of the Empire and one of Napoleon’s closest companions. Marmont had followed Bonaparte from the Italian campaign to Egypt, earning rewards along the way, including the title of Duke of Ragusa in 1808 and later the governorship of Dalmatia. He was known for living lavishly in palaces with numerous servants, but he also left behind positive changes—roads, schools, and a modernized administration. This little gloriette was built as a celebration of French glory on the Adriatic. Yet history soon turned against him. In 1814, Marmont defected to the Bourbons and surrendered his army to the Allies. For Napoleon, it was an unforgivable betrayal, and his name was forever tainted: in France, the verb “raguser,” taken from his title of Duke of Ragusa, even came to mean “to betray.” This small gloriette, then, tells a paradoxical story—of a marshal who was both a skilled builder and a brilliant servant of Napoleon, yet whose legacy was overshadowed by a single fateful act. In Trogir, it remains a quiet reminder of a fleeting French chapter in a city otherwise shaped above all by Venetian memories.