 The bodies of sovereigns previously interred in the royal tombs at Ambohimanga were exhumed and transferred to the tombs in the Rova grounds, a sacrilegious move that degraded the status of Ambohimanga as a site of sacred pilgrimage.According to Frémigacci (1999), French colonial administrator General Joseph Gallieni undertook this desacralisation of the Rova in an attempt to break popular belief in the power of the royal ancestors.By the same token, his actions relegated Malagasy sovereignty under the Merina rulers to a relic of an unenlightened past.