Les Invalides
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Les Invalides in Paris, France consists of a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. It is also the burial site for some of France's war heroes (list below).
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[edit] History
Louis XIV initiated the project by an order dated November 24, 1670, as a home and hospital for aged and unwell soldiers: the name is a shortened form of hôpital des invalides, the hospital for invalides. The architect of Les Invalides was Libéral Bruant. The selected site was suburban in the seventeenth century. By the time the enlarged project was completed in 1676, the river front measured 196 metres and the complex had fifteen courtyards, the largest being the cour d'honneur ("court of honour") for military parades.
Then it was felt that the veterans required a chapel, in which Jules Hardouin Mansart assisted the aged Bruant, and finished it in 1679 to Bruant's designs after the elder architect's death. The chapel is known as Eglise Saint-Louis des Invalides. Daily attendance was required.
Shortly after the veterans' chapel was completed, Louis XIV had Mansart construct a separate private royal chapel, often referred to as the Église du Dôme from its most striking feature (ill. right). Inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (left) the original for all Baroque domes; it is one of the triumphs of French Baroque architecture. Mansart raises his drum with an attic storey over its main cornice, and employs the paired columns motif in his more complicated rhythmic theme of ||u||uu||u||. The general program is sculptural but tightly integrated, rich but balanced, consistently carried through, capping its vertical thrust firmly with a ribbed and hemispherical dome. The domed chapel is centrally placed to dominate the court of honor. It was finished in 1708.
The interior of the dome (illustration, below right) was painted by Le Brun's disciple Charles de La Fosse (1636 - 1716) with a Baroque illusion of space seen from below (sotto in su perspective, the Italians were calling it). The painting was completed in 1705.
[edit] Tombs
The most notable tomb at Les Invalides is that of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) in the crypt under Mansart's dome. Napoleon was initially interred on Saint Helena, but King Louis-Philippe arranged for his remains to be brought to St Jerome's Chapel in Paris in 1840. A renovation of Les Invalides took many years, but in 1861 Napoleon was moved to the most prominent location under the dome at Les Invalides.
A popular tourist site today, Les Invalides is also the burial site for some of Napoleon's family, for several military officers who served under him, and other French military heroes such as:
- Henri Gratien, Comte Bertrand (1773 - 1844) Army General during the First French Empire that accompanied Napoleon to Elba and then St Helena. He brought Napoleon's body back to France in 1840.
- Joseph Bonaparte (1768 - 1844) Napoleon's elder brother.
- Jerome Bonaparte (1784 - 1860) Napoleon's youngest brother.
- Napoleon II (1811 - 1832) son of Napoleon.
- Thomas Bugeaud (1784 - 1849) Marshal of France and conqueror of Algeria.
- François Canrobert (1809 - 1895) Marshal of France.
- Geraud Duroc (1774 - 1813) Officer who fought with Napoleon.
- Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760 - 1836) Army captain, he is the author of France's national anthem, La Marseillaise.
- Ferdinand Foch (1851 - 1929) Marshal of France during the First World War.
- Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611- 1675), better known as Turenne, Marshal General of France under Louis XIV and one of France's greatest military leaders.
- Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban's heart (1633 -1707) Designer of Louis XIV's military fortifications.
- Pierre Auguste Roques (1856-1920) Founder of the French air force and Minister of War in 1916.
[edit] Architecture
On the north front of Les Invalides (illustration, left) Hardouin-Mansart's chapel dome is large enough to dominate the long facade yet harmonizes with Libéral Bruant's door under an arched pediment. To the north the courtyard (cour d'honneur), is extended by a wide public esplanade (Esplanade des Invalides) where the embassies of Austria and Finland are neighbors of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all forming one of the grand open spaces in the heart of Paris. At its far end, the Pont Alexandre III links this grand urbanistic axis with the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais. (the Pont des Invalides is next, downstream the Seine river). The Hôpital des Invalides spurred William III of England to emulation, in the military Greenwich Hospital of 1694.
The buildings still comprise the Institution Nationale des Invalides (official site), a national institution for disabled war veterans. The institution comprises:
- a retirement home
- a medical and surgical center
- a center for external medical consultations.
The buildings also house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France.
Other military leaders in the vaults are:
- Ashes of the General Marceau
- The heart of General Kléber
- Marshal Lyautey
- General Nivelle
- General Mangin
- Marshal de Mac-Mahon
- Marshal Leclerc de Hauteclocque
- Marshal Juin
- 14 victims of the attack of Fieschi of July 28, 1835
- Heart of the lieutenant of king Jean Beryrand, lord of Senneric 1691
- Heart of the General d'Hautpoul 1807
- Heart of lieutenant general Baraguay d' Hilliers 1813
- Heart of Marie Maurille de Sombreuil, countess of Villelume 1823
- Heart of the lieutenant-general of Conchy 1823
- Heart of major general de Bisson 1811
- Heart of major general Eblé 1813
- Heart of major general Négrier 1848
- General de Lariboisière 1812
- Marshal Bessières 1813
- Marshal Lobau 1839
- Marshal Exelmans 1852
- Marshal of Saint-Arnaud 1854
- Admiral Hamelin 1864
- Marshal Pélissier, duke de Malakoff 1864
- Marshal Regnault of Saint-Jean-d'Angely 1870
- General Roques 1920
- General de Maud'huy 1921
- General Humbert 1921
- General Maistre 1922
- Marshal Maunoury 1923
- General of Mitry 1924
- Vice-admiral Boué de Lapeyrère 1924
- General Lanrezac 1925
- General Putz 1925
- General Baucheron de Boissoudy 1926
- General Gerard 1926
- General of Langle de Cary 1927
- Marshal Fayolle 1928
- General Sarrail 1929
- Vice-admiral Gauchet 1931
- General Cordonnier 1936
- Admiral Guépratte 1939
- Marshal Franchet d' Esperey 1942
- General count de Lasalle 1809
- Marshal Vallée 1846
- Admiral Duperré 1847
- General Duvivier 1848
- Marshal Bugeaud 1849
- Marshal Sébastiani 1851
- Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers 1878
- Marshal Canrobert 1895
- General Malleterre 1923
- General Ruffey 1926
- General Pau 1932
- Vice-admiral Fournier 1934
- Admiral Ronarc'H 1940
- General Guillaumat 1940
- General d'Amade 1941
- General d'Urbal 1943
- General Henrys 1944
- General Duchêne 1950
- General Houdemon 1960
- General Kientz 1962
- General Monclar 1964
[edit] See also
- List of other famous cemeteries
- List of hospitals in France
- List of tallest structures in Paris
- San Francisco City Hall, the design of which was influenced by Les Invalides
[edit] External links
- Musée de l'Armée
- Jason Coyne's photo gallery of Les Invalides
- Satellite view of Les Invalides at WikiMapia
- Les Invalides photos
- Hôtel des Invalides
- Architectural history
- Satellite image from Google Maps
