Les Invalides
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Louis XIV was the person who order the construction of the Hotel des Invalides by Liberal Bruant and it was built to the west of faubourg Saint-Germain, on the Crenelle plain which was then still rural.
This fascinating building was erected to protection damaged ex soldiers free of charge. Until that time the halted soldiers were sheltered by monasteries (as lay-brothers) or had to implore. The new-fangled hotel happening to take in its pensioners in 1674; in 1691 there were 5000 of them. Jules Hardouin-Mansart built the first church on the bloc of the main square. A few years later he completed this terrific monumental complex with a masterwork: the Eglise du Dome. Still today, about 200 disabled soldiers contribute to the continuation of the vocation of the hotel. The building are mostly occupied by the rich groups of the Musee de 1'Armee (The Military Museum). The reign of Louis-Philippe committed the Eglise du Dome to the remembrance of Napoleon I preparing his last lodging there.
Still when he was living at Versailles, Louis XIV was very fascinated in urban and architectonical works in Paris. Colbert's motto was "Glory and Magnificence" for all the Parisian buildings of the reign. The Academic de 1'Architecture (the Academy of Architecture), founded by Louis XIV, created a design imprinted with rigor, symmetry and measure: "classicism". The enormous complex of the Invalides is fruit of this concept: regal order, grandiose quality, the hotel and Dome are creations of pure classical French art.
The hospital, Liberal Bruant's work, king's architect, was built between 1671 and 1676. It consists of a complex of buildings organized around square avenues. The facade, of an interminable length, stretches for about 200 m and is interrupted in the center by an imposing curvilinear doorway. The frontage is surmounted by an equestrian relief of Louis XIV, dressed in Roman clothes, between Justice and Prudence.
These statues were carried out in 1815 by Cartlier and are copies of the original works by Coustou (1735). On both sides of the doorway there is no decoration apart from the military motifs, which cover the garrets, and the two side pavilions. The Honor courtyard is surrounded on all four sides by structures with two floors of arcades with two orders of arches. The austerity of the buildings is slightly lessened by a few moderate decorations: the four overhanging pavilions with their decorated facades like a frieze, the bull's eye groups decorated with trophies and in the corners, four sculptured groups representing the impetuosity of war-horses crushing the symbols of war. The large dimensions of this courtyard make it suitable for military parades.
The pavilion at the end of the courtyard of Honor forms the facade of the church, which J.H. Mansart projected for the hotel (1679-1708). It was called "eglise des soldats" (soldiers' church) or "eglise Saint-Louis-des-Invalides". The central luminous nave framed by naves. At the top of these are standards and flags taken from the enemy during the campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some funerary monuments are leaning against pillars.
The Dome des Invalides was built between 1679 and 1706 by J.H.-Mansart. Here the king's architect has shown an exceptional geniality. He was not only able to adapt (and turn to account) the new church with the complex - it seems that the severe horizontal line of the facade of the hotel has been stretched out in order to enhance the dome - but above all he has made this church into an apogee of classicism. A result of the architectonical shapes experimented at Carmes and Val de Grace, the Dome inherits the superimposition of the orders crowned by a dome from the "Jesuitical" churches. However the absence of wings, the vertical energy of the lengthening of the dome, the neatness of volumes in the opposition between cube and ci-linder, are Mansart's innovations, which herald the art of the 18th century (the rococo and neoclassical styles).
The cubic footing is composed of superimposed gothic and corinthian orders, surmounted by a triangular frontage. The double tambour of the dome, in the foreground windows was marked by from the Corinthian buttresses and the attic is decorated with a balustrade and dormer windows. The slender proportions of the dome and its 12 ribbings, the presence of the skylights and the spire, complete the powerful upward harmony of the building. This dome is the highest in Paris and perhaps the most elegant.
The adoption of a central plan, fashionable at the time, inserts the Greek cross into a square. Until the revolution, the altar, which the two churches had in common, a canopy was surmounted an influence of Saint-Peter's in Rome. Girardon directed the sculpture and the painting of the dome is by Charles de la Fosse. In the 19th century the church was changed: it was separated from the soldiers' church by a large glass panel placed there by Crepinet in 1873 and, above all, it became the burial place of Napoleon I. The return (from Saint-Elena) of the ashes of the emperor was organized during the reign of Louis-Philippe, in 1840, but Visconti finished the funerary architectonical project under Napoleon III in 1861. A circular open crypt was dug under the dome. In the center is the sarcophagus in red porphyry from Finland on a green granite base from the Vosges. The emperor rests there dressed in the uniform of colonel of the Vieille Garde mounted hunters. The complex, in neo-Greek style, is surrounded by 12 enormous statues by Pradier, which represent the victorious imperial campaigns.
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