75th Anniversary of Normandy Invasion

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Monday, 24 June 2019 - A relaxed day in Paris visiting the massive Hôtel National des Invalides and exploring the Army Museum housed there, admired the Baroque architecture of Les Invalides commissioned by Louis XIV, saw Napoleon's tomb under the Dome, and learned about French military history through exhibits and historic interiors.

Louis XIV initiated the project by an order dated 24 November 1670, as a home and hospital for aged and unwell soldiers. The buildings to this day comprise the Institution Nationale des Invalides, a national institution for disabled war veterans.

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Louis XIV also commissioned a chapel for the Hotel, the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart had the Invalides' royal chapel built beginning in 1677. The Dome was Paris' tallest building until the Eiffel Tower was erected.

Inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome the Dome des Invalides is a great example of French Baroque architecture.
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The many gilded decorations remind you of the Sun King who issued an edict ordering the Hotel des Invalides to be built for his army's veterans.
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At 102 metres long and 64 metres wide, this is the largest courtyard at Les Invalides. An example of 17th-century classical architecture, it is enclosed by four buildings, each of which has two levels of galleries with arcades.
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In the middle of the south gallery stands the statue of Napoleon I, Colonel of the Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde Imperiale (the light cavalry regiment of the Imperial Guard), by Charles-Emile Seurre.
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Liberal Bruant (1631-1697), created the dormers in the main courtyard of the Hotel des Invalides
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The Veteran's Chapel, was dedicated to Saint-Louis and consecrated to the Holy Trinity, fell under the administrative control of the Army Museum when it was founded in 1905. It is now the cathedral for the French armies.
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The Veteran's Chapel is decorated with trophies taken from the enemy, throughout the history of the French armies, from 1805 to the 19th century. Bearing witness to age-old traditions, these trophies were hung on the vault of Notre Dame Cathedral up until the French Revolution.

Those which escaped destruction were transferred to the Hotel des Invalides in 1793. The Hotel des Invalides was then entrusted with the mission of keeping French emblems and trophies.
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The Veteran's Chapel is separated from the Dome by a wall of glass. That way the King and the soldiers can attend service at the same time.
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The organ case was made between 1679 and 1687 by Germain Pilon.
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This is the other side of the glass - the place in the church where the royal mass took place during the reign of Louis XIV.
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The Dome was designated to become Napoleon's tomb by a law dated 10 June 1840. Ousted in 1815 by the allied armies, Napoleon had stayed so popular in France that Louis-Philippe, the King of France from 1830 to 1848, returned his remains in 1840. The excavation and erection of the crypt, which heavily modified the interior of the domed church, took twenty years to complete and was finished in 1861.
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The ceiling over Napoleon's tomb
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High window in the Dome
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During the Revolution, the Dome became the temple of the god Mars. In 1800, Napoleon I decided to place Turenne's tomb there and turned the building into a pantheon of military glories.

Marshal Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. He successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts into a coherent whole, deftly handling his strategic reserves. He stopped the German offensive and launched a war-winning counterattack.
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Even the ceiling in the side tombs is beautiful.
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Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey was a French Army general and colonial administrator. After serving in Indochina and Madagascar, he became the first French Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925.

Early in 1917 he served briefly as Minister of War.

From 1921 he was a Marshal of France. He was dubbed the French empire builder, and in 1931 made the cover of Time.
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The ceiling over the alter.
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The body of Napoleon rests in five successive coffins, which were made of tin, mahogany, lead, lead again and ebony, and these are held within the sarcophagus positioned in the middle of the crypt.

The sarcophagus itself is made out of red quartzite from Russia and positioned on a green granite base that came from the Vosges mountains in the Alsace region of France and is circled by a crown of laurels and inscriptions.
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