"NAPOLEON'S TOMB" WAS NEVER MEANT FOR HIM: LOUIS XIV PLANNED THE TOWERING MAUSOLEUM, WHICH IS NOW THE ARMY MUSEUM, FOR HIMSELF
But that's not what's said.
Louis XIV Visits the Invalides by Pierre-Denis Martin, 1706 / zoom
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When houses were low the dome overlooked the town and the complex still extends over a large part of the left bank:
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Place Louis XVI (Place de la Concorde) in 1829 by Giuseppe Canella, 1829 / zoom
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The Invalides at Sunset © Frédéric Reglain / zoom
were cared for there (some still are). The name evokes a kindly king concerned for his troops:
Louis Visits the Veterans by Maurice Leloir, 1931
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"In 1670, king Louis XIV Founded the Invalides
to Lodge and Care for Veterans of his Wars." |
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| "From invalides to Invalides" |
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But how can succor to soldiers explain the remarkable site, when there are no allusions to them — and all elements lead to the dome?
- Two series of convergent lines highlight the whole. Those that emphasize the dome are built first:
-- Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, historian of Paris
Internet, no source given
- The only other example of converging lines is at Versailles:
Versailles in 1668 by Pierre Patel / zoom
- The dome overlooks a void that takes at least 20 minutes to cross:
Red arrows show walks, yellow ones sites /zoom.
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Claude Abron
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This photo stops at the portal, with the flag (look very carefully).
- In the whole complex, there is one image only. This one of Louis on horseback:
- It leads to a courtyard so vast that one hardly sees the cannons or church entry:
- Then one passes through a five-minute corridor of bare wall.
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One finally reaches the dome, which hovers over a tomb...
But it is Napoleon's.
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Louis's final wars lasted a generation (from 1688 to 1713, with a five-year gap). He had to melt down his superb silverware. Nobles and soldiers were killed. Rural people died of cold and hunger.
- This woman of the nobility, Marguerite de Choiseul (1647-1737), lost two of her sons in a single battle (the Battle of Turin) and a third through the war indirectly (all in 1706):
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| Charging the French, Battle of Turin, 1706 / zoom |
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| Château de Condé - Aymeri de Rochefort |
- Taxes fell mainly on peasants — except for soldiers, who were often enrolled by force, or joined to escape starvation. "Famine, which desolated the countryside, was a ressource for war: those who had no bread became soldiers. Many lands lay fallow; but there was an army."
-- Voltaire, The Century of Louis XIV, ed. 2015, p. 358.
- War made the once-in-a-century cold of 1709* still more terrible.
*The wine in the king's glass froze.
Peasant Misery, "History of France" by François Guizot, 1875
Louis's wars made him so hated that a Parisian mausoleum was unthinkable, and his remains were taken to the royal necropolis at Saint-Denis (in 1715): "I saw small tents set up along the route to de Saint-Denis. There was drinking, singing, laughing." -- Voltaire, The Century of Louis XIV, ed 2015, note p. 474
Like the chateau of the Sleeping Beauty, the tomb remained empty for a hundred years.
(In fact longer, until 1836)
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Every aspect of the colossal site concerns Louis XIV
and nothing refers to veterans.
So why are they emphasized and he left out?
The direct reason is simple:
The Invalides, now the Army Museum,
extols French military glory
and noticing the king's absence
would underscore its human cost.
Harder to explain:
Neither the historians I have read
nor the guides whose talks I have heard
mention Louis's absence.
Listeners say nothing.
