NAPOLEON'S TOMB: STRAIGHT STREETS LEAD TO A SEPULCHRE. WHOSE?

"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:

         Place Louis XVI (Place de la Concorde) in 1829 by Giuseppe Canella, 1829 / zoom 

 The Invalides at Sunset © Frédéric Reglain / zoom

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Louis called the whole "Les Invalides" because wounded veterans 

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

 

"In 1670, king Louis XIV Founded the Invalides 
to Lodge and Care for Veterans of his Wars." 

"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

An aerial view / zoom

• 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.

Claude Abron

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...

Claude Abron

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):

      Charging the French, Battle of Turin, 1706 / zoom

                 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.

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Next,
Royal "places" multiply