The Marquis de Louvois (left) and Libéral Bruant (right).

The Escorial in Madrid (Left), Bruant’s probable Model for the Hôtel des Invalides (Right).

Central Courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides.

Jules Hardouin-Mansart (left), great nephew of François Mansart (right).

The Soldiers’ church (Longer appendage on the left) connected to the dome (right) by a shared altar (arching section between dome and Soldiers’ church).

Interior of the Solders’ church at Les Invalides.

Hardouin-Mansart’s design for the Dôme-Des-Invalides.

Second story of the dome’s interior.

Fluted Corinthian columns and pilasters supporting a complex broken entablature.

4 columned 18^th century replacement of the high altar shared by the dome and soldiers’ church (note the glass wall behind that now separates the two).

Bernini’s canopy in St. Peter’s, inspiration for the high altar canopy at Les Invalides.

Entrance façade of the dôme with classical elements (and soldier standing guard)

Revised cupola painting by Charles La Fosse (center ceiling), showing St. Louis IX’s ascension into heaven.

Tomb of Napoleon I, with circular hole cut in the floor of the dome, exposing the crypt below.

1671 - Construction begins under the reign of Louis XIV.

1676 - Bruant replaced with Hardouin-Mansart.

1688 - Shift in La Fosse’s interior design scheme thanks to French defeats by the league of Augsburg.

1840 - Interior space of the Dome is dramatically altered by a huge hole cut in the floor to allow visitors to see the porphyry tomb of Napoleon I, who died in exile in 1821.

Today - The complex is home to the museum of the French army.

Sources:

• Robert W. Berger, A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
• Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
• David Shaw, review of A Royal Passion by Robert W. Berger, The Modern Language Review, vol. 91, No. 4 (Oct., 1996) pp. 988-989.
• Musée de l’Armée offical website: http://www.musee-armee.fr/en/collections/museum-spaces/dome-des-invalides-tomb-of-napoleon-i.html
• John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667-1714 (London: Longman, 1999).
• Geoffrey Treasure, Louis XIV (Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2001).
• Ian Dunlop, Louis XIV (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
• Alaistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris (New York: Vintage Books, 2004).