The Invalids

As for Les Invalides, it is a hotel (in the old-French sense) built by Louis XIV to be a hospital and resting place for his veterans. Dear old Louis loved war, and fancied himself quite the general, and to his credit, he set up a good system for his injured veterans; today, the classical-revival building houses a military museum, one wing for World War II, which is incredibly interesting, and one wing for everything before it, which conjures up images of unthinkable brutality. To think that people fought hand-to-hand with those weapons is crazy. The highlight of the trip to the musee was seeing the royal armor of the Bourbon kings - Louis XIII, XIV, and XV's armor is quite exquisite, though I don't see it being too functional.

In addition, Les Invalides houses a church, originally meant to be used by the aforementioned veterans, directly in front of the cupola. Hanging from the rafters on either side of the church are the captured battle flags from each of the French military victories throughout history, including standards from Louis XIV's campaigns and German, Austrian, English and more standards from the Napoleonic wars. The last flag hanging is the Swastika. In keeping with the militaristic theme, Les Invalides is also the burial place of certain French military heroes, including Marshal Foch, the leader during World War I.

However, Les Invalides is most famous as the final resting place of Napoleon himself. To the historically impaired, Napoleon was defeated by Euoropean forces and exiled to Elba, off the coast of Italy. He then returned to power after being spirited back to France by those sympathetic to the empire, whereupon he was re-defeated at the famous battle of Waterloo. Not willing to exile him anywhere close to Europe this time, the allied forces put him on the island of St. Helena, which is off the western coast of Africa, well into the southern hemisphere. He was originally interred on St. Helena, but after his ancestors (Louis-Philipe and Napoleon III) were restored to the throne, it was decided that a more proper resting place was necessary. Below the cupola in Les Invalides was chosen. Napoleon now resides in seven coffins, nested on top of each other like Russian dolls, the outermost being mahogany, and the innermost of solid gold.