House of Disabled

The desire to come to the aid of soldiers who lost the ability to support themselves in the war manifested itself in France under Charles the Great , who imposed on monasteries the obligation to accept disabled people as ministers; then they began to be appointed to the garrisons of small fortifications. In 1254, Louis IX established the Quinze-Vingts for 300 knights blinded by the Saracens in a crusade. Henry III formed from the disabled something like a cavalry order, whose members were housed in monasteries. Henry IV in 1604 settled disabled people in the Christian Mercy hospital, and Louis XIII (1632) ordered the founding of a shelter in Bisetra Castle for officers and soldiers deprived of their livelihood ^[2] .

In 1670, King Louis XIV of France decided to build an almshouse for crippled and aged soldiers ^[3] . The management of the work in the Parisian suburb of Grenelle was entrusted to the court architect Liberal Bruin , who designed five courtyards, of which the largest in the center is the royal one. Work was carried out from March 1671 to February 1677 , which is pretty fast, and the first pensioners settled in October 1674 . Initially, it was planned to place 6,000 veterans in the House of Invalids, but after the redevelopment, their number decreased to 4,000.

The church, originally designed by Bruant, probably did not like the monarch, and its construction since March 1676 was entrusted to Jules Arduen-Mansard , who also worked on the entrance pavilions and hospital rooms. The construction of the cathedral lasted almost thirty years and was completed on August 28, 1706 , the day the keys were handed over to Louis XIV . The building is actually double, although in architectural terms it is a single whole: there is a soldier’s church in the nave , and part with a dome has become a domed church. In 1873, the building was finally divided in two by a large glass partition.

In 1710, the House of Invalids contained 1,500 residents, and at the end of the 18th century it turned into a miniature city, life in which was strictly subordinate to the code of church rules and military regulations - it was inhabited by about 4,000 veterans united in companies under the command of officers and working in the shoe and tapestry workshops, as well as in the workshop for coloring prints .

On July 15, 1804, at a magnificent official ceremony in the Church of the Disabled, Napoleon I presented the officers with the very first orders of the Legion of Honor . The church was elevated to the rank of cathedral and became the site of the service of the army Catholic bishop ( évêque catholique aux Armées ).

Gradually, the House of Invalids acquired significance as a museum: in 1777, a collection of relief plans (models of cities and fortresses) was transferred here from the Louvre , in 1872 the Museum of Artillery was organized here, in 1896 - the Museum of the History of the Army, the latter two were merged in 1905 into the Army Museum .

In 1916, the head nurse of the House, Susanne Lenard, came up with a symbol of the national memory of France - “ Cornflower of France ”.

In 1942, participants in the French Resistance hid in the building.

Today, approximately 100 pensioners and disabled people of the French troops live in the House of Invalids. The administration that takes care of them is called the “National Institute of the Disabled” ( l'Institut national des invalides ).

From the embankment of the Seine and the bridge of Alexander III to the House of the Disabled, there is an esplanade of Invalids - a huge area of ​​500 × 250 m, created in the beginning of the 18th century by Robert de Côte , with extensive lawns and rows of trees. Thanks to the esplanade, a view of the long (196 m) facade of the House of the Disabled opens. In front of him is a series of old French and captured guns from the collection of the Army Museum . The portal is decorated with a bas-relief with Louis XIV on a horse. The central courtyard consists of five courtyards. Directly opposite the main entrance is the Cathedral of St. Louis ( cathédrale Saint-Louis-des-Invalides ), an example of classical architecture.

The facade of the cathedral is symmetrical and combines a square and a circle. The central part of the facade stands forward and is accented by Doric columns in the first tier and Corinthian in the second, as well as the portico- pediment and statues of Louis IX of Saint and Charles the Great by Kustu and Kuazevo. The double order colonnade ends with a high drum surrounded by paired columns on the first floor and large windows on the second, from where, supported by consoles, there is a dome with a diameter of 27 meters with a decor of military trophies . The dome drum has two rows of windows, and the entire structure is crowned with a dome lamp with a spire . The height of the cathedral is 107 meters.

The used dome design creates the problem of lighting the dome painting, for the solution of which Jules Arduin-Mansard used a construction consisting of two domes nested in each other. The inner dome is illuminated by the bottom row of windows, and a hole is made in its center through which the central part of the outer dome is visible, onto which light from second-row windows that are invisible from inside is incident.

Andre Morois wrote that, in his opinion, the House of the Invalids represents “the very essence of French art”: “Its long facade is as magnificent as the colonnade of the Louvre. The dome mysteriously retreating deep into the pool, the combination of greenish bronze and gold in it, the charm of the trophies adorning it - all combine to give the building both originality and classical perfection ” ^[4] .

In 1989, the dome was re-gilded, which took 12 kilograms of gold . The domed fresco of the artist Charles de la Fozo has also been recently restored.

Famous French soldiers from different eras are buried in the House of Invalids:

Monarchist and revolutionary eras

• Claude Joseph Rouge de Lille - author of Marseillaise
• the heart of Vauban - an outstanding military engineer and marshal of France
• the heart of Marshal of France Emmanuel Pear

Characters of the First Empire

• Napoleon I Bonaparte
• Joseph Bonaparte
• Jerome Bonaparte
• Napoleon II Bonaparte

Warlords of Two World Wars

• Ferdinand Foch - Marshal of France

Other French military

• Geprat, Emil (1856-1939) - French admiral , participant in the Dardanelles operation of the First World War .
• Monouri, Michel Joseph (1847-1923) - Marshal of France, military governor of Paris.
• Canrober, Francois (1809-1895), Marshal of France.

The sarcophagus of Shoksha raspberry quartzite ^[5] , erroneously called red porphyry or marble , with the remains of the emperor Napoleon is located in the crypt of the cathedral. He is guarded by two bronze figures holding a scepter , an imperial crown and a power . The tomb is surrounded by 12 statues by Jean-Jacques Pradier , dedicated to the victories of Napoleon.

• The Museum of Plans and Reliefs settled in the House of Invalids in 1777, moving from the Tuileries Palace . The collection, begun in 1668 by the Minister of Military Affairs under Louis XIV, after 30 years already numbered 144 models. About a hundred have survived to this day.
• The Army Museum (created in 1905) united the Museum of Artillery (existed since 1872, many of its exhibits are exhibited in the courtyard) and the Museum of the History of the Army (1896).
• Museum of the Order of Liberation
• Museum of Modern History

• Official site of the House of Disabled .
• Mark Sartan. House of disabled people .