The Pierce Family: Day 6 - Les Invalides and the Catacombs

Next on our list - Les Invalides! I was so looking forward to our visit here because not only does this place contain museums and monuments all relating to the military history of France but in the Dome des Invalides is the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte!

The Hotel des Invalides was commissioned in 1670 by King Louis XIV in order to provide accommodation and hospital care for wounded soldiers.

Because of its location and significance, the Invalides served as the scene for several key events in French history. On July 14, 1789, Parisian rioters stormed Invalides, seizing muskets and cannons stored in its cellars to use against the Bastille later the same day. Also, Napoleon was entombed under the dome of the Invalides with great ceremony in 1840.

The northern grid of entry which overlooks the north esplanade. I was too nervous to ask the soldiers checking us in to take a picture with me.

You know as soon as I saw the paper Napoleon hats I just had to grab one and put it on! Here we are hanging out in the Court of Honor, the central area of Invalides. Behind us can be seen some of the battery of 60 French classical bronze cannons.

A statue of Napoleon in the court.

And a statue and attic window.

The Cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides. According to an old tradition, war trophies taken from the enemy throughout the history of the French armies decorate the vault.

Time to visit Napoleon.

The royal chapel, the Dome des Invalides, was built between 1677 and 1706 and the interior decorations produced at that time glorify Louis XIV, the monarchy and his armies. The dome was designated to become Napoleon's funeral place in a law dated June 10 1840. The excavation and erection of the crypt took twenty years to complete and was finished in 1861. One of the four small side domes...

And the dome over the tomb of Napoleon.

On May 5, 1821, Napoleon passed away on the island of St. Helena, where he had been in exile since 1815. He was buried near a spring, in the shade of a few weeping willows. His remains stayed there until 1840 when King Louis-Philippe decided to transfer the Emperor's body. An immense excavation was carried out to create a space for the tomb. A national funeral was celebrated on December 15th and the body was laid to rest temporarily in the chapel of Saint-Jerome until work on the crypt was completed. The coffin was subsequently transferred to the chapel on April 2nd, 1861, in Napoleon III's presence, and set up in the middle of the uncovered circular crypt. Napoleon's tomb was dug in the center of the dome and is definitely the most notable tomb at Les Invalides. On the floor one can see a laurel crown as well as a mosaic that illustrates the main battles of the Empire. Twelve huge Victory statues are mounted up against the pillars of the crypt.

Some members of Napoleon's family, several military officers who served under him, and other French military heroes are also buried at Les Invalides. The tomb of Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother;

Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne - Marshal General of France under Louis XIV and one of France's greatest military leaders;

Geraud Duroc, a general who fought with Napoleon;

and Ferdinand Foch, Allied Supreme Commander in World War I;

We decided to head down to the crypt to get a closer look at his sarcophagus.

The bronze door which was forged from cannons taken at Austerlitz and is flanked by two statues.

Above the lintel is the inscription: "I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine among the people of France whom I so much loved." This was an extract from Napoleon's will.

We walked along the circular gallery that surrounds the crypt. This gallery houses ten white marble bas reliefs that depict the main achievements of his reign: pacification of the nation, administrative centralisation, State Council, Civil Code, Concordat,

Imperial University, court of accounts, code of commerce, Major Works, and the Legion of Honour.

The sarcophagus was put up on a green granite pedestal and contains a nest of six coffins: one made of soft iron, another of mahogany, two others of lead, one of ebony, and finally, the last one of oak. Napoleon is dressed in his Colonel's uniform of the Cavalry of the Guard which bears his sash of the Legion d'Honneur. His hat rests on his legs.

Halfway along the gallery there is a vault containing the coffin of Napoleon's son, Napoleon II, King of Rome. The coffin was placed under a marble slab in the crypt in 1969 but it is interesting to note that his heart and intestines remained in Vienna. Over the tomb stands a statue representing Napoleon as a Roman emperor.

Me and my Napoleon.

The beautiful Dome des Invalides.

David was feeling tired but I was still ready to go explore more of Les Invalides so I left him in the garden to take a nap surrounded by beautiful trees and this statue of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the chief architect of King Louis XVI. He was responsible for the transformation of Versailles in 1678 and construction of the Royal Church of the Invalides. The Garden of the Steward stretches out behind him. I'm sure it was a lovely place to catch some much needed zzz's.

I, on the other hand, was ready to hit the museums. Josh, Lenae, and I stopped first at the Old Department which contains old armor and weapons from the 13th-17th centuries. I was amazed at the sheer amount in the Army Museum! Extending from the Crown collections, the presentations of arms and armor follows a path organized chronologically - from Saint Louis to Louis XIII, from knights to the standing army.

The Oriental Cabinets contained suits of armor, knives, and firearms that displayed the heritage of the war culture of the Ottoman, Persian, Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian civilizations.

Somewhere in the Old Department I got separated from Josh and Lenae so, since I was on my own, I decided to hurry over to the Modern Department which covered the military, political, social, and industrial history of France from Louis XIV to Napoleon III (1643-1870). The collections contained many diverse objects: privates' uniforms, luxury weapons, equipment of numerous French and foreign regiments, arms, horse harnessing, orders and decorations, emblems, historical figurines, musical instruments and small-scale artillery models alongside the personal effects of illustrious figures, such as Napoleon Bonaparte and his marshals.

In love with all things Napoleon!

A famous picture of Napoleon on his imperial throne that I've been looking at in books for years and I finally got to see it in person...

as well as the actual great collar of the Legion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits that was established in 1802 by Napoleon himself.

One of Napoleon's horses, Vizir, the last horse to keep Napoleon company out in exile on Elba. Yes, it's the actual horse!

I was running out of time so, after Napoleon's things, I walked quickly through the remaining rooms, snapping a few pictures as I went before heading back out to find David and the Crowes.

One final picture!

The reason we were in such a hurry was because we wanted to check out the catacombs and the last tour was just before 5. We made it!

The catacombs are underground ossuaries which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone mines. This ossuary was created as part of an effort to eliminate the city's overflowing cemeteries. It has been open to the public since 1874.

Before the entrance to the ossuary, there were several themed exhibitions...

including artifacts from Paris' geological history as an ancient sea.

The sign above me states: "Stop! This is the empire of death!"

The problem started in the 17th century - enough people had lived and died in Paris that its cemeteries were overflowing, overstuffed with graves to the point when corpses, at times, became uncovered. Those living in the neighborhood near Les Innocents, the city's oldest and largest cemetery, were among the first to complain, reporting the cemetery exuded a strong smell of decomposing flesh. In 1763 Louis XV issued an edict banning all burials from occurring inside the capital but, because of Church pushback which didn't want cemeteries disturbed or moved, nothing else was done. Nothing happened until 1780, a year with a prolonged period of spring rain that caused a wall around Les Innocents to collapse, spilling rotting corpses into a neighboring property. The city decided it needed a better place to put its dead. So, it went to the tunnels, moving bones from the cemeteries underground into Paris' former quarries. Cemeteries began to be emptied in 1786 and it took 12 years to move all the bones. Some of the oldest bones date back as far as 1,200 years ago.

Beginning during the French Revolution, the dead were buried directly in the catacombs' ossuaries. Some famous people from history who have their final resting place here include Jean-Paul Marat, one of the Revolution's most radical voices, and Robespierre, an influential man during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The city stopped moving bones into the ossuaries in 1860.