Dôme des Invalides

Louis XIV built a home for disabled soldiers, and at its church he had Hardouin-Mansart design one of the most dazzling domes in Paris. The gilded dome can be seen across half the city. Since 1840 Napoleon has rested here beneath the dome.

In 1670 Louis XIV founded the Hôtel des Invalides as a residence and hospital for old and wounded soldiers. Libéral Bruant designed the great complex with courtyards and a soldiers’ church. In 1677 Hardouin-Mansart, who later became the king’s First Architect, was commissioned to build a royal church attached to the soldiers’ church. It was completed in 1706. The dome was intended as a royal chapel and perhaps as a tomb for the king himself, but it was never used as such.

The church has a plan in the shape of a Greek cross with chapels in the corners, and the dome rises over the centre. It is built in three shells: an inner one with an opening in the middle, an intermediate shell with paintings of the sky that can be seen through the opening, and an outer shell of timber covered with lead and gilding. The total height is about 107 metres. The façade has two storeys, with Doric and Corinthian columns, and draws the eye up to the drum and the dome.

King Louis-Philippe decided that Napoleon’s remains should be brought home from St Helena, and in 1840 they were taken to the Invalides. The architect Louis Visconti created an open crypt beneath the dome, and the sarcophagus was placed there in 1861. Other soldiers lie here too, among them Napoleon’s brother Joseph. The dome was most recently regilded in 1989, using about 12 kilos of gold. The Dôme des Invalides became a model for domes in several countries, and its architect Hardouin-Mansart also influenced Tessin the Younger.