[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David
McKay. Copyright, 1880.]



We emerge from the Rue de Grenelle opposite the gardens to the north of
the magnificent Hotel des Invalides, planned by Henri IV., and begun by
Louis XIV. in 1671, as a refuge for old soldiers, who, before it was
built, had to beg their bread on the streets.

The institution is under the management of the Minister of War, and
nothing can be more comfortable than the life of its inmates. The number
of these is now small; in the time of Napoleon I., when the institution
was called the "Temple of Mars," it was enormous.

On the terrace in front of the building are a number of cannon, trophies
taken in different campaigns. Standing before the hotel is the statue of
Prince Eugene. On either side of the entrance are statues of Mars and
Minerva by Coustou the younger. In the tympanum of the semicircle over the
center of the facade is Louis XIV. on horseback. Behind the facade is a
vast courtyard surrounded by open corridors lined with frescoes of the
history of France; those of the early history on the left by Benedict
Masson, 1865, have much interest. In the center of the facade opposite the
entrance is the statue of Napoleon I. Beneath this is the approach to the
Church of St. Louis, built 1671-79, from designs of Liberal Bruant, and in
which many banners of victory give an effect of color to an otherwise
colorless building....