École Militaire

The École Militaire displays a long, rhythmic facade of limestone topped by a prominent clock tower and a central dome. King Louis the Fifteenth ordered its construction in seventeen fifty-one to provide a proper education for impoverished sons of the nobility who wished to pursue careers as officers. One of those students, a young Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte, arrived in seventeen eighty-four. He completed the two-year curriculum in just one year, graduating to become a second lieutenant in the artillery.