Hôtel des Invalides

The expansive complex you are approaching, the Hotel des Invalides, began its life in sixteen seventy not as a museum, but as a sprawling city for the broken. King Louis the Fourteenth commissioned this site to serve as a home, hospital, and place of worship for the thousands of soldiers left disabled by his military campaigns. At its peak, this veritable city within a city supported four thousand veterans, providing them with not only medical care but also a structured daily life that included working in on-site factories that produced tapestries and footwear.