Musée de l’Armée occupies historic Hôtel des Invalides, where military objects are displayed within the institution created to house veterans. Its collections connect weapons, uniforms, and personal histories to the changing purposes of the complex around them.
Quick facts
Louis XIV founded Hôtel des Invalides in 1670 to house veterans; the first residents arrived in 1674.
Musée de l’Armée was created in 1905 by merging the Musée d’Artillerie and the Musée historique de l’Armée.
On 14 July 1789, a crowd seized weapons and cannon stored at the Invalides and carried them to the Bastille.
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The first thing to notice at the Hôtel des Invalides is that it was built as a place to live, not as a museum. Louis XIV ordered the complex in 1670 to house soldiers made old, ill or injured by service. The first veterans arrived in 1674. Today, the Musée de l’Armée fills part of this great Paris complex, alongside the gilded Dôme, the Cathedral of Saint-Louis and the still-active Institution nationale des Invalides.
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