it served for a time as a coal-store, then became a National orphanage, and in 1802 the “Enfants Malades”; its ancient chapel was replaced by the chapel we see under Napoléon III. CHAPTER XXVII HÔTEL DES INVALIDES ARRONDISSEMENT VII. (PALAIS-BOURBON) It was Henri IV, _le bon Roi_, who first planned the erection of a special _hôtel_ to shelter aged and wounded soldiers. Meanwhile they were lodged in barracks in different parts of the city. The fine _hôtel_ we know was built by Louis XIV, opened in 1674, restored in after years by Napoléon I, and again by Napoléon III. The greatest military names of France figure in the list of its governors. On July 14th, 1789, the Paris mob rushed to the Invalides for arms wherewith to storm the Bastille. On the 30th of March, 1814, nearly fifteen hundred flags and trophies were destroyed in a great bonfire made in the court to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy Allies. But the chapel is still hung with flags and trophies taken in wars long overpast and three museums--le Musée Historique, le Musée d’Artillerie, le Musée des Plans-en-relief--have been important features at les Invalides since 1905. The ancient refectory has become la Salle-des-Armures, decorated with frescoes illustrative of the great battles of bygone days from the time of Louis XIV onward. The big cannons--_la batterie triomphale_--we see behind the moats are those captured in the Napoléonic wars. Now in these poignant days of unparalleled warfare, immense cannons of the most up-to-date construction, monstrous airships, broken zeppelins, are gathered in the great courtyards. In the chapel St-Louis we see the tombs of distinguished soldiers and memorials in honour of the heroes of old-time war-days. The dome-church, separated from it by the immense stained-glass window, was built as a special chapel for the King and Court, its dome decorated with paintings by the greatest artists of the time. The sumptuous tomb of Napoléon I, the work of Visconti, was placed there in the second half of the nineteenth century. The gravestone from St-Helena and other souvenirs were put in the chapel St-Nicolas in 1910. Of late years no new pensioners were received, veterans of war-days past were for long the sole inhabitants of the soldiers’ quarters--the only “_invalides_.” Now the institution is once more to be peopled with a crowd of disabled heroes, victims of the terrible war.