As soon as his carriage entered the gate, several of the veterans got in front of the body-guard forming the escort and kept them back, saying that from the moment His Majesty entered the place he should have no other guard than his old servants. Those who had defended him on the battle-field could, they declared, look after him quite well whenever he was pleased to come and visit them. A lively altercation took place on this point, and attracted the attention of the king, who, informed of what had occurred, ordered the captain of his guards to withdraw outside the building, adding that in future whenever he visited the place he would confide his person to his dear old disabled soldiers. [Illustration: DORMER WINDOW ON THE FAÇADE, HÔTEL DES INVALIDES.] [Illustration: DORMER WINDOW ON THE FAÇADE, HÔTEL DES INVALIDES.] Just as the illustrious visitors were going away, one pensioner who was minus a limb or two approached Madame de Maintenon and presented to her a plate bearing a piece of the regulation bread surrounded with flowers. “Permit me, madam,” he said, “to beg you to taste the bread we are fed with.” The court ladies present took a bite at it and complained of it to the king, who severely reprimanded the chief official of the establishment, and ordered him to supply bread of better quality. [Illustration: THE COURT OF HONOUR, HÔTEL DES INVALIDES.] The building, meanwhile, was not large enough to accommodate all the pensioners who had found refuge in the different religious retreats. The least infirm, therefore, had to yield precedence to their comrades, and Louvois ordered that forty companies should be despatched to Montreuil-sur-Mer, others being sent to Havre, Abbeville, and other fortified towns. Louvois died in 1691, much lamented by the pensioners. [Illustration: INVALIDES.] In 1714 the king made a last and lengthy visit to the Invalides. In his will he commended the establishment to the particular care of his successors. “The foundation of the Invalides,” says M. Monnier, “is perhaps the one act of Louis XIV. which has remained popular.” In 1716 Peter the Great visited the Hôtel des Invalides, made a detailed inspection of it, and tasted the water drunk within its walls. On his return to Russia he founded an Hôtel des Invalides at St. Petersburg. To skip over a somewhat uneventful period to the Revolution, the home of the pensioners was on the 14th of July, 1789, seized, without resistance, by the mob, who took possession of all the guns and carried them off.