Les Invalides

Arrondissement 7

In 1670 the Sun King Louis XIV was forced to order the building of the hospital the L’hôtel des Invalides to get some of the huge numbers of wounded ageing soldiers from his Thirty Years War off the streets of Paris. What was then a district outside Paris today still treats some of the wounded from France’s continuing militaristic and imperial legacy, and for others is still a retirement home.

At 7 am on the morning of July 14 1789, a huge crowd stormed the building. The governor ordered his troops to fire, but none did. The Invalides’ gates were raised by the retired and wounded soldiers inside and those outside armed themselves and marched on the Bastille.

Early on July 14 1789 Jean-Baptiste Lallemand paints the moments when Parisians take 27 canons and 32,000 rifles from Les Invalides and then march on the Bastille.

Even more significant in French iconography, Les Invalides since 1840 also houses the tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte.

PLACES

Rue de Montreuil

Arrondissement 14

Numbers 31, 96

An old road to Montreuil where the Montgolfier brothers first flew above Paris in a hot air balloon and where a workers protest helped trigger the 1789 revolution. No 96 was where Blanqui’s mother nursed his gunshot wound in 1827, and where he lived with his wife from 1830 and in 1834 his son was born.

It was on the road to Montreuil towards the north- east of Paris that Blanqui’s highly supportive mother, Sophie de Brionville, bound his wounds in 1827 at number 96 and took him and his wife in from 1830. His only son was born there.

The first tethered manned flight by Etienne Montgolfier was tested on October 15 1783 in the backyard of the Réveillon works at no 31 rue de Montreuil.


In 1783, in the back yard at number 31 the Montgolfier brothers first stayed on their hot-air balloon as it took place off at the Royal wallpaper factory that six years later helped trigger the 1789 revolution.

In 1789 the wallpaper factory’s owner and designer of the balloon’s wallpaper decorative covering, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, was a candidate in the upcoming elections for the General Estates forced on Louis XVI. Réveillon argued that his workers’ wages could be reduced if bread prices were lowered and the workers stopped spending their wages on drink .

On 28 April 1789 workers sacked and pillaged the factory and his house, while Réveillon took refuge in the Bastille fort. The army then killed somewhere between 25 and 100 people in quelling the riot. It was the first of several workers’ riots that led up to the July 14 storming of the Bastille.

PLACES