he future king, a boy of
seven years, to lay the first stone. The church was designed by F.
Mansard on the model of St. Peter's at Rome, and was finished by
Lemercier and others.

A refuge had been founded as early as Henry IV.'s reign in an old
abbey in the Faubourg St. Marcel, for old and disabled soldiers. Louis
XIV., the greatest creator of _invalides_ France had seen, determined
in 1670 to extend the foundation, and erect a vast hospital, capable
of accommodating his aged, crippled or infirm soldiers. Bruant and
J.H. Mansard[148] among other architects were employed to raise the
vast pile of buildings which, when completed, are said to have been
capable of housing 7,000 men. A church dedicated to St. Louis was
comprehended in the scheme, and, in 1680, a second Eglise Royale was
erected, whose gilded dome is so conspicuous an object in south Paris;
the Eglise Royale, which Mansard designed, was subsequently added to
the church of St. Louis, and became its choir. Louis XIV.,
anticipating Napoleon's maxim that war must support war, raised the
funds needed for the foundation by ingeniously requiring all ordinary
and extraordinary treasurers of war to retain two deniers[149] on
every livre that passed through their hands.

[Footnote 148: Jules Hardouin, the younger Mansard, was a nephew and
pupil of Francois Mansard, and assumed his uncle's name. The latter
was the inventor of the Mansard roof.]

[Footnote 149: The sixth part of a sou.]

The old city gates of the Tournelle, Poissonniere (or St. Anne), St.
Martin, St. Denis, the Temple, St. Jacques, St. Victor, were
demolished, and triumphal arches, which still remain, erected to mark
the sites of the Portes St. Denis and St. Martin. Another arch, of St.
Antoine, was designed to surpass all existing or ancient monuments of
the kind, and many volumes were written concerning the language in
which the inscription should be composed, but the devouring maw of
Versailles had to be filled, and the arch was never completed. The
king for whose glory the monument was to be raised, cared so little
for it, that he suffered it to be pulled down.

Many new streets[150] were made, and others widened, among them the
ill-omened Rue de la Ferronnerie. The northern ramparts were levelled
and planted with trees from the Porte St. Antoine in the east to the
Porte St. Honore in the west, and in 1704 it was decided to continue
the planting in the south round the Faubourg St. Germain. The