Les Invalides, as it is widely known, is probably the world's grandest rest home. The sprawling building was designed by architect Libéral Bruant in the 1670s at the request of Louis XIV's minister of finance, Colbert, to house wounded soldiers. Along the façade are eerie dormer windows shaped like 17th-century armor. When it was finished, some 4,000 residents lived here. No more than a handful of aging veterans reside at the Invalides today, but the military links remain in the form of the Musée de l'Armée, one of the world's foremost military museums. The collection of arms, armor, uniforms, banners, and military paintings is staggering.

Paris's most impressive dome covers Paris's largest ego: Napoléon's tomb is here -- his body protected by a series of no fewer than six coffins, one inside the next (sort of like a Russian nesting doll), within a bombastic memorial of red porphyry, and ringed by a dozen statues symbolizing his campaigns. Among others commemorated in the church are French World War I hero Marshal Foch; Napoléon's brother Joseph, an erstwhile king of Spain; and military architect Sébastien de Vauban. The dome itself, over the Eglise du Dôme (Church of the Dome), at the back of the Invalides, is the second tallest building in Paris, after the Eiffel Tower. For the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, in 1989, the dome was regilded -- using more than half a million gold leaves, or more than 20 pounds of gold. A variety of historical, thematic and general tours of the premises are offered, at an additional cost.

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