Musee de l'Armee
From Paris Hotels Reviews
Musee de l'Armee
Les Invalides today houses the vast Musée de l’ Armée (daily: April-Sept 10am-5:30pm; Oct-March 10am-4:30pm; €7 ticket also valid for Napoleon’s tomb, see opposite. www.invalides.org; M°La Tour-Mauborgh/Varenne), the national war museum. The moat around the whole Invalides complex means you can only approach from the north or south ends of the buildings; the ticket office is in the southwest wing, where it faces in towards the Eglise du Dôme.
The most interesting section of the museum, also in the southwest wing, begins with Prussia’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 and ends with the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. In thus implicity signs up to the ultra-traditionalist view of modern French history: that, after a seventy-year struggle with the German aggressor, La Patrie finally emerged victorious. The museum tells its story using original uniforms and real weapons alongside photograph, maps, paintings, contemporary sound recordings, film footage and explanatory panels in French and English. The coverage of World War I focuses more on strategy than the well-known horrors of that conflict; there’s a fascinating video projection of troop movements during the crucial battle of the Marne, for instance, but the war’s ten million dead soldier – 1.37 million of them French, alongside almost five million wounded – are only really represented by artefacts that killed them, gas shells, machine guns and an entire wall of grenades. The section on World War II is more stirringly presented. The battles, the resistance and the slow liberation are documented through imaginatively displayed war memorabilia combined with gripping film reels and with the distinct impression that de Gaulle was personally responsible for the liberation of France.
By comparison, the vast collection of armour, uniforms and weapons that makes up the northern half of the museum, on either side of the front court, is probably best left to tin-soldier fanatics or military history buffs. The said, this entire section of the museum will reopen following a complete refit in 2009 or 2010. It’s likely to liven up what was previously a rather dull exhibition on the French armed forces between Louis XIV and Napoléon III; the large collection of Napoleon’s personal effects – notably his horse (stuffed), campaign tent and trademark hat and coat – should at least be worth seeing. A Few sections of this part of the museum are already open. Some children will love the gorier sections in the west wing, where the old arsenal has been filled with medieval and Renaissance weaponry and armour, most of it lais\d out as if ready for use. Highlights include the extraordinary mail made for Francois I, a big man for his time, and climly lit chamber of beautifully worked Oriental weaponry.
Up under the roof of the east wing, the super-scale models of French ports and fortified cities in the Musée des Plas-Reliefs (same hours and ticket as Musée de l’Armée above) are crying out for a few miniature armies. Essentially giant three-dimensional maps, they were created to plan defences or plot potential artillery positions. The collection was begun in 1668 by Louvois, Louis XIV’s war minister, and was classed a historic monument in 1927 – plans’ usefulness had only been made redundant by the technological advances of World War I. With the eerie green glow of their landscapes only just illuminating the long, tunnel-like attic, the effect is rather chilling.
