House and Garden 
tects Liberal Bruant and Robert de Cotte. 
The splendid church in which the tomb of 
Napoleon has been placed was designed by 
Jules Hardouin-Mansard. 
If we look at the map of Jouvin de Roche¬ 
fort (1672) in which the Invalides first ap¬ 
pears we will see that it occupies a perfectly 
free position in open country and that a 
slight change would have brought its axis 
into line with that of the Avenue d’Antin 
and the rondpoint of the Champs-Elysees. It 
is surprising that this fact was not recognized 
at the time. Instead it was left to the present 
generation to create a new axis, that of the 
Pont Alexandre III. and the two Palais des 
Beaux Arts. 
In placing the Hotel Royale, the Ecole 
Militaire, and the Champs de Mars, which 
were designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel and 
executed by A. Brogniart between 1752 
and 1787, more foresight was shown. The 
axis of the monument in this case was ar¬ 
ranged to pass over the hill at Passy, where 
in the nineteenth century the rond point of 
the Place du Trocadero and the great exhi¬ 
bition palace of that name were built. 
The interesting plexus of ronds points and 
avenues to the south of the Invalides and 
Ecole Militaire was developed in the eigh¬ 
teenth century nearly in its present form. 
THE BOULEVARDS 
Improvements in artillery during the early 
seventeenth century 
rendered the old ma¬ 
sonry wall of Charles V. 
less and less valuable. 
It was gradually replac¬ 
ed by earthworks in the 
form of bastions which 
were called “ boule- 
varts .” The deriva¬ 
tion of the word has 
never been made out. 
The powerful gov¬ 
ernments of Richelieu 
and the great minis¬ 
ters of Louis XIV. 
were responsible for 
many wars, but they 
managed to do their 
fighting at a distance 
from Paris, so that 
for two centuries the city enjoyed profound 
peace, a vast relief from the perpetual civil 
wars of the sixteenth century. The great 
bastions or “ boulevarts ,” abandoned by the 
military authorities, were found to make 
excellent parks for the people. Occa¬ 
sionally trees were planted upon them and 
parterres laid out. The bastion to the north 
of the Bastille and the Porte Saint-An- 
toine was especially popular. In the plan 
of Gomboust (1652) it is called the “ boule- 
vert de la Porte Saint-Antoine,” and in that 
of Boisseau (1654) the “ grand boulevert.” 
In the beautiful map of Bullet and Blondel 
(1676) the old fortifications are entirely re¬ 
moved and in their place a system of ronds 
points and straight connecting avenues is 
drawn, which is speculative, of course, but 
shows clearly what the intention was. The 
actual execution of the scheme was gradual. 
Even in the days of Haussmann the boule¬ 
vards were extremely rough. The name 
boulevarts is not actually transferred from 
the bastions to the avenues until the map of 
Jaillot (1775). Before this they were called 
cours or rues de remparts. 
In the reign of Louis XIV. the medieval 
gates were replaced by a superb series of tri¬ 
umphal arches designed by Francois Blon¬ 
del. Two of these, the Porte Saint-Denis 
(1671) with sculpture by Girardon and Mi¬ 
chel Anguier, and the Porte Saint-Martin, 
are still in existence. The beautiful Porte 
THE PORTE SAINT-ANTOINE From Maquet 
