The interior of the Invalides is circular, with arms of a cross extended north, south, east, and west. The great dome is a splendid piece of architecture, the summit of which is over three hundred feet from the pavement; and high up in the cupola we see a splendid picture representing our Saviour surrounded by saints and angels, which must be colossal in size to appear as they do of life-size from below. In chapels, in the angles formed by the cross, are other splendid monuments to distinguished personages. In the Chapel of St. Augustin is the tomb of Napoleon's eldest brother, Joseph, King of Spain, a huge sarcophagus of black marble; and not far from this is that of Vauban, the greatest of military engineers, also a sarcophagus of black marble, upon which rests an effigy of Vauban; surrounded by emblems, with two allegorical statues beside him. The monument of King Jerome is in the chapel dedicated to St. Jerome, and is a huge sort of black marble casket on gilt claw-feet, upon the top of which stands his statue. A monument to Marshal Turenne represents him dying in the arms of some allegorical genius, with an eagle at his feet.
Each of the chapels is dedicated to some saint, and richly decorated by frescoes representing scenes in his life; but chapels, monuments, and all, are, although splendid, of course insignificant compared with that of the emperor, resting beneath the grand dome in the halo of colored light, before the grand altar, and around which the twelve colossi, with grasped swords and victorious wreaths, seem to be keeping solemn watch and ward over the now silent dust of him
"Whose greatness was no guard
To bar Heaven's shaft."
One can easily imagine that Louis XIV. nearly bankrupted the French nation in his magnificent expenditures on the palace and parks of Versailles, everything about them is upon such a prodigal and princely style. The vast halls of paintings, magnificent chapels, theatres, great gardens, statuary, hot-houses, parks, fountains, and artificial basins, the water to supply which was brought about four miles, the little park of twelve miles in extent, and great park of forty. When the visitor looks about him, he is amazed at the prodigal display of wealth on every side. He ceases to wonder that over two hundred millions of dollars have been expended upon this great permanent French exposition and historical museum of the French nation.
Passing through the town, we entered the Place d'Armes, approaching the palace. This is a great open space eight hundred feet broad, from which we enter the grand court, or Cour d'Honneur, a space about four hundred feet wide, leading up to the palace buildings, which are various, irregular, and splendid piles, ornamented with pavilions, plain, or decorated with Corinthian columns, and statues. In the centre of the upper part of this great court stands a colossal equestrian statue of Louis XIV., and upon either side, as the visitor walks up, he observes fine marble statues of distinguished Frenchmen, such as Colbert, Jourdan, Masséna, Conde, Richelieu, Bayard, &c. Entering the palace, which appears from this court a confused mass of buildings, one is overwhelmed with its vastness and magnificence. Some idea of the former may be obtained by passing through, and taking a survey of the western, or garden front, which is one continuous pile of building a quarter of a mile in extent, elegantly adorned with richly-cut columns, statues, and porticos, and, when viewed from the park, with the broad, very broad flights of marble steps leading to it, adorned with vases, countless statues, ornamental balustrades, &c., strikingly reminding one of the pictorial representations he has seen of Solomon's Temple, or perhaps more strikingly realizing what he may have pictured in his imagination to have been the real appearance of that wonderful edifice.
The collection of pictures and statuary in the Historical Museum is so overwhelming, and the series of rooms apparently so interminable, that a single visit is inadequate to do more than give the visitor a sort of confused general idea of the whole. Guides, if desired, were furnished, who, at a charge of a franc an hour, will accompany a small party of visitors, and greatly facilitate their progress in making the best use of time, and in seeking out the most celebrated objects of interest. Attendants in livery were stationed at different points through the buildings, to direct visitors and indicate the route.
Here, in the great Historical Museum, are eleven spacious rooms, elegantly decorated, and containing pictures on historical subjects from the time of King Clovis to Louis XVI. Here is Charlemagne dictating his Code of Laws, Henry IV. entering Paris, the Siege of Lille, Coronation of Louis XIV., and many other immense tableaux filled with figures, and of great detail.
There are the Halls of the Crusades, five magnificent rooms in Gothic style, and forming a gallery of paintings illustrating those periods of history, and, of course, such events as French crusaders were most prominent in. The walls and ceilings are ornamented with armorial bearings and devices of French crusaders; and in the wall of one of the rooms are the Gates of the Hospital of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, given to Prince de Joinville, by Sultan Mahmoud, in 1836. The great pictures of the desperate battles of the mail-clad warriors of the cross and the Saracens are given with graphic fidelity, the figures in the huge tableaux nearly or quite the size of life, and the hand-to-hand encounter of sword, cimeter, battle-axe, and mace, or the desperate struggles in the "imminent deadly breach," the fierce escalade, the terrific charge, or the desperate assault, represented with a force, vigor, and expression that almost make one's blood tingle to look upon them. Here was a magnificent picture representing a Procession of Crusaders round Jerusalem, another, by Delacroix, representing the Taking of Constantinople, Larivière's Raising the Siege of Malta, and Raising the Siege of Rhodes, the Battle of Ascalon, Taking of Jerusalem, Taking of Antioch, Battle of Acre; also the portraits of Jaques Molay, Hugh de Payens, De La Valette, and other grand commanders of the order.
Another series of elegant halls, seven in number, had some magnificent colossal pictures of modern battles, such as the Battle of Alma, Storming of the Mamelon, the Return of the Army to Paris in 1859, and Horace Vernet's celebrated picture of the Surprise of Abdel-Kader's Encampment, a most spirited specimen of figure-painting. Then came a spirited picture of the Storming of the Malakoff, Storming of Sebastopol, Battles of Magenta, &c., and several fine battle-pieces by Horace Vernet. Then there are rooms with scenes in the campaign in Morocco, whole galleries of statues, galleries of French admirals and generals, series after series of six, eight, or ten great apartments, each a gallery of itself.