Val de Grâce

In 1645, seven-year-old Sun King Louis XIV, and his mother, Anne of Austria, laid the first stone of the Val de Grâce church. The queen mother this fulfilled an oath she had made earlier, to thank God for giving her a son.

Up until the French Revolution, the ^Val de Grâce was the church of the Royal Val de Grâce Abbey. It is located on the grounds of the Val de Grâce hospital. Thanks to the Benedictine nuns providing medical care to injured revolutionaries, the church was spared much of the desecration and vandalism churches such as Notre Dame and Saint Eustace suffered during the French Revolution. Still, it became a military teaching hospital in 1796.

It remained a military hospital until 2016 and treated normal patients as well as the French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy during their respective mandates.

Today, only the training, research and museum activities remain on site. In 2020, the French president Emmanuel Macron announced it would house three new research institutes, a campus to be completed by 2028.

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There are a number of cupolas in the Paris skyline. In this new series, Cupolas of Paris, we will have a look at the most prominent ones and what is hidden below them:

The Dôme des Invalides – 7^th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17^th century
The Panthéon – 5^th arrondissement – built in the 18^th century
The Sorbonne – 5^th arrondissement – built in the 17^th century
The Observatory – 14^th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17^th century
The Val de Grâce – 5^th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17^th century
The Institut de France – 6^th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17^th century

Mayken Brünings

Writing Middle Grade fiction in Paris

Tag Archives: Val de Grâce

Le Val de Grâce

Cupolas of Paris