"Les Invalides, Museum in Paris" Topic

Hi there, If you never had the occasion of coming over to Paris visit the Army museum the Invalides, you can follow this link to my blog and see what this museum is about :

I'll post several posts in the newt few days to show different periods with a lot of photos. You can use the translation tool if you're not speaking french language

C&C are welcome. I hope you'll enjoy the trip…

Sheers

Judgefredd

I second that- it's the best military museum in the world.
My favorites are Napoleons Stuffed horse and a cuirass with a hole in the right breast from a 6 pounder.
They also have a complete floor of star fort models and other fieldworks.

It's a very good military museum – not sure it's the best in the world.

Certainly is a must see (and do allow plenty of time, a lot of time, it's big).

Right, also called "plans et reliefs". these are 3D models of forts made with paper…

Nearly impossible to take photos because the room is so dark to avoid light to detroy everything.

The room was closed for a long time but is open again since something like 3 years or so

link
Ouch!

Hey 20thmaine who has a better one?

I'll post pics taken from the other side of the armor so you'll see what it looks like when the canonball comes out…

Judgefredd,

Merci!

I really enjoyed reading, and seeing, what you have posted thus far.

Bob

"Hey 20thmaine who has a better one?"

I enjoyed Les Invalides too, I think I spent far too long spending some quiet moments with the Corsican Ogre in his final resting place.

'best' depends what you want from a museum, a personal favourite of mine is IWM Duxford, partly as it is so big and has so many neat toys, many of which and drive/fly around. I was also rather fond of the military museum in Buda which is quite small bu not only has full size models of Austro-Hungarian cavalry outside, but also a range of small arms you can handle.

My most visited and firm favourite is the IWM London, been going for decades and it is different every time.

When I visited Paris the Napoleonic and WWI wings of the museum were closed! The horror! I guess I will just have to go back!

Have they opened up ALL of the Musee des Plans-Reliefs yet? For years only one room (showing the fortresses of the Atlantic Coast, Mediterranean Coast, Pyrenees and Alps) has been publicly-accessible. The best models in my opinion are in the other two rooms (which cover northern and eastern France, as well as some fortresses over the borders), but it's been many years since I've been able to see those. Essentially, the Musee des Plans-Reliefs fills the attic-space of all three wings of the Musee d'Armee, but for many years we've only been able to access one of the wings.

The best model of the lot in my opinion is Strassbourg – an incredible model.

The model buildings themselves are made of blocks of wood, which are then covered in paper and details inked in by hand. Flock and trees were made from chopped silk. Louis XIV had an army of surveyors out measuring, recording and sketching every single building and detail of landscape – even the colour of the flock was determined by the watercolours produced by the surveyors. Then, to cap it all, he built what is now the Louvre Museum to house the models! C'est Incroyable!

I was there this July, wonderful museum. Plan on a full day. I only had 4 hours and it wasn't enough.

I never saw this model so I suppose they didn't open this room yet…

I offer a challenger for best 'war museum':

The Museum of Military History (German: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum) located in Vienna, Austria.

I've been to both (and the IWM London – which might be 3rd), and several others around the world, but Paris and Vienna are number one and two in my book (so far) – it would depend on your interests to decide which is which.

My favourite WW2 Museums would be different but just as hard to split – the Peace Museum (Le M้morial) in Caen and the Great Patriotic War Museum in Moscow.

Best naval museums (also military history museums) would be Greenwich and, surprisingly, Madrid (the latter has much more interesting Napoleonic stuff).

I forgot about TIWM in London it was great as well with the interactive trench and blitz experience, but the sheer size of the French museum is awesome. I have not been the the one in Austria I bet it's pretty cool.

hahahaha – what Martin Rapier said !

I do like Duxford, it's more aligned to some of my interests.

And I did like Les Invalides – I spent too long in the medieval & renaissance armour galleries.

It's not a contest really – I'd go again to Les Invalides, I'd go to the Stockholm army museum again (that is a great museum), and Duxfor and IWM and NAM and the military museum in the fortifications at Quebec and….I like the one in Bergen as well. And Copenhagen Arsenal is a really great museum if you like artillery….as is Fort Nelson.

The museum of the Navy in Paris is awesomely good.

Do I really have to pick just one ?

Let me suggest two major US contenders:

The Gettysburg National Military Park museum, and

The Pamplin Park Civil War Museum in Petersburg, Virginia

For WW I, the Memorial of Verdun museum

for WW II, the new Bastogne Museum, and several museums at Normandy/Caen

Purely for Napoleonic artefacts, the Empiri museum at Salons de Provence is (almost) unbeatable.

Sorry but Pamplin park is about the size of the gift shop in these other museums.

I agree with Marcel1809………Musee de l'Emperi is fantastic and more than 1st Empire uniforms.

Les Invalides is a very good single building museum and is well worth seeing. However it would be wrong to call it the world's best Military "Museum"

By definition the term museum should refer to the total collection of the institution and not just those situated in one location Using this criteria the Imperial War Museum is in a class by itself when you take their entire collection into account. The IWM is simply more then the one building in South London as you have to include all of its five locations including Duxford. HMS Belfast, The Cabinet War Rooms and IWM North When you add these all together along with their massive archival and materials not on display no "museum" can match it.

I don't personnaly think we can classify any museum as the best one. It's just a matter of taste, so…

For the Emperi Museum, it's used as a sort of reserve for the Invalides, and the collections were about to be divided between the sons of the owner since they couldn't agree about the succession of their father.

I heard a part of the collections could be sold in parts. and that would be a shame…

Some more posts on the blog this morning ;)

I've enjoyed the Budapest, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Vienna museums but they are all quite small (Vienna is the biggest of these). Rather old fashioned but also good, in Europe, is the military museum in Brussels which also has artillery, a few tanks and aircraft. It is especially good for WW1 uniforms and, of course, Belgian colonial for Darkest Africa aficionados.

Continuing on what Legatus wrote, the Brussels army museum also has a fairly small but very intersting Napoleonic collection, partly housed in the inside of the triumph arc of the "cinquantennaie" from where you also have great view on Brussels (if you step outside onto the arch that is)
For those who are also interested in W.W. I, there is cuurently a major exhibition on the war with some of the museums vast collection presented in a more modern way, recommended.
The tank section of the museum seems to be removed (don't know where they aren now?) but the airforce hall is still quite impressive if a bit of a jungle. (I think more aircraftare stored there than the present day Belgian air force has in active service)

Olicana, I visited the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich a couple of weeks ago and found it to be dreadful. I was there with my son (22) and he complained that for such a large space there was virtually nothing to see. He was right. The Maritime Museum in Liverpool is very much better, although smaller in floor area.

Chouan,

The Welsh National Maritime Museum in Swansea is similarly awful. The old transport museum there used to be filled with amazing model ships and artefacts, but now there's just a handful of models and artefacts; the rest of the space is filled with interactive crud that you could see simply by sitting at home with your computer. The much-vaunted Juno Beach Centre is similarly awful.

"I never saw this model so I suppose they didn't open this room yet…"

The Strasbourg model may once have been part of the Invalides collection, but for many years now has been on display at the Strasbourg historical museum (which was itself closed for refurbishment for the better part of a decade).

I second the Stockholm Army museum. I also liked the armory.

I find Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Wien the most charming by far. I add some beautiful museums in Ingostatd (Bavarian army) and Dresden and the Maritime Museum in Venice