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In the Ancient Armoury Department, restored 17th-century murals by Joseph Parrocel celebrate Louis XIV’s military conquests.

The third-largest collection of armoury in the world is on show in the northeast refectory. Assembled over a 40-year period since the 1960s, these items had been lost since the Revolution.

Over 800 canons are gathered together inside and in front of the museum.

Built for the daughter of Louis XIV in 1722, the Palais Bourbon has housed the lower house of the French parliament since 1827. The Council of the Five Hundred met here during the Revolution, and it was the headquarters of the German Occupation during World War II. Napoleon added the Classical riverfront façade in 1806 to complement La Madeleine (see Place de la Madeleine) across the river.

Everybody wants to race to the top, but don’t neglect the view from the ground. Looking directly up at the magnificent structure makes one appreciate the feat of engineering all the more (see Eiffel Tower).

These long formal gardens, stretching between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire, were laid out in 1765–7 as a parade ground for the military school, but the “Field of Mars” was opened to the public in 1780. Three years later crowds gathered for the launch of the first hydrogen-filled balloon. On 14 July 1790, a sullen Louis XVI watched as 300,000 citizens celebrated the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event which is commemorated here annually (see Marais and the Bastille). Five world exhibitions were held here between 1867 and 1937; the 1889 event gave Paris the Eiffel Tower.

At the urging of his mistress Madame Pompadour, Louis XV approved the building of the Royal Military Academy in 1751. Although its purpose was to educate the sons of impoverished officers, a grand edifice was designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel, architect of the place de la Concorde and the Petit Trianon at Versailles, and completed in 1773. The central pavilion with its quadrangular dome and Corinthian pillars is a splendid example of the French Classical style.

Such was the success of Paris’s breathtaking Millennium fireworks display, centred on the tower, that the city authorities continued the idea with an hourly lighting display that makes the whole edifice twinkle.

This display on the life and times of the former war-time president is in the Cour de la Valeur from summer 2007.