Arrondissement N7

Assemblee Nationale



The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The other is the Senate. The National Assembly consists of 577 members known as deputes (deputies), each elected by a single-member constituency.

Champ de Mars



The Field of Mars is not only one large opened garden, a great green place which extent towards the Eiffel tower. It is also one of the places of Paris which changed the most during its history considering the diversity of events which were created there.

At the beginning, it is a beautiful planted plain which belonged to the two abbeys of St Germain des pres and Ste Genevieve.

During the construction of the Military academy, the plain was used to store the materials which arrived by the Seine.

July 5, 1769, the king Louis XV came to pass the first review. The public sat down on estrades supported on the earthworks. The Field of Mars had become a vast arena surrounded by monticules which was very well adapted for military demonstrations.

During the French Revolution, the Champ de Mars was the setting of the Fête de la Fédération, on the 14 July 1790. It was also the setting of a massacre on July 17, 1791, when a crowd collected to draft a petition seeking the removal of King Louis XVI. This happened just days after the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Soldiers under the orders of the mayor Jean-Sylvain Bailly and the Marquis de Lafayette opened fire.

École Militaire



The Ecole Militaire (English: Military School) is a vast complex of buildings housing various military teaching facilities located in Paris, France, southeast of the Champ de Mars.

It was founded by Louis XV in 1750 on the basis of a proposal of the financier Joseph Paris (known as Duverney) with the support of Madame de Pompadour, with the aim of creating an academic college for cadet officers from poor families. It was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and construction began in 1752 on the grounds of the farm of Grenelle, but the school did not open until 1760. The Comte de Saint-Germain reorganised it in 1777 under the name of the Ecole des Cadets-gentilshommes (School of Young Gentlemen), which accepted the young Napoleon Bonaparte in 1784. He graduated from this school in only one year instead of the two years.

Hotel des Invalides



Louis XIV initiated the project by an order dated November 24, 1670, as a home and hôspital for aged and unwell soldiers: the name is a shortened form of hopital des invalides, the hospital for invalids. The architect of Les Invalides was Libéral Bruant. The selected site was suburban in the seventeenth century. By the time the enlarged project was completed in 1676, the river front measured 196 metres and the complex had fifteen courtyards, the largest being the cour d'hônneur («court of honour») for military parades.

The most notable tomb at Les Invalides is that of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) Napoleon was initially interred on Saint Helena, but King Louis-Philippe arranged for his remains to be brought to St Jerome's Chapel in Paris in 1840. A renovation of Les Invalides took many years, but in 1861 Napoleon was moved to the most prominent location under the dome at Les Invalides.

Official web site: http://www.invalides.org

Les Musee d'Orsay



The Musée d'Orsay (in English: The Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by popular painters such as Monet and Renoir. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.

Musee de l'Armee



The Musee de l'Armée is a museum at Les Invalides in Paris, France. Originally built as a hospital and home for disabled soldiers by Louis XIV, it now houses the Tomb of Napoleon and the museum of the Army of France. The museum's collections cover the time period from antiquity until the 20th century.

The museum was established in 1905 in the prestigious setting of the Hotel national des Invalides. It holds 500,000 artifacts, including weapons, armour, artillery, uniforms, emblems and paintings, exhibited in an area of 12,000 m?. The permanent collections are organized into «historical collections», representing a chronological tour from ancient times through the end of World War II.

Official web site: http://www.invalides.org

Pont Concorde



The Pont de la Concorde, opposite the Palais Bourbon, links Place de la Concorde with the left bank of the Seine. The bridge was built between 1787 and 1791, using stone from the demolished Bastille.

The view from the bridge on the right bank is of Place de la Concorde with its obelisk and beyond this the Madeleine. Farther downstream, on the same side of the Seine, are the Tuileries and the Louvre. Beyond this is the Ile de la Cite, with the towers of Notre-Dame. On the left bank can be seen the Dôme and Hotel des Invalides and the Eiffel Tower.

Pont Royal



With its marked humpback, the Pont-Royal (Royal Bridge), remains, with the Pont-Neuf (New Bridge), one of the three oldest bridges in Paris. It is listed as a historical monument.It is probably the only bridge in Paris that was not required to link the various districts of the city. None of the roads to which it leads are a direct continuation of the bridge.

On the Right Bank, the bridge meets the Pavillon Flore (Flore Pavilion) and only reaches the Avenue du General Lemonnier after a twisting route. On the Left Bank, the same occurs with the Rue du Bac and the Rue de Beaune. A ferry used to link the two banks of the Seine. In 1632, Barbier built the first wooden bridge also called Saint-Anne, but which the people nicknamed the Pont Rouge (Red Bridge) because of its colour.

This wooden bridge, for pedestrians and horseriders, who paid a double toll like many others, was burnt down and washed away by the river. After being replaced by a stone structure between 1685 and 1689, under the aegis of Jacques Gabriel, Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Pere Romain, the Pont Royal (Royal Bridge) was entirely financed by Louis XIV. Hence its name. In the 18th century, big Parisian festivals and celebrations were held here. The nautical festival held on the occasion of the marriage of Elisabeth of France and the Infante Philip of Spain attracted 500,000 people to the banks and bridges.

The Pont Royal (Royal Bridge) impressively frames the view of the Bassin du Louvre (Louvre Basin), until then open to the West. It was on this bridge - called National from 1792 to 1804 - that Bonaparte placed the cannons used for the defence of the Tuileries where the Convention and the Comite de Salut Public (Committee of Public Safety) used to sit. On the last stretch of each bank the water level marker that showed the historic low- and high-water marks can be seen. The Mairie de Paris (Paris Town Hall) has decided on major renovation works which will be carried out over a number of years.

Rodin Museum



The Musée Rodin is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hotel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Rodin used the Hôtel Biron as his residence from 1908, and subsequently donated his entire collection of sculptures (along with paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that he had acquired) to the French State on the condition that they turn the building into a museum dedicated to his works.

The Musée Rodin contains most of Rodin's significant creations, including The Thinker and The Kiss. Many of his sculptures are displayed in the museum's extensive garden.

Official web site: http://www.musee-rodin.fr

Tour Eiffel



The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.

At the time the tower was built many people were shocked by its daring shape. But the shape of the tower was determined by mathematical calculation involving wind resistance.

The structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in), due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6-7 cm (2-3 in) in the wind. Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 324 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

It is the symbol of Paris and is the most visited paid monument in the world per year.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the tower has been used for radio transmission. Until the 1950s, an occasionally modified set of antenna wires ran from the summit to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. They were connected to long-wave transmitters in small bunkers; in 1909, a permanent underground radio center was built near the south pillar and still exists today.

Official web site: www.tour-eiffel.fr