Val de Grace

By on 07/08/2010 in Attractions, Paris
Val de Grace FacadeVal de Grace Facade

The Val de Grace (Hospital d’instruction des armées du Val de Grace or HIA Val de Grace) is a military hospital located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France.

History

The church of the Val de Grace was built by order of Queen Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. After the birth of her son Louis XIV, Anne (previously childless after 23 years of marriage) showed her gratitude to the Virgin Mary by building a church on the land of a Benedictine convent. Louis XIV himself is said to have laid the cornerstone for the Val de Grace in a ceremony that took place April 1, 1645, when he was seven years old.

The church of the Val de Grace , designed by François Mansart and Jacques Lemercier, is considered by some as Paris’s best example of baroque architecture (curving lines, elaborate ornamentation and harmony of different elements). Construction began in 1645, and was completed in 1667.

The Benedictine nuns provided medical care for injured revolutionaries during the French Revolution, and thus the church at Val-de-Grace was spared much of the desecration and vandalism that plagued other, more famous Paris churches (Notre Dame was looted and turned into a warehouse; St. Eustache was used as a barn, for example). As a result, the church’s exquisite interior is one of the few unspoiled remnants of Paris’s pre-Revolution grandeur. Following the Revolution, the buildings were converted into a military hospital.

Currently, the original buildings only serve for offices and teaching facilities (École d’application du Service de santé des armées); the actual medical facilities are inside a large modern building to the east on the same grounds.

The present-day hospital was built in the 1970s and completed in 1979. It has a capacity of 350 beds, in various specialties. The hospital is accessible to military personnel in need of medical aid as well as to any person with health coverage under the French social security system. It is famous for being the place where the top officials of the French Republic generally get treated for ailment.

The statue standing in the courtyard is that of Dominique Jean Larrey (as sculpted by David d’Angers in 1843), who was Napoleon’s personal surgeon and innovator of the concept of battlefield triage.

The old abbey alongside the church is now a museum of French army medicine. Tours of the museum and church are available for a small fee (being a military facility, the grounds are under military guard and tourists are escorted). Cameras are not permitted except for inside the church itself.

The last emperor of Vietnam Bảo Đại died at Val de Grace hospital on July 30, 1997, age 83.

People buried at Val de Grace

Val de Grace was later the traditional burial place for members of the House of Orléans, cadet of the House of Bourbon;

* Mademoiselle de Valois (1693-1694) daughter of Philippe d’Orléans;

* Louis d’Orléans

* Margravine Auguste Marie Johanna of Baden-Baden, duchesse d’Orléans (1704-1726);

* Louise Marie d’Orléans, Madamoiselle (1726-1728), daughter of the above who died in childbirth giving birth to Louise Marie;

* Louis Philippe d’Orléans (1725-1785) son of Louis;

* Louise Henriette de Bourbon (1726-1759) wife of the above (Text Source: Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Val de Grace Hospital is located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. So, you may want to see;

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