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29-672: The building, constructed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel , is an active military academy and was classified as a national monument since 1990. This site can be visited during the European Heritage Days . L'École Militaire was founded in 1750, after the War of the Austrian Succession , by Louis XV on the basis of a proposal of Marshal Maurice de Saxe and with the support of Madame de Pompadour and financier Joseph Paris Duverney . Previously, military academies were exclusive to children of

58-564: A façade with a colonnade of the Doric order, and to the rear had a large courtyard with a façade of superimposed orders of columns, opening onto Place de Fontenoy . A chapel was artfully integrated into the architecture of the main building. The interior featured a lavishly-decorated salon, now the Salle des Marechals , connected to the grand floor by a majestic ramp, and the Chapel of Louis IX , or Saint Louis,

87-748: A member of the Académie royale d'architecture in 1728, and assisted his father on the Place de la Bourse. He became the principal assistant to his father as Premier Architecte at the Versailles from 1735 and, after his father's death, succeeded him as chief architect of the King. In his new position, he served under the supervision of two successive Directors of the Buildings of the King, Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem and Abel-François Poisson , Marquis de Marigny,

116-420: A noble background and offered apprenticeships in the King's Stables or the stables of other royal members. With the aim of creating an academic college for cadet officers from poor noble families, the exclusivity that royal military academies held vanished. By the edict of January 1751, King Louis XV established the institution to provide education to five hundred young noblemen born without fortune. Article XI of

145-603: The Académie de France à Rome , and then travelling (the so-called " Grand Tour ") across the country with the engraver Charles Nicolas Cochin , the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot and the abbé Leblanc. This trip would have important repercussions on the development of arts and artistic taste in France. At the death of Le Normant de Tournehem in 1751, Poisson de Vandières was called back from Italy and took over his functions as "directeur-général des Bâtiments du Roi" (director general of

174-448: The École Militaire , the first French military academy, to train five hundred young men from poor noble families "gentlemen" in the art of warfare. The site chosen was next to the plain of Grenelle , on the left bank to the west of the city center. Gabriel's plan called for a "château" with two wings flanking a central pavilion with a dome, similar to that of the Louvre . The building featured

203-409: The King's Buildings). He kept this position until his retirement in 1773, thereby setting a record for the longest administrative service in the 18th century in France. Irritable, boastful, easily angered, insecure about his humble origins, Marigny was nevertheless an intelligent and energetic administrator concerned with the importance of his work. He encouraged history painting and, in architecture,

232-695: The King. Gabriel's design, combining elements of the earlier schemes, left the view toward the Seine open, and preserved unobstructed the long axis between the Tuileries and the Champs-Élysées. On the north side of the Place, he built two symmetrical palaces, leaving a gap between them, creating a new north–south axis, the Rue Rye Royale, connecting the Place to the Madeleine church , then under construction. The façades of

261-764: The Louvre. He was known for his craftsmanship, his ability to balance the animation of the Baroque style with the more restrained neoclassicism, the proportions and balance and careful detail of his buildings, and his ability to create dramatic and harmonious ensembles of monumental buildings, as he did in the Place de la Concorde . Abel-Fran%C3%A7ois Poisson Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, marquis de Marigny ( French pronunciation: [abɛl fʁɑ̃swa pwasɔ̃ də vɑ̃djɛʁ maʁki də maʁiɲi] ) and marquis de Menars (1727 – 12 May 1781), often referred to simply as marquis de Marigny ,

290-473: The brother of the King's mistress and cultural advisor, Madame de Pompadour . The Place Louis XV, today's Place de la Concorde was conceived in 1748 and completed in 1772, and was Gabriel's first major project. He was asked to find a compromise between several competing plans for the development of the marshy land between the gates of the Tuileries Garden and the new Champs-Élysées , on land donated by

319-612: The building of what today is the Hôtel de la Marine , the headquarters of the French Navy until 2016, which was finished in 1774. He died in Paris in 1782. His sober rationality in planning and detail promoted the transition from Rococo to Neoclasscism . He was not especially known for boldness or originality; borrowing extensively from the French classicism and early classical models, particularly from

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348-443: The château of Marigny-en-Orxois , near Château-Thierry , he became the same year marquis de Marigny . In 1767, he married Marie Françoise Julie Constance Filleul (1751-1822), the illegitimate daughter of Louis XV and Irène du Buisson de Longpré , with whom he had a daughter who died young. The marquis de Marigny amassed an important collection of works of art at his various residences. Although he suffered severely from gout ,

377-584: The construction of the Place Louis XV (today the Place de la Concorde ), the planting of the gardens of the Champs-Élysées , and supervised the construction of the École Militaire . He gave numerous commissions to François Boucher , Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo , Jean-Baptiste Pierre and named Charles-Joseph Natoire as director of the Académie de France à Rome. Having inherited from his father in 1754

406-458: The court, where the young man attracted the favours of the king. When Philibert Orry retired, the king arranged for Abel-François Poisson de Vandières - then aged 18 - to inherit the direction of the Bâtiments du Roi ("direction générale des Bâtiments, Arts, Jardins et Manufactures"), while Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem , believed to be the marquise de Pompadour's biological father,

435-564: The edict provides for "by way of first perpetual endowment" the tax on playing cards. The administration is entrusted to the Secretary of State for War. The Royal Military Academy included a number of military colleges in the province such as the School of Brienne where students were admitted on evidence of nobility. At the end of their schooling, admission to the Royal Military School in Paris

464-523: The end of the North Wing but the project had been put on hold due to its cost of the King's wars and the complexity of meeting the needs of the Court. Gabriel made a new proposal for the same site in 1748, but it was also put on hold due to the cost. Gabriel subsequently occupied himself with numerous modifications to the exterior of the palace, notably the completion and extension of the North Wing, following closely

493-478: The interior. Gabriel and his chief architectural engineer, Blaise Arnaud, studied installing a mechanism to hoist the floor of the theater up to the level of the stage, to create an enormous ballroom, but this was never completed. His final projects were the completion of the façades of the buildings he designed for the Place de la Concorde; the former Hôtel de Coislin, and the Hotel Crillon , finished in 1770. and

522-567: The original designs of Jules Hardouin-Mansart , completed in 1764. The Opera project was revived in 1765 and was accelerated in 1770 for the celebrations of the marriage of the Dauphin , the future Louis XVI , to the Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria . To finish the project quickly and at lower cost, the theater was made entirely of wood, painted to resemble marble, but also giving it exceptionally good acoustics. The theater

551-466: The palaces, with rows of Corinthian columns, were modeled after the colonnades of the Louvre . The centerpiece of the square was an equestrian statue of Louis XV. The project was finalized in 1754 and was completed in 1763. The statue of Louis XV was removed during the French Revolution , and the obelisk , statues and fountains were added in the 19th century. Louis XV decided in 1751 to create

580-580: The patron saint of the Army. Two additional wings along Avenue de la Motte-Piquet were added in the 19th century. At the request of Madame de Pompadour , Gabriel had made plans for a smaller pavilion at Versailles away from the main palace and the Grand Trianon . With the end of the expensive Seven Years' War Louis XV approved the plans, and between 1763 and 1768 the Petit Trianon was constructed. The building

609-459: The return to classical sources, which would become French neoclassicism . He sponsored the architect Soufflot, whom he chose for the construction of the new Église Sainte-Geneviève (today the "Panthéon"), a major work in the neoclassical style. He gave oversight of the construction of the new Théâtre-Français (today the Théâtre de l'Odéon ) to Charles de Wailly and Marie-Joseph Peyre . He directed

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638-494: Was a French nobleman who served as the director general of the King's Buildings . He was the brother of King Louis XV 's influential mistress Madame de Pompadour . Non-noble by birth, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières was raised in a family of Parisian financiers. When his elder sister, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson became, in 1745, the official mistress of Louis XV and was given the title "marquise de Pompadour", she had him follow her to

667-526: Was connected by marriage with another celebrated architect of the time, François Mansart . His grandfather was an architect, and his father, Jacques Gabriel (1667-1742) received the title of Controller of the Buildings of the King at the age of twenty-one. His father's major projects included the Hôtel de Ville de Rennes and the Place Royale (now Place de la Bourse ) in Bordeaux. The young Ange-Jacques became

696-561: Was cubic, and each façade was different; each was decorated with pilasters, columns and pediments in perfect proportion and harmony. The façades of the Petit Trianon represented in its most pure form the emerging style of Neoclassicism in France . Much of his attention was devoted to modifications of the Palace of Versailles desired by Louis XV . The palace lacked a proper opera theater; a theater had been commanded under Louis XIV in 1682 for

725-414: Was done through a national competition. Charged by King Louis XV to design a grander building than the Hôtel des Invalides (constructed by Louis XIV ), Ange-Jacques Gabriel broke ground in 1752 on the farm of Grenelle . After years of construction, the school was opened in 1760. Gabriel presented an immense area with beautiful façades and water running through a network of wells and pipes. The entirety

754-506: Was in blue and gold, made in shape of truncated ellipse or oval, surrounded by tiers of boxes, decorated with carved and gilded wood, illuminated by three thousand candles whose light was reflected in mirrors. By this time Louis XV had a new mistress, Madame du Barry , and the royal box, the size of three ordinary boxes, had a grill to protect their privacy. Sculptures by Augustin Pajou and a painted ceiling by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau completed

783-578: Was indeed much larger and more striking than the Invalides. The Comte de Saint-Germain reorganised the establishment in 1777 under the name of the École des Cadets-gentilshommes ("School of Young Gentlemen"), which accepted the young Napoleon Bonaparte in 1784. Bonaparte went on to graduate after only one year instead of the usual two. The École now incorporates: Ange-Jacques Gabriel Ange-Jacques Gabriel ( French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʒ ʒak ɡabʁijɛl] ; 23 October 1698 – 4 January 1782)

812-562: Was named as Orry's immediate successor. Charles Antoine Coypel , first painter to the king, was given the responsibility of training and educating the young Abel-François Poisson de Vandières. With Coypel's help, Poisson de Vandières chose paintings from the royal collection for exhibition at the Palais du Luxembourg , thus creating the first museum in France. Between December 1749 and September 1751, he spent twenty-five months in Italy, staying first at

841-408: Was the principal architect of King Louis XV of France . His major works included the Place de la Concorde , the École Militaire , and the Petit Trianon and opera theater at the Palace of Versailles . His style was a careful balance between French Baroque architecture and French neoclassicism . Ange-Jacques Gabriel was born on 23 October 1698, to a famous Parisian family of architects, and

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