Hôtel des Invalides was built in 1676 by Louis XIV for a straightforward reason: thousands of wounded soldiers were begging on Paris's streets, and this was bad for army recruitment. His solution was a lavish hospital and home designed by the same architects behind Versailles, placed at a grand remove from the city centre. It was practical generosity dressed in royal theatre.

Two centuries later, Napoleon arrived, though somewhat belatedly. His remains were returned from Saint Helena in 1840 in a procession stretching seven kilometres, with nearly a million Parisians lining the streets in December cold. He lies here still, alongside his son Napoleon II, whose remains Hitler inexplicably transferred from Vienna in 1940.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace Napoleon's Paris to its endpoint here, following the route of his funeral procession and connecting his tomb to the revolution that began just outside these walls, when Parisians seized 30,000 rifles from the Invalides garrison before marching to the Bastille.