by Guest Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:40 am
On this, Louis XIV led the way. The English Royal Hospital was completed in 1705 following the French idea, though pensions were paid from 1689. I think it was probably a consequence of permanently established national armies, which again was led by France. For some reason Louis didn't trust mercenaries. He raised plenty of units from foreign volunteers, but it was the smaller nations whose armies were primarily composed of mercenaries.
According to Wikipedia ... "Louis XIV initiated the project by an order dated 24 November 1670, as a home and hospital for aged and unwell soldiers: the name is a shortened form of hôpital des invalides. The architect of Les Invalides was Libéral Bruant. The selected site was in the then suburban plain of Grenelle (plaine de Grenelle). 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'honneur ("court of honour") for military parades. It was then felt that the veterans required a chapel. Jules Hardouin Mansart assisted the aged Bruant, and the chapel was finished in 1679 to Bruant's designs after the elder architect's death. The chapel is known as Église Saint-Louis des Invalides. Daily attendance was required. Shortly after the veterans' chapel was completed, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to construct a separate private royal chapel referred to as the Église du Dôme from its most striking feature. Inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the original for all Baroque domes, it is one of the triumphs of French Baroque architecture. Mansart raised its drum with an attic storey over its main cornice, and employed the paired columns motif in his more complicated rhythmic theme. The general programme is sculptural but tightly integrated, rich but balanced, consistently carried through, capping its vertical thrust firmly with a ribbed and hemispherical dome. The domed chapel is centrally placed to dominate the court of honour. It was finished in 1708."
In G7 I did indeed build Les Invalides as a hospital (its primary purpose being to treat sick soldiers). I also paid a form of war pension or at least compensation for those killed in battle, though I did not formalise it into a system, which is quite difficult to do within the game. Do you provide pensions for the injured or simply for long service, and how do you calculate it? Do you provide pensions just for officers (who generally don't need them) or for the ordinary soldiers, who do! Get it wrong and your officers may avoid battle so they don't end up with large numbers of casualties and so have to pay taxes to fund their pensions.
Incapacitated French soldiers often served as prison guards where mobility was not a major requirement, the obvious example being the guards of the Bastille. The Bastille was a very unusual place in that most of the prisoners were nobles or other celebrities on political charges who could not easily disappear. It was the nature of the charges rather than the nature of the conditions they were confined in that gave the Bastille its reputation. Indeed, when you read of the suites of rooms and private libraries enjoyed by the inmates, it appears they were deprived of their libery, but little else. They were also paid pensions on release as an inducement to future good behaviour. Louis must have been going soft in his old age as it is certainly not something I implemented!
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