"When a soldier is once down, he never gets up again," had but lately been the saying.

"Had I been at my mother's, in her own house, I could not have been better treated," wrote M.D'Alligny on the contrary, when he came out of one of the hospitals created by Louvois.

He conceived the grand idea of the Hotel des Invalides.

"It were very reasonable," says the preamble of the king's edict which founded the establishment, "that they who have freely exposed their lives and lavished their blood for the defence and maintenance of this monarchy, who have so materially contributed to the winning of the battles we have gained over our enemies, and who have often reduced them to asking peace of us, should enjoy the repose they have secured for our other subjects, and should pass the remainder of their days in tranquillity." Up to his death Louvois insisted upon managing the Hotel des Invalides himself.
Never had the officers of the army been under such strict and minute supervision; promotion went, by seniority, by "the order on the list," as the phrase then was, without any favor for rank or birth; commanders were obliged to attend to their corps.

"Sir," said Louvois one day to M.de Nogaret, "your company is in a very bad state." "Sir," answered Nogaret, "I was not aware of it." "You ought to be aware," said M.de Louvois: "have you inspected it ?" "No, sir," said Nogaret.