Named after the place de l’École-Militaire, beside the École militaire.
Louis XV founded the military school by an edict of January 1751 for 500 young noblemen without fortune, giving it the tax on playing cards as its first endowment; Ange-Jacques Gabriel designed its buildings. Bonaparte studied there in 1784–1785. The square took the school’s name by an order of 16 July 1912; the school now houses France’s institutions of higher military education.