Category: Gardens

Les Tuilerie Jardins

 

 

 

 

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The Tuileries Garden (French: Jardin des Tuileries) is a public garden located between the Louvre Museum and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Created by Catherine de’ Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was eventually opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was a place where Parisians celebrated, met, strolled, and relaxed.[1]

Contents (Wikipedia)

History and development

Garden of Catherine de’ Medici

Th;;3t ng by Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau. (The engraving also includes a plan for the expansion of the palace which was never executed.)

In July 1559, after the accidental death of her husband, Henry II, Queen Catherine de’ Medici decided to leave her residence of the Hôtel des Tournelles, at the eastern part of Paris, near the Bastille. Together with her son, the new king of France François II, her other children and the royal court, she moved to the Louvre Palace. Five years later, in 1664, she commissioned the construction of a new palace just beyond the wall of Charles V, not far from the Louvre, from which it would be separated by a neighborhood of private hotels, churches, convents, and the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts near the Porte Saint-Honoré.

For that purpose, Catherine had bought land west of Paris, on the other side of the portion of the wall of Charles V situated between the Tour du Bois and the 14th century Porte Saint-Honoré. It was bordered on the south by the Seine, and on the north by the faubourg Saint-Honoré, a road in the countryside continuing the rue Saint-Honoré. Since the 13th century this area had been occupied by tile-making fabrics called tuileries (from the French tuile, meaning “tile”).

Catherine further commissioned a landscape architect from Florence, Bernard de Carnesse, to create an Italian Renaissance garden, with fountains, a labyrinth, a grotto, and decorated with faience images of plants and animals, made by Bernard Palissy, whom Catherine had tasked to discover the secret of Chinese porcelain.

The Tuileries Garden in 1615, where the Grand Basin is now located. The covered promenade can be seen, and the riding school established by Catherine.

The garden of Catherine de’ Medici was an enclosed space five hundred metres long and three hundred metres wide, separated from the new palace by a lane. It was divided into rectangular compartments by six alleys, and the sections were planted with lawns, flower beds, and small clusters of five trees, called quinconces; and, more practically, with kitchen gardens and vineyards.[2]

The Tuileries garden was the largest and most beautiful garden in Paris at the time. Catherine used it for lavish royal festivities honoring ambassadors from Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the marriage of her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, to Henri III of Navarre, better known as Henry IV, King of France and of Navarre.[3]

Garden of Henry IV

King Henry III was forced to flee Paris in 1588, and the gardens fell into disrepair. His successor, Henry IV (1589–1610), and his gardener, Claude Mollet, restored the gardens, built a covered promenade the length of the garden, and a parallel alley planted with mulberry trees where he hoped to cultivate silkworms and start a silk industry in France. He also built a rectangular ornamental lake of 65 metres by 45 metres with a fountain supplied with water by the new pump called La Samaritaine, which had been built in 1608 on the Pont Neuf. The area between the palace and the former moat of Charles V was turned into the “New Garden” (Jardin Neuf) with a large fountain in the center. Though Henry IV never lived in the Tuilieries Palace, which was continually under reconstruction, he did use the gardens for relaxation and exercise.

Garden of Louis XIII

The Tuileries Garden in 1652 with the Parterre de Mademoiselle east of the Palace

In 1610, at the death of his father, Louis XIII became the new owner of the Tuileries Gardens at the age of nine. It became his enormous playground – he used it for hunting, and he kept a menagerie of animals. On the north side of the gardens, Marie de’ Medici established a riding school, stables, and a covered manege for exercising horses.

When the king and court were absent from Paris, the gardens were turned into a pleasure spot for the nobility. In 1630 a former rabbit warren and kennel at the west rampart of the garden were made into a flower-lined promenade and cabaret. The daughter of Gaston d’Orléans and the niece of Louis XIII, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, held a sort of court in the cabaret, and the “New Garden” of Henry IV (the present-day Carousel) became known as the “Parterre de Mademoiselle.” In 1652, “La Grande Mademoiselle” was expelled from the chateau and garden for having supported an uprising, the Fronde, against her cousin, the young Louis XIV.[4]

Garden of Louis XIV and Le Nôtre

Tuileries Garden of Le Nôtre in the 17th century, looking west toward the future Champs Élysées, engraving by Perelle

Le Nôtre’s Tuileries Garden plan, engraving by Israël Silvestre (1671)

The statue of Renommée, or the fame of the king, riding the horse Pegasus, (1699) by Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720) at the west entrance of the Garden. Originally located on Louis XIV’s estate at Marly, it was moved to the Tuileries in 1719

The new king quickly imposed his own sense of order on the Tuileries Gardens. His architects, Louis Le Vau and François d’Orbay, finally finished the Tuileries Palace, making a proper royal residence. In 1662, to celebrate the birth of his first child, Louis XIV held a vast pageant of mounted courtiers in the New Garden, which had been enlarged by filling in Charles V’s moat and had been turned into a parade ground. Thereafter the square was known as the Place du Carrousel.[5]

In 1664, Colbert, the king’s superintendent of buildings, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to redesign the entire garden. Le Nôtre was the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of Catherine de’ Medici’s gardeners, and his father Jean had also been a gardener at the Tuileries. He immediately began transforming the Tuileries into a formal garden à la française, a style he had first developed at Vaux-le-Vicomte and perfected at Versailles, based on symmetry, order and long perspectives.

Le Nôtre’s gardens were designed to be seen from above, from a building or terrace. He eliminated the street which separated the palace and the garden, and replaced it with a terrace looking down upon flowerbeds bordered by low boxwood hedges and filled with designs of flowers. In the centre of the flowerbeds he placed three ornamental lakes with fountains. In front of the centre of the first fountain he laid out the Grande Allée, which extended 350 metres. He built two other alleys, lined with chestnut trees, on either side. He crossed these three main alleys with small lanes, to create compartments planted with diverse trees, shrubs and flowers.

On the south side of the park, next to the Seine, he built a long terrace called the Terrasse du bord-de-l’eau, planted with trees, with a view of the river He built a second terrace on the north side, overlooking the garden, called the Terrasse des Feuillants.

On the west side of the garden, beside the present-day Place de la Concorde, he built two ramps in a horseshoe shape and two terraces overlooking an octagonal lake 60 m (200 ft) in diameter with a fountain in the centre. These terraces frame the western entrance of the garden, and provide another viewpoint to see the garden from above.

Le Nôtre wanted his grand perspective from the palace to the western end of the garden to continue outside the garden. In 1667, he made plans for an avenue with two rows of trees on either side, which would have continued west to the present Rond-Point des Champs Élysées.[6]

Le Nôtre and his hundreds of masons, gardeners and earth-movers worked on the gardens from 1666 to 1672. In 1682, however, the king, furious with the Parisians for resisting his authority, abandoned Paris and moved to Versailles.

In 1667, at the request of the famous author of Sleeping Beauty and other fairy tales, Charles Perrault, the Tuileries Garden was opened to the public, with the exception of beggars, “lackeys” and soldiers.[7] It was the first royal garden to be open to the public.

In the 18th century

After the death of Louis XIV, the five-year-old Louis XV became owner of the Tuileries Garden. The garden, abandoned for nearly forty years, was put back in order. In 1719, two large equestrian statuary groups, La Renommée and Mercure, by the sculptor Antoine Coysevox, were brought from the king’s residence at Marly and placed at the west entrance of the garden. Other statues by Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou, Corneille an Clève, Sebastien Slodz, Thomas Regnaudin and Coysevox were placed along the Grande Allée.[8] A swing bridge was placed at the west end over the moat, to make access to the garden easier. The creation of the place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde) created a grand vestibule to the garden.

Certain holidays, such as August 25, the feast day of Saint Louis, were celebrated with concerts and fireworks in the park. A famous early balloon ascent was made from the garden on December 1, 1783 by Jacques Alexandre César Charles and Nicolas Louis Robert. Small food stands were placed in the park, and chairs could be rented for a small fee.[9] Public toilets were added in 1780.[10]

During the French revolution

The Tuileries, renamed the “Jardin National” during the French Revolution- the Festival of the Supreme Being (1794)

On October 6, 1789, as the French Revolution began, King Louis XVI was brought against his will to the Tuileries Palace. The garden was closed to the public except in the afternoon. Queen Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin were given a part of the garden for her private use, first at the west end of the Promenade Bord d’eaux, then at the edge of the Place Louis XV.

After the king’s failed attempt to escape France, the surveillance of the family was increased. The royal family was allowed to walk in the park on the evening of September 18, 1791, during the festival organized to celebrate the new French Constitution, when the alleys of the park were illuminated with pyramids and rows of lanterns.[11] On August 10, 1792, a mob stormed the Palace, and the king’s Swiss guards were chased through the gardens and massacred. After the king’s removal from power and execution, the Tuileries became the National Garden (Jardin National) of the new French Republic. In 1794 the new government assigned the renewal of the gardens to the painter Jacques-Louis David, and to his brother in law, the architect August Cheval de Saint-Hubert. They conceived a garden decorated with Roman porticos, monumental porches, columns, and other classical decoration. The project of David and Saint-Hubert was never completed. All that remains today are the two exedres, semicircular low walls crowned with statues by the two ponds in the centre of the garden.[12]

While David’s project was not finished, large numbers of statues from royal residences were brought to the gardens for display. The garden was also used for revolutionary holidays and festivals. On June 8, 1794, a ceremony in honor of the Cult of the Supreme Being was organized in the Tuileries by Robespierre, with sets and costumes designed by Jacques-Louis David. After a hymn written for the occasion, Robespierre set fire to mannequins representing Atheism, Ambition, Egoism and False Simplicity, revealing a statue of Wisdom.[13]

In the 19th century

Édouard Manet, La Musique aux Tuileries, 1862

Camille Pissarro, The Garden of the Tuileries on a Spring Morning, 1899

Around 1900

In the 19th century, the Tuileries Garden was the place where ordinary Parisians went to relax, meet, stroll, enjoy the fresh air and greenery, and be entertained.

Napoleon Bonaparte, about to become Emperor, moved into the Tuileries Palace on February 19, 1800, and began making improvements to suit an imperial residence. A new street was created between the Louvre and the Place du Carrousel, a fence closed the courtyard, and he built a small triumphal arch, modeled after the arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, in the middle of the Place du Carrousel, as the ceremonial entrance to his palace.

In 1801 Napoleon ordered the construction of a new street along the northern edge of the Tuileries, through space that had been occupied by the riding school and stables built by Marie de’ Medici, and the private gardens of aristocrats and convents and religious orders that had been closed during the Revolution. This new street also took part of the Terrasse des Feuillants, which had been occupied by cafés and restaurants. The new street, lined with arcades on the north side, was named the rue de Rivoli, after Napoleon’s victory in 1797.

Napoleon made few changes to the interior of the garden. He continued to use the garden for military parades and to celebrate special events, including the passage of his own wedding procession on April 2, 1810, when he married the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.

After the fall of Napoleon, the garden briefly became the encampment of the occupying Austrian and Russian soldiers. The monarchy was restored, and the new King, Charles X, renewed an old tradition and celebrated the feast day of Saint Charles in the garden.

In 1830, after a brief revolution, the new king, Louis-Philippe, became owner of the Tuileries. He wanted a private garden within the Tuileries, so a section of the garden in front of the palace was separated by a fence from the rest of the Tuileries. A small moat, flower beds and eight new statues by sculptors of the period decorated the new private garden.

In 1852, following another revolution and the shortlived Second Republic, a new Emperor, Louis Napoleon, became owner of the garden. He enlarged his private reserve within the garden further to the west as far as the north–south alley that crossed the large round basin, so that included the two small round basins. He decorated his new garden with beds of exotic plants and flowers, and new statues. In 1859, he made the Terrasse du bord-de-l’eau into a playground for his son, the Prince Imperial. He also constructed twin pavilions, the Jeu de paume and the Orangerie, at the west end of the garden, and built a new stone balustrade at the west entrance. When The Emperor was not in Paris, usually from May to November, the entire garden, including his private garden and the playground, were open to the public.

In 1870, Emperor Louis Napoleon was defeated and captured by the Prussians, and Paris was the scene of the uprising of the Paris Commune. A red flag flew over the Palace, and it could be visited for fifty centimes. When the army arrived and fought to recapture the city, the Communards deliberately burned the Tuileries Palace, and tried to burn the Louvre as well. The ruins were not torn down until 1883. The empty site of the palace, between the two pavilions of the Louvre, became part of the garden.

In the 20th century

Jardin des Tuileries in winter

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the Tuilieries garden was filled with entertainments for the public; acrobats, puppet theatres, lemonade stands, small boats on the lakes, donkey rides, and stands selling toys. At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the Gardens hosted the fencing events.[14] The peace in the garden was interrupted by the First World War in 1914; the statues were surrounded by sandbags, and in 1918 two German long-range artillery shells landed in the garden.

In the years between the two World Wars, the Jeu de paume tennis court was turned into a gallery, and its western part was used to display the Water Lilies series of paintings by Claude Monet. The Orangerie became an art gallery for contemporary western art.

During World War II, the Jeu de paume was used by the Germans as a warehouse for art they had stolen or confiscated.

The liberation of Paris in 1944 saw considerable fighting in the garden. Monet’s paintings Water Lilies were seriously damaged during the battle.[15]

Until the 1960s, almost all the sculpture in the garden dated from the 18th or 19th century. In 1964–65, André Malraux, the Minister of Culture for President Charles de Gaulle, removed the 19th century statues which surrounded the Place du Carrousel and replaced them with contemporary sculptures by Aristide Maillol.

In 1994, as part of the Grand Louvre project launched by President François Mitterrand, the Belgian landscape architect Jacques Wirtz remade the garden of the Carrousel, adding labyrinths and a fan of low hedges radiating from the triumphal arch in the square.

In 1998, under President Jacques Chirac, works of modern sculpture by Jean Dubuffet, Henri Laurens, Étienne Martin, Henry Moore, Germaine Richier, Auguste Rodin and David Smith were placed in the garden. In 2000, the works of living artists were added; these included works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Roy Lichtenstein, François Morrellet, Giuseppe Penone, Anne Rochette and Lawrence Weiner. Another ensemble of three works by Daniel Dezeuze, Erik Dietman and Eugène Dodeigne, called Prière Toucher (Eng: Please Touch), was added at the same time.[16]

In the 21st century

Café de Pomone, Jardin des Tuileries, in springtime

At the beginning of the 21st century, French landscape architects Pascal Cribier and Louis Benech have been working to restore some of the early features of the André Le Nôtre garden.[17]

Areas of special interest

Jardin du Carrousel

Arc de triomphe du Carrousel

Also known as the Place du Carrousel, this part of the garden used to be enclosed by the two wings of the Louvre and by the Tuileries Palace. In the 18th century it was used as a parade ground for cavalry and other festivities. The central feature is the Arc de triomphe du Carrousel, built to celebrate the victories of Napoleon, with bas-relief sculptures of his battles by Jean Joseph Espercieux. The garden was remade in 1995 to showcase a collection of 21 statues by Aristide Maillol, which had been put in the Tuileries in 1964.

Terrasse

The elevated terrace between the Carrousel and the rest of the garden used to be at the front of the Tuileries Palace. After the Palace was burned in 1870, it was made into a road, which was put underground in 1877. The terrace is decorated by two large vases which used to be in the gardens of Versailles, and two statues by Aristide Maillol; the Monument to Cézanne on the north and the Monument aux morts de Port Vendres on the south.

Moat of Charles V

Two stairways descend from the Terrasse to the moat (fr:fossés) named for Charles V of France, who rebuilt the Louvre in the 14th century. It was part of the old fortifications which originally surrounded the palace. On the west side are traces left by the fighting during the unsuccessful siege of Paris by Henry IV of France in 1590 during the French Wars of Religion. Since 1994 the moat has been decorated with statues from the facade of the old Tuileries Palace and with bas-reliefs made in the 19th century during the Restoration of the French monarchy which were meant to replace the Napoleonic bas-reliefs on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, but were never put in place.[18]

Grand Carré of the Tuileries

Tuileries Garden panorama

The Grand Carré (Large Square) is the eastern, open part of the Tuilieries garden, which still follows the formal plan of the Garden à la française created by André Le Nôtre in the 17th century.

The eastern part of the Grand Carré, surrounding the round pond, was the private garden of the king under Louis Philippe and Napoleon III, separated from the rest of the Tuileries by a fence.

Most of the statues in the Grand Carré were put in place in the 19th century.

  • Nymphe (1866) and Diane Chasseresse (Diana the Huntress) (1869) by Louis Auguste Lévêque, which mark the beginning of the central allée which runs east-west through the park.
  • Tigre terrassant un crocodile (Tiger overwhelming a crocodile) (1873) and Tigresse portant un paon à ses petits (Tigress bringing a peacock to her young) (1873), both by Auguste Cain, by the two small round ponds.

The large round pond is surrounded by statues on themes from antiquity, allegory, and ancient mythology. Statues in violent poses alternate with those in serene poses. On the south side, starting from the east entrance of the large round pond, they are:

On the north side, starting at the west entrance to the pond, they are:

Plan of the Jardin des Tuileries

Le Grand Couvert of the Tuileries

The Grand Couvert is the part of the garden covered with trees. The two cafes in the Grand Couvert are named after two famous cafes once located in the garden; the café Very, which had been on the terrace des Feuiillants in the 18th–19th century; and the café Renard, which in the 18th century had been a popular meeting place on the western terrace.

The Grand Couvert also contains the two exedres, low curving walls built to display statues, which survived from the French Revolution. They were built in 1799 by Jean Charles Moreau, part of a larger unfinished project designed by painter Jacques-Louis David in 1794. They are now decorated with plaster casts of moldings on mythological themes from the park of Louis XIV at Marly.

The Grand Couvert contains a number of important works of the 20th century and contemporary sculpture, including:

Orangerie, Jeu de Paume, and West Terrace of the Tuileries

Westernmost portion of the Tuileries Garden

Claude Monet, Les Nymphéas (Water Lilies) 1920–26, oil on canvas, 86.2 × 237 in. (219 × 602 cm) in the Orangerie

The Orangerie (Musée de l’Orangerie), at the west end of the garden close to the Seine, was built in 1852 by the architect Firmin Bourgeois. Since 1927 it has displayed the series Water Lilies by Claude Monet. It also displays the Walter-Guillaume collection of Impressionist painting

On the terrace of the Orangerie are four works of sculpture by Auguste Rodin: Le Baiser (1881–1898); Eve (1881) and La Grande Ombre (1880) and La Meditation avc bras (1881–1905). It also has a modern work, Grand Commandement blanc (1986) by Alain Kirili.

The Jeu de Paume (Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume) was built in 1861 was the architect Viraut, and enlarged in 1878. In 1927 it became an annex of the Luxembourg Palace Museum for the display of contemporary art from outside France. During the German Occupation of World War II, from 1940 to 1944, it was used by the Germans as a depot for storing art they stole or expropriated from Jewish families. From 1947 until 1986, it served as the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which held many important Impressionist works now housed in the Musée d’Orsay. Today, the Jeu de Paume is used for exhibits of modern and contemporary art.

On the terrace in front of the Jeu de Paume is a work of sculpture, Le Bel Costumé (1973) by Jean Dubuffet.

Sculptures

Mercury riding Pegasus, (1701–02) by Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720). Originally at Marly, moved to the Tuileries in 1719 and placed at the west gate of the garden. In 1986 the original of marble was moved to the Louvre and replaced by a copy.

Nymphe by Louis Auguste Lévêque, (1866). In the Grand Carré, at the beginning of the Grand Allée.

Theseus and the Minotaur (1821) by Jules Ramey, in the Grand Carré

The Oath of Spartacus (1871) by Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841–1905)

Auguste Rodin, 1881–1904, L’Ombre (The Shade), bronze

Auguste Rodin, 1881–ca.1899, Éve, bronze

Auguste Rodin, 1881–ca.1905, Méditation avec bras, bronze

Le Baiser (The Kiss) by Auguste Rodin, (1934 cast of the marble original), West Terrace

  • Bibliography
  • Allain, Yves-Marie and Janine Christiany, L’art des jardins en Europe, Citadelles et Mazenod, Paris, 2006.
  • Hazlehurst, F. Hamilton, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of André Le Nostre, Vanderbilt University Press, 1980. (ISBN 9780826512093)
  • Impelluso, Lucia, Jardins, potagers et labyrinthes, Hazan, Paris, 2007.
  • Jacquin, Emmanuel, Les Tuileries, Du Louvre à la Concorde, Editions du Patrimoine, Centres des Monuments Nationaux, Paris. (ISBN 978-2-85822-296-4)
  • Jarrassé, Dominique, Grammaire des Jardins Parisiens, Parigramme, Paris, 2007. (ISBN 978-2-84096-476-6)
  • Prevot, Philippe, Histoire des jardins, Editions Sud Ouest, 2006.
  • Wenzler, Claude, Architecture du jardin, Editions Ouest-France, 2003.
  • See also
  • History of Parks and Gardens of Paris
  • Sources and citations
  1. Emmanuel Jacquin, Les Tuileries Du Louvre à la Concorde.
  2. Jacquin, Les Tuileries — Du Louvre à la Concorde, p. 4.
  3. Jacquin, p. 6
  4. Jacquin, p. 10
  5. Jacquin p. 15
  6. Jarrassé, Grammaire des Jardins Parisiens, p. 51.
  7. Jarrassé, p. 47
  8. The statues in the park now are copies; the originals are in the Louvre.
  9. Chairs were still being rented for a small sum until 1970.
  10. Jacquin, p. 24.
  11. Jacquin, p. 25
  12. The two exedres have been restored, with plaster copies of the original statues.
  13. Jacquin, p. 26–27
  14. 1900 Summer Olympics official report. p. 16. Accessed 14 November 2010. (in French)
  15. Jacquin, p. 41
  16. Jacquin, p. 42–43
  17. Jarrassé, p. 49
  18. Jacquin, p. 46 

Giverny

 

 

 

The village of Giverny is a small village located north of France. The town of Giverny is located in the department of Eure of the french region Haute-Normandie in the township of Écos part of the district of Les Andelys.

 

 

 

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Nantes Parks – Parc de la Morinière in mid-Spring

 

 

 

 

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Nantes Parks – Parc de la Morinière au début du printemps

Moss still thrives from the moisture on stones and trees from the night cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bois de Boulogne

 

Wikipedia

The Bois de Boulogne is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was created between 1852 and 1858 during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III.

It is the second-largest park in Paris, slightly smaller than the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern side of the city. It covers an area of 845 hectares (2088 acres), which is about two and a half times the area of Central Park in New York and slightly less (88%) than that of Richmond Park in London.

Within the boundaries of the Bois de Boulogne are an English landscape garden with several lakes and a cascade; two smaller botanical and landscape gardens, the Château de Bagatelle and the Pré-Catelan; a zoo and amusement park in the Jardin d’Acclimatation; GoodPlanet Foundation‘s Domaine de Longchamp dedicated to ecology and humanism, The Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil, a complex of greenhouses holding a hundred thousand plants; two tracks for horse racing, the Hippodrome de Longchamp and the Auteuil Hippodrome; a tennis stadium where the French Open tennis tournament is held each year; and other attractions.

For the two 1896 short films, see Bois de Boulogne (film).

History

A hunting preserve, royal châteaux, and a historic balloon flight

The Bois de Boulogne is a remnant of the ancient oak forest of Rouvray, which included the present-day forests of Montmorency, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Chaville, and Meudon. Dagobert, the King of the Franks (629-639), hunted bears, deer, and other game in the forest. His grandson, Childeric II, gave the forest to the monks of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, who founded several monastic communities there. Philip Augustus (1180–1223) bought back the main part of the forest from the monks to create a royal hunting reserve. In 1256, Isabelle de France, sister of Saint-Louis, founded the Abbey of Longchamp at the site of the present hippodrome.

The Bois received its present name from a chapel, Notre Dame de Boulogne la Petite, which was built in the forest at the command of Philip IV of France (1268–1314). In 1308, Philip made a pilgrimage to Boulogne-sur-Mer, on the French coast, to see a statue of the Virgin Mary which was reputed to inspire miracles. He decided to build a church with a copy of the statue in a village in the forest not far from Paris, in order to attract pilgrims. The chapel was built after Philip’s death between 1319 and 1330, in what is now Boulogne-Billancourt.

During the Hundred Years’ War, the forest became a sanctuary for robbers and sometimes a battleground. In 1416-17, the soldiers of John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy, burned part of the forest in their successful campaign to capture Paris. Under Louis XI, the trees were replanted, and two roads were opened through the forest.

In 1526, King Francis I of France began a royal residence, the Château de Madrid, in the forest in what is now Neuilly and used it for hunting and festivities. It took its name from a similar palace in Madrid, where Francis had been held prisoner for several months. The Chateau was rarely used by later monarchs, fell into ruins in the 18th century, and was demolished after the French Revolution.

The Chateau de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, built in 1526 by Francis I of France.

The Chateau de la Muette was the home of Queen Marguerite de Valois after her marriage was annulled by King Henry IV of France. It was demolished after the French Revolution.

Despite its royal status, the forest remained dangerous for travelers; the scientist and traveler Pierre Belon was murdered by thieves in the Bois de Boulogne in 1564.[6]

During the reigns of Henry II and Henry III, the forest was enclosed within a wall with eight gates. Henry IV planted 15,000 mulberry trees, with the hope of beginning a local silk industry. When Henry annulled his marriage to Marguerite de Valois, she went to live in the Château de la Muette, on the edge of the forest.

In the early 18th century, wealthy and important women often retired to the convent of the Abbey of Longchamp, located where the hippodrome now stands. A famous opera singer of the period, Madmoiselle Le Maure, retired there in 1727 but continued to give recitals inside the Abbey, even during Holy Week. These concerts drew large crowds and irritated the Archibishop of Paris, who closed the Abbey to the public.[7]

Louis XVI and his family used the forest as a hunting ground and pleasure garden. In 1777, the Comte d’Artois, Louis XVI‘s brother, built a charming miniature palace, the Château de Bagatelle, in the Bois in just 64 days, on a wager from his sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette. Louis XVI also opened the walled park to the public for the first time.

On 21 November 1783, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes took off from the Chateau de la Muette in a hot air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers. Previous flights had carried animals or had been tethered to the ground; this was the first manned free flight in history. The balloon rose to a height of 910 meters (3000 feet), was in the air for 25 minutes, and covered nine kilometers.[8]

 

The first free manned flight was launched by the Montgolfier Brothers from the Chateau de la Muette, on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, on November 21, 1783.

 

Following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, 40,000 soldiers of the British and Russian armies camped in the forest. Thousands of trees were cut down to build shelters and for firewood.

From 1815 until the French Second Republic, the Bois was largely empty, an assortment of bleak ruined meadows and tree stumps where the British and Russians had camped and dismal stagnant ponds.[9]

The design of the park

The Bois de Boulogne was the idea of Napoleon III, shortly after he staged a coup d’état and elevated himself from the President of the French Republic to Emperor of the French in 1852. When Napoleon III became Emperor, Paris had only four public parks – the Tuileries Gardens, the Luxembourg Garden, the Palais Royale, and the Jardin des Plantes – all in the center of the city. There were no public parks in the rapidly growing east and west of the city. During his exile in London, he had been particularly impressed by Hyde Park, by its lakes and streams and its popularity with Londoners of all social classes. Therefore, he decided to build two large public parks on the eastern and western edges of the city where both the rich and ordinary people could enjoy themselves.[10]

These parks became an important part of the plan for the reconstruction of Paris drawn up by Napoleon III and his new Prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. The Haussmann plan called for improving the city’s traffic circulation by building new boulevards; improving the city’s health by building a new water distribution system and sewers; and creating green spaces and recreation for Paris’ rapidly growing population. In 1852, Napoleon donated the land for the Bois de Boulogne and for the Bois de Vincennes, which both belonged officially to him. Additional land in the plain of Longchamp, the site of the Chateau de Madrid, the Chateau de Bagatelle, and its gardens were purchased and attached to the proposed park, so it could extend all the way to the Seine. Construction was funded out of the state budget, supplemented by selling building lots along the north end of the Bois, in Neuilly,[11]

Napoleon III was personally involved in planning the new parks. He insisted that the Bois de Boulogne should have a stream and lakes, like Hyde Park in London. “We must have a stream here, as in Hyde Park,” he observed while driving through the Bois, “to give life to this arid promenade”.[12]

The first plan for the Bois de Boulogne was drawn up by the architect Jacques Hittorff, who, under King Louis Philippe, had designed the Place de la Concorde, and the landscape architect Louis-Sulpice Varé, who had designed French landscape gardens at several famous châteaux. Their plan called for long straight alleys in patterns crisscrossing the park, and, as the Emperor had asked, lakes and a long stream similar to the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

Unfortunately, Varé failed to take into account the difference in elevation between the beginning of the stream and the end; if his plan had been followed, the upper part of the stream would have been empty, and the lower portion flooded. When Haussmann saw the partially finished stream, he saw the problem immediately and had the elevations measured. He dismissed the unfortunate Varé and Hittorff, and designed the solution himself; an upper lake and a lower lake, divided by an elevated road, which serves as a dam, and a cascade which allows the water to flow between the lakes. This is the design still seen today.[13]

In 1853, Haussmann hired an experienced engineer from the corps of Bridges and Highways, Jean-Charles Alphand, whom he had worked with in his previous assignment in Bordeaux, and made him the head of a new Service of Promenades and Plantations, in charge of all the parks in Paris. Alphand was charged to make a new plan for the Bois de Boulogne. Alphand’s plan was radically different from the Hittorff-Varé plan. While it still had two long straight boulevards, the Allée Reine Marguerite and the Avenue Longchamp, all the other paths and alleys curved and meandered. The flat Bois de Boulogne was to be turned into an undulating landscape of lakes, hills, islands, groves, lawns, and grassy slopes, not a reproduction of but an idealization of nature. It became the prototype for the other city parks of Paris and then for city parks around the world.[14]

 

Jardin d’Acclimatation en 1868, Henri Corbel

 

The plan of the park from 1879 shows the two straight alleys of the old Bois, and the lakes, winding lanes and paths built by Alphand.

 

L’aquarium; vue intérieure, 1860.

The Jardin zoologique at the Bois de Boulogne included an aquarium that housed both fresh and salt water sea animals. The interior is depicted here.

The Construction of the Park

The building of the park was an enormous engineering project which lasted for five years. The upper and lower lakes were dug, and the earth piled into islands and hills. Rocks were brought from Fontainbleau and combined with cement to make the cascade and an artificial grotto.

The pumps from the Seine could not provide enough water to fill the lakes and irrigate the park, so a new channel was created to bring the water of the Ourcq River, from Monceau to the upper lake in the Blois, but this was not enough. An artesian well 586 meters deep was eventually dug in the plain of Passy which could produce 20,000 cubic meters of water a day. This well went into service in 1861.[15]

The water then had to be distributed around the park to water the lawns and gardens; the traditional system of horse-drawn wagons with large barrels of water would not be enough. A system of 66 kilometers of pipes was laid, with a faucet every 30 or 40 meters, a total of 1600 faucets.

Alphand also had to build a network of roads, paths, and trails to connect the sights of the park. The two long straight alleys from the old park were retained, and his workers built an additional 58 kilometers of roads paved with stones for carriages, 12 kilometers of sandy paths for horses, and 25 kilometers of dirt trails for walkers. As a result of Louis Napoléon’s exile in London and his memories of Hyde Park, all the new roads and paths were curved and meandering.[16]

The planting of the park was the task of the new chief gardener and landscape architect of the Service of Promenades and Plantations, Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, who had also worked with Haussmann and Alphand in Bordeaux. His gardeners planted 420,000 trees, including hornbeam, beech, linden, cedar, chestnut, and elm, and hardy exotic species, like redwoods. They planted 270 hectares of lawns, with 150 kilograms of seed per hectare, and thousands of flowers. To make the forest more natural, they brought 50 deer to live in and around the Pré-Catelan.

The park was designed to be more than a collection of pictureque landscapes; it was meant as a place for amusement and recreation, with sports fields, bandstands, cafes, shooting galleries, riding stables, boating on the lakes, and other attractions. In 1855, Gabriel Davioud, a graduate of Ecole des Beaux-Arts, was named the chief architect of the new Service of Promenades and Plantations. He was commissioned to design 24 pavilions and chalets, plus cafes, gatehouses, boating docks, and kiosks. He designed the gatehouses where the guardians of the park lived to look like rustic cottages. He had a real Swiss chalet built out of wood in Switzerland and transported to Paris, where it was reassembled on an island in the lake and became a restaurant. He built another restaurant next to the park’s most picturesque feature, the Grand Cascade. He designed artificial grottoes made of rocks and cement, and bridges and balustrades made of cement painted to look like wood. He also designed all the architectural details of the park, from cone-shaped shelters designed to protect horseback riders from the rain to the park benches and direction signs.[17]

At the south end of the park, in the Plain of Longchamp, Davioud restored the ruined windmill which was the surviving vestige of the Abbey of Longchamp, and, working with the Jockey Club of Paris, constructed the grandstands of the Hippodrome of Longchamp, which opened in 1857.

At the northern end of the park, between the Sablons gate and Neuilly, a 20-hectare section of the park was given to the Societé Imperiale zoologique d’Acclimatation, to create a small zoo and botanical garden, with an aviary of rare birds and exotic plants and animals from around the world.

In March 1855, an area in the center of the park, called the Pré-Catelan, was leased to a concessionaire for a garden and amusement park. It was built on the site of a quarry where the gravel and sand for the park’s roads and paths had been dug out. It included a large circular lawn surrounded by trees, grottos, rocks, paths, and flower beds. Davioud designed a buffet, a marionette theater, a photography pavilion, stables, a dairy, and other structures. The most original feature was the Théâtre des fleurs, an open-air theater in a setting of trees and flowers. Later, an ice skating rink and shooting gallery were added. The Pré-Catelan was popular for concerts and dances, but it had continual financial difficulties and eventually went bankrupt. The floral theater remained in business until the beginning of the First World War, in 1914.[18]

The park in the 19th and 20th century

The garden-building team brought together by Haussmann were Alphand, Barrillet-Deschamps and Davioud and went on to build The Bois de Vincennes, Parc Monceau Parc Montsouris, and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, using the experience and aesthetics they had developed in the Bois de Boulogne. They also rebuilt the Luxembourg gardens and the gardens of the Champs- Elysees, created smaller squares and parks throughout the center of Paris, and planted thousands of trees along the new boulevards that Haussmann had created. In the 17 years of Napoleon III’s reign, they planted no less than 600,000 trees and created a total 1,835 hectares of green space in Paris, more than any other ruler of France before or since.[19]

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), which led to the downfall of Napoleon III and the long siege of Paris, the park suffered some damage from German artillery bombardment, the restaurant of the Grand Cascade was turned into a field hospital, and many of the park’s animals and wild fowl were eaten by the hungry population. In the years following, however, the park quickly recovered.

The Bois de Boulogne became a popular meeting place and promenade route for Parisians of all classes. The alleys were filled with carriages, coaches, and horseback riders, and later with men and women on bicycles, and then with automobiles. Families having picnics filled the woods and lawns, and Parisians rowed boats on the lake, while the upper classes were entertained in the cafes. The restaurant of the Pavillon de la Grand Cascade became a popular spot for Parisian weddings. During the winter, when the lakes were frozen, they were crowded with ice skaters.[20]

The activities of Parisians in the Bois, particularly the long promenades in carriages around the lakes, were often portrayed in French literature and art in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Scenes set in the park appeared in Nana by Émile Zola and in Education Sentimentale by Gustave Flaubert.[21] In the last pages of Du côté de chez Swann in À la recherche du temps perdu (1914), Marcel Proust minutely described a walk around the lakes taken as a child.[22] The life in the park was also the subject of the paintings of many artists, including Eduard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh.

In 1860, Napoleon opened the Jardin d’Acclimatation, a separate concession of 20 hectares at the north end of the park; it included a zoo and a botanical garden, as well as an amusement park. Between 1877 and 1912, it also served as the home of what was called an ethnological garden, a place where groups of the inhabitants of faraway countries were put on display for weeks at a time in reconstructed villages from their homelands. They were mostly Sub-Saharan Africans, North Africans, or South American Indians, and came mostly from the French colonies in Africa and South America, but also included natives of Lapland and Cossacks from Russia. These exhibitions were extremely popular and took place not only in Paris, but also in Germany, England, and at the Chicago Exposition in the United States; but they were also criticized at the time and later as being a kind of “human zoo“. Twenty-two of these exhibits were held in the park in the last quarter of the 19th century. About ten more were held in the 20th century, with the last one taking place in 1931.

Le jardin d’acclimatation en 1860, gravure d’A. Provost.

In 1905, a grand new restaurant in the classical style was built in the Pré-Catelan by architect Guillaume Tronchet. Like the cafe at the Grand Cascade, it became a popular promenade destination for the French upper classes.[23]

At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the land hosted the croquet and tug of war events.[24][25] During the 1924 Summer Olympics, the equestrian events took place in the Auteuil Hippodrome.

The Bois de Boulogne was officially annexed by the city of Paris in 1929 and incorporated into the 16th arrondissement.

Soon after World War II, the park began to come back to life. In 1945, it held its first motor race after the war: the Paris Cup. In 1953, a British group, Les Amis de la France, created the Shakespeare Garden on the site of the old floral theater in the Pré-Catelan.[26]

From 1952 until 1986, the Duke of Windsor, the title granted to King Edward VIII after his abdication, and his wife, Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, lived in the Villa Windsor, a house in the Bois de Boulogne behind the garden of the Bagatelle. The house was (and still is) owned by the City of Paris and was leased to the couple. The Duke died in this house in 1972, and the Duchess died there in 1986. The lease was purchased by Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The house was visited briefly by Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion, Dodi Fayed, on 31 August 1997, the day they died in a traffic accident in the Alma tunnel.

 

 

The Villa Windsor (originally named Chateau Le Bois) is a graceful 19th-century building of 14 rooms surrounded by a large tree-filled garden. It was built around 1860 and once owned by the Renault family but the French government sequestered the property after World War II and Charles de Gaulle occupied the house in the late 1940’s.

References

  1. Dominique Jarrassé, Grammaire des jardins Parisiens, p. 94.
  2. Jarrassé, Dominique, Grammaire des jardins Parisiens, p. 94.
  3. Its name is commemorated in the communes of Rouvray-Catillon and Rouvray-St-Denis.
  4. http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/paris-au-vert/bois-de-boulogne/un-peu-d-histoire/rub_6567_stand_16149_port_14916%7CHistory Archived 7 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine. of the Bois de Boulogne on the site of the City of Paris (in French).
  5. The current Church of Notre Dame des Menus in Boulogne-Billancourt is built on the foundation of Philip’s chapel.
  6. Serge Sauneron, ed. Belon, Le Voyage en Égypte de Pierre Belon du Mans 1547, (Cairo 1970) Introduction.
  7. | “Archived copy”. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-07. The history of the Bois de Boulogne on the site of the City of Paris (in French).
  8. “U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission: Early Balloon Flight in Europe”. Archived from the original on 2 June 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2008.
  9. Patrice de Moncan, Les jardins du Baron Haussmann, pp. 57-58.
  10. Patrice de Moncan, Les Jardins du Baron Haussmann, p. 9.
  11. J. M. Chapman and Brian Chapman, The Life and Times of Baron Haussmann: Paris in the Second Empire (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 1957:89.
  12. Charles Merruau, Souvenirs de l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1848-1852 (Paris 1875:37), quoted in David H. Pinkiney, “Napoleon III’s Transformation of Paris: The Origins and Development of the Idea” The Journal of Modern History 27.2 (June 1955:125-134), p. 126.
  13. George-Eugène Haussmann, Les Mémoires, Paris (1891), cited in Patrice de Moncan, p. 24.
  14. Jarrassé, p. 97.
  15. Patrice de Moncan, p. 60.
  16. Patrice de Moncan, p. 60.
  17. Patrice de Moncan, pp. 29-32.
  18. Jarrassé, p. 107 and Patrice de Moncan, pp. 64-65.
  19. Patrice de Moncan, p. 9.
  20. Patrice de Moncan, p. 65-70.
  21. Patrice de Moncan, p. 9.
  22. Jarrassé, p. 100-101.
  23. Jarrassé, p. 107.
  24. Sports-reference.com Summer Olympics Paris 28 June 1900 croquet mixed singles one-ball results. Accessed 14 November 2010.
  25. Sports-reference.com Summer Olympic Paris 16 July 1900 tug-of-war men’s results. Accessed 14 November 2010.
  26. Jarrassé, p. 107.

 

A walk to the Bastille on Mayday via the Marais district

 

Le Palais des Tournelles

The Marais area is situated between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. Spared by the great Haussmannian works in the 19th century, it is above all an area of ​​exceptional architecture and there remain many magnificent manors built during the 17th century, now mainly housing museums. Originally settled on a vast marshy area, (the name Marais means “Marsh”), the district had its heyday in the early 17th century when King Henry IV decided to build a sublime place dedicated to stroll: la Place des Vosges (inaugurated in 1612).

The hôtel des Tournelles is a now-demolished collection of buildings from the 14th century onwards north of place des Vosges. It was named after its many ‘tournelles’ or little towers.[1][2]

It was owned by the kings of France for a long period of time, though they did not often live there. Henry II of France died there in 1559 of wounds he received in a joust. After his death, his widow Catherine de Médici, abandoned the building, by then quite derelict and old-fashioned. It was turned into a gunpowder magazine, then sold to finance the construction of the Tuileries, designed and developed to suit the queen’s Italian style.

Contents

Site and description

The district around the Hôtel des Tournelles in 1550

At the beginning of the 15th century, the district around the hôtel formed a huge rectangle, marked out by the rue Saint-Antoine, rue des Tournelles, rue de Turenne and rue Saint-Gilles, a rectangle broken from within by the park of the royal estate. During the English occupation of Paris (1420-1436), John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, extended the district by purchasing eight and a half acres from the nuns of Sainte-Catherine for 200 livres 16 sous, thus extending the property to the fortified wall of Paris, which was then situated on what is now known as the boulevard Richard Lenoir.

This extension was annulled in 1437 after the English left. The main entrance to the hôtel was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac currently known as Impasse Guéménée (fr). The hôtel was said to be able to accommodate 6,000 people.

Tournelle gate to St. Nicolas des Champs

Like the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the hôtel des Tournelles was a collection of buildings spread over an estate of more than 20 acres (8.1 ha), including twenty chapels, several pleasure grounds, ovens and twelve galleries including the Duke of Bedford’s famous galerie des courges (so-called due to the painted green squash or courges on its walls. Under its tiled roof the Duke’s arms, devices and heraldry were displayed). It also included a maze called ‘Dedalus’, two parks planted with trees, six kitchen gardens and a ploughed field. The council chamber was notable for the magnificence of its decoration. Three other rooms bore the names salle des Écossais (room of the Scots), salle de brique (brick room) and salle pavée (paved room).

One part of the hôtel des Tournelles, named Logis du Roi, had an entrance decorated with the French coat of arms, painted by Jean de Boulogne, known as Jean de Paris. In 1464, Louis XI built a gallery there which connected this house to the Hôtel-Neuf of Madame d’Étampes, across the rue Saint-Antoine. He also built an observatory for his doctor, Jacques Coitier. Menageries based on those at the hôtel Saint-Paul were later added to house some of the animals previously held at the hôtel Saint-Paul. New specimens were imported from Africa, such as lions, giving the enclosures the name of hôtel des lions du Roi.

No traces remain of the hôtel besides a copy of one of its gates, which forms the south gate of the église Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, and some cellars buried below buildings in the district.

History

Charles VI

At the beginning of the 14th century, the building that became the Hôtel des Tournelles was merely a house facing the hôtel Saint-Pol. Pierre d’Orgemont, seigneur de Chantilly and chancellor of France and the Dauphiné under Charles VI, or perhaps his eldest son Pierre, rebuilt it in 1388. It was bequeathed to the younger Pierre in 1387. This house may have formerly been the property of Jean d’Orgemont, the presumed father of the elder Pierre.[3][4] On 19 March 1387 Pierre d’Orgemont divided his lands among his ten children, leaving the maison des Tournelles to his eldest son Pierre, bishop of Paris, who was already living there.[5] After his father’s death in 1389, the bishop sold the house on 16 May 1402 for 140,000 gold écus, to the duc de Berry, brother of Charles V. In 1404 the duc de Berry gave it to his nephew Louis, the duc d’Orléans and the younger brother of Charles VI, in exchange for the hôtel de Gixé on rue de Jouy. The duc d’Orléans was assassinated on 23 November 1407 and the hôtel passed to his heirs, becoming the property of Charles VI, who lived there from 1417 onwards. The house took the name Maison royale des Tournelles.

Louis XII

Thanks to the Treaty of Troyes, the English entered Paris on 18 November 1420. After Charles VI‘s death on 22 October 1422 in Paris, the hôtel was seized and became the primary residence of John of Lancaster, the Duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry V of England and regent for the kingdom of France until his nephew Henry VI came of age. In 1436, after the English left Paris, Charles VII gave the hôtel to his Orléans cousins. When John died in 1467, the property passed to his widow, Marguerite, Duchess of Rohan. In 1486 Marguerite left the buildings to her son Charles of Orléans, father of Francis I of France. It thus became a royal residence once again. In 1563 it was still called the “hôtel des Tournelles et d’Angoulème”. It thus passed to John of Orléans, count of Angoulême, and was for a time called the hôtel d’Angoulême (not to be confused with the later Hôtel d’Angoulême Lamoignon).

Different kings of this era stayed for short or long periods at the hôtel – Louis XI made a few brief stays there:

Fleeing his coronation festivities,[clarification needed] the new king took refuge there on Tuesday 1 September 1461 after dinner[7] but left for Tours by 25 September.

Nor did Louis’ successors Charles VIII of France and Louis XII of France stay there much, though the latter did die there on 1 January 1515. Francis I of France did not live there, preferring the château de Fontainebleau, the Louvre and the castles on the River Loire. The Hôtel des Tournelles was used as a residence by his mother Louise of Savoy then by his mistress Anne de Pisseleu, a tradition repeated by Henry II of France when he made it the residence of Diane de Poitiers. In 1524 the magician Cornélius Agrippa lived there under the name Agrippa de Nettesheim, as doctor and astrologer to Louise de Savoie, to whom he made dead and living people appear.[citation needed]

Henry II on his deathbed at the hôtel des Tournelles

The hôtel saw several lavish and unusual festivals, such as the “danse macabre” on 23 August 1451 before Charles, Duke of Orléans. Henry II celebrated his coronation there in 1547 and then the signing of the Treaties of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. The last festival held there was also in 1559, to mark the double marriage of Élisabeth de France to Philip II of Spain and of the king’s sister Marguerite de France to the duke of Savoy. On this occasion, a tournament was organised on 29 June on rue Saint-Antoine, the widest street in Paris at the time and thus known as the La Grant rue St Anthoine, with the same dimensions as in the present day. During a joust in front of the hôtel de Sully (level with what is now number 62), Henry II was seriously wounded by an accidental lance thrust by Gabriel de Lorges, count of Montgomery, captain of the king’s Scottish guard. Moved to the hôtel des Tournelles, the king died there on 10 July 1559 in terrible agony, despite attempts to save him by both the famous surgeon Ambroise Paré and the surgeon to the king of Spain, Andreas Vesalius.

Catherine de Médici, an Italian princess who had grown up in Roman palaces, disliked the Hôtel des Tournelles’s medieval appearance and took Henry’s death as a pretext to sell it off. Gaining total power as regent to her young sons, the heirs of Henry, she turned the property into an arsenal, then had it closed and demolished. On 28 January 1563, in the name of her son Charles IX of France, she issued letters patent ordering the demolition.[8] This took place in stages and financed her major works on the more modern royal residences in Paris, particularly on the Madrid and the Tuileries. Some of the materials from the old hôtel were reused in the construction of the palace. The stables were reused to create the important Marché aux chevaux, horse market, where two thousand horses were sold every Saturday.

Certain parcels of land from the Hôtel’s estate were sold off, though a large estate remained and was used in military training. In January 1589 the estate was used to exercise the mercenaries charged with defending Paris against Henry IV of France. It also became a traditional site for bloody duels – on 27 April 1578, at 5 am, three favourites of Henry III of France beat three favourites of the duke of Guise in a duel there, with all six men ending up killed or seriously wounded.

Henry IV

In August 1603, Henry IV tried to re-use part of the Hôtel’s buildings to create a silk, gold and silver factory, bringing in 200 Italian artisans for this purpose, but the attempt failed. Finally, on 4 March 1604, he issued an edict instructing his minister Sully to measure out the site. He donated a parcel of 6,000 toises (yards) to his main noblemen, who built pavilions there, on the condition that they stuck to the layout, materials and main dimensions laid down by the architects Androuet du Cerceau and Claude Chastillon. On 29 March 1605 Henry wrote to Sully:

Thus the place Royale, later known as the place des Vosges, was born.

References

  1. J-A Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, Gabriel Roux, Paris, 1853, p. 189
  2. Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1851, p.96
  3. Le journal des Sçavans, 1913, pp. 186–188
  4. Léon Mirot (1914). “Les d’Orgemont”. Journal des savants (in French). Berger Élie. pp. 186–188 – via Persée.
  5. “Partage des biens de Pierre d’Orgemont” [Sharing of the assets of Pierre d’Orgemont]. Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris (in French): 130–135. 1887.
  6. H. Champion, Le journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, 1881, p. 360
  7. Paul Murray Kendall, Louis XI, Arthème Fayard, 1974, p. 110
  8. Archives du royaume, section domaniale, série 9, N°1234
  9. Mon amy, ceste-cy sera pour vous prier de vous souvenir de ce dont nous parlasmes dernièrement ensemble, de cette place que je veux que l’on fasse devant le logis qui se fait au marché aux chevaux pour les manufactures, afin que si vous n’y avez esté vous alliez pour la faire marquer: car baillant le reste des autres places a cens et rente pour bastir, c’est sans doute qu’elles le seront incontinent et je vous prie de m’en donner les nouvelles.

Bibliography

  • Jacques Hillairet, Connaissance du vieux Paris, Editions Princesse, 1956, p. 28
  • F. Lazare, Dictionnaire administratif et historique des rues de Paris et de ses monuments, F. Lazare, 1844/1849, pp. 600–602
  • J-A Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, Gabriel Roux, 1853, p. 189
  • Gilette Ziegler, Histoire secrète de Paris, Stock, 1967, p. 69
  • Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1851, pp. 95–96
  • Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1907, pp. 332–334
  • G. Kugelman, Les rues de Paris, Louis Lurine, 1851
  • Giorgo Perrini, Paris, deux mille ans pour un joyau, Jean de Bonnot, 1992
  • A walk to the Bastille via the Marais district begins from behind the Pompidou Centre.
  • Marais district traders
  • Marais district boulangerie
  • Famous falafel queues
  • One of several Jewish Memorials in the Marais
  • One of several Jewish Memorials in the Marais
  • Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (BHVP)
  • The famous Amorino icecreameries
  • Place des Vosges, the oldest planned town square in Paris
  • Place des Vosges, the oldest planned town square in Paris
  • Place des Vosges, Statue - Louis XIII
  • Place des Vosges
  • Approaching the Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968.
  • Approaching the Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968.
  • The former church of the Convent de la Visitation Sainte-Marie, now the Temple du Marais (1632–34) by François Mansart.
  • The July Column in the Place de la Bastille (1831–40) by Joseph-Louis Duc.
  • Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968 - a smoky BBQ.
  • Paris real estate ..
  • A walk back towards the Seine.
  • A walk back towards the Seine.
  • Remnants of the original Bastille, stormed on the 14th July 1789 marking the commencement of the 1789 revolution.
  • La Seine.
  • Houses at 13-15 rue Francois-Miron, 4th arrondissement (16th-17th centuries)
  • Houses at 13-15 rue Francois-Miron, 4th arrondissement (16th-17th centuries)
  • The Hôtel de Ville de Paris has been the seat of the Paris City Council since 1357.
  • The current building, with a neo-renaissance style, was built by architects Théodore Ballu and Edouard Deperthes on the site of the former Hôtel de Ville.
  • The current building is on the site of the former Hôtel de Ville which burnt down during the Paris Commune in 1871.
  • Mayday march moves through the 4th arrondissement from the Bastille.
  • Tour Saint-Jacques is all that remains of the former 16th-century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie ("Saint James of the butchery"), which was demolished in 1797, during the French Revolution, leaving only the tower.[2] What remains of the destroyed church of St. Jacques La Boucherie is now considered a national historic landmark.
  • The original was demolished in 1797, during the French Revolution, leaving only the tower.
  • What remains of the destroyed church of St. Jacques La Boucherie is now considered a national historic landmark.

 

 

 

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1er Arrondissement de Paris

 

Musée de l’Orangerie

Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois

 

The 1st arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of the capital city of France. Situated principally on the right bank of the River Seine, it also includes the west end of the Île de la Cité. The arrondissement is one of the oldest in Paris, the Île de la Cité having been the heart of the city of Lutetia, conquered by the Romans in 52 BC, while some parts on the right bank (including Les Halles) date back to the early Middle Ages. It is the least populated of the city’s arrondissements and one of the smallest by area, a significant part of which is occupied by the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Gardens. Much of the remainder of the arrondissement is dedicated to business and administration.

 

Quartiers

Each of the 20 Paris arrondissements is divided into four quarters (quartiers). The 1st Arrondissement is comprised of four quartiers as follows:

 

– Quartier Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois

 

From Planet Bpm : The Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois district is the heart of the French capital. It spreads from the western tip of Île de la Cité to the Jardin des Tuileries, the biggest, oldest garden in Paris. Fluctuat nec mergitur. (“She is battered by the waves, but does not sink”) was the motto of the boatmen’s guild which had its headquarters here during the reign of Hugh Capet, and the phrase subsequently became the city’s own motto.

Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois surrounds the Louvre, whose buildings house a significant portion of French history. Originally built around 1190 by Philip II, ‘Augustus’, as a fortress to contain royal treasure before the monarch left to join the Crusades, the Louvre is now devoted entirely to culture, displaying Western art from the Middle Ages to 1848, treasures of Antiquity and, since 2005, Islamic art. The Church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, after which the district is named, adjoins the Louvre and can be visited outside service times. louvre-1209283_640The grounds of the Jardin des Tuileries host three major Paris museums: the Musée de l’Orangerie, devoted to Monet’s Nymphéas and the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collections, the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which exhibits contemporary art and photography, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs with its significant fashion and textiles collection as well as a more recent section devoted to advertising.

Île de la Cité in the eastern part of the district also has some emblematic historical buildings such as the Conciergerie, the first royal residence in the city and later a forbidding prison under the Terror. It is a stone’s throw from Sainte-Chapelle, a masterpiece of the Gothic style with richly hued stained glass windows built by St Louis within the Palais de la Cité, now the Palais de Justice law courts.

 

– Quartier Les Halles

History

Design of Les Halles in 1863, By Victor Baltard.[5]

View of Les Halles from Saint-Eustache in 1870

Paris – Les Halles

The wholesale market

Les Halles was the traditional central market of Paris. In 1183, King Philippe II Auguste enlarged the marketplace in Paris and built a shelter for the merchants, who came from all over to sell their wares. The church of Saint-Eustache was constructed in the 16th century. The circular Halle aux Blés (Corn Exchange), designed by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières, was built between 1763 and 1769 at the west end of Les Halles. Its circular central court was later covered with a dome, and it was converted into the Bourse de Commerce in 1889.[6] In the 1850s, Victor Baltard designed the famous glass and iron buildings, Les Halles, which would last until the 1970s. Les Halles was known as the “Belly of Paris”, as it was called by Émile Zola in his novel Le Ventre de Paris, which is set in the busy marketplace of the 19th century.

Major conversion

Rue Pierre Lescot outside the Forum des Halles

Unable to compete in the new market economy and in need of massive repairs, the colourful ambience once associated with the bustling area of merchant stalls disappeared in 1971, when Les Halles was dismantled; the wholesale market was relocated to the suburb of Rungis. Two of the glass and cast iron market pavilions were dismantled and re-erected elsewhere; one in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, the other in Yokohama, Japan.[6]

The site was to become the point of convergence of the RER, a network of new express underground lines which was completed in the 1960s. Three lines leading out of the city to the south, east and west were to be extended and connected in a new underground station. For several years, the site of the markets was an enormous open pit, nicknamed “le trou des Halles” (trou = hole), regarded as an eyesore at the foot of the historic church of Saint-Eustache. Construction was completed in 1977 on Châtelet-Les-Halles, Paris’s new urban railway hub. The Forum des Halles, a partially underground multiple story commercial and shopping center, opened at the east end of the site in 1979 and remains there today. A public garden covering four hectares opened in 1986.[6] Many of the surrounding streets were pedestrianized.

Paris Les Halles: an urban transit hub to redevelop

Underground rail system in Châtelet-Les Halles

Gare de Châtelet – Les Halles is Paris’s most used rail station, serving 750,000 travelers on an average weekday. The buildings and their surroundings have been criticized for their design. In 2002 Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced that the City of Paris would begin public consultations regarding the remodeling of the area, calling Les Halles “a soulless, architecturally bombastic concrete jungle”.[7][8]

A design competition for the Forum and gardens was held, with entries from Jean Nouvel, Winy Maas, David Mangin, and Rem Koolhaas. Mangin’s design for the gardens, which proposed replacing the landscaped mounds and paths of the 1980s design with a simplified pattern of east-west pedestrian promenades and a large central lawn, was selected. The plan also includes extending the pedestrianized area further east to include all the streets bordering the gardens. Another competition was held for the redesign of the Forum. Ten teams submitted plans, and the proposal by Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti was selected in 2007. Their design includes a large undulating glass canopy which will cover the redesigned Forum.[8] STIF and RATP began plans for the remodeling of the Châtelet-Les-Halles station in 2007, and the following year Berger and Anziutti were awarded a contract for redesign of the station.

The station redesign includes new entrances on Rue Berger, Rue Rambuteau, and Place Marguerite de Navarre, an expanded RER concourse, and improved pedestrian circulation. Construction began in 2010 on a project which includes the gardens, Forum, and station, and is scheduled to continue through 2016. The clients are the City of Paris, RATP, which operates the Paris Metro, and La Société Civile du Forum des Halles de Paris, which operates the Forum.[6]

In film

Part of the actual demolition of the site is featured in the 1974 film Touche pas à la femme blanche (Don’t Touch the White Woman!), which iconoclastically restages General Custer‘s ‘last stand’ in a distinctly French context in and around the area.

In 1977, Roberto Rossellini made a 54-minute documentary film that testified to the public’s response to the demolition of Les Halles and the construction of Centre Georges Pompidou. “The result was a sceptical vision rather than a pure celebration.”[9]

The open-air market and Baltard’s pavilions were digitally reconstructed for the 2004 film Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement), which was set after the First World War.

 

– Quartier Palais-Royal (Royal Palace District)

image illustrating Paris

Formed for the first time at the time of the French Revolution , the district of Palais-Royal was formed of four districts :

In 1790 this district takes the revolutionary name of section of the Mountain .

By prefectural decree of , the section of the Mountain, now section of the Butte-des-Moulins , which was located in the former 2nd arrondissement of Paris takes the name of district of the Palais Royal .
Its limits are then:

Starting from Place Vendôme and following the streets of Neuve-des-Petits-Champs , Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants and Saint-Honoré to Place Vendôme.

The law of June 16, 1859 assigns this administrative district to the 1st arrondissement , with the following limits:

A line starting from the rue de Rivoli, and following the axis of the streets of Dauphin and Neuve-Saint-Roch, Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, the Place des Victoires, the streets of Croix-des-Petits-Champs, Marengo, and Rivoli to the point of departure.

Situation and limits

The administrative districts of the 1st arrondissement.

The district of the Palais-Royal is formed of a rectangle, limited to the West by the street Saint-Roch, to the East by the streets of Marengo and Croix-des-Petits-Champs, to the North by the street of Little Champs, and to the South by the Rue de Rivoli.

In the heart of the 1st district, the district is between the neighborhoods of Place-Vendôme in the West, Les Halles in the East, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois in the South, Vivienne, in the 2nd district, in the North.

The two main North-South axes are Rue de Richelieu in the west of the Jardin du Palais Royal and Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs in the East. The garden being crossed by no way, besides the lanes that limit it, only rue Saint-Honoré crosses the neighborhood from side to side in the east-west direction. The Haussmannian breakthrough that is the Avenue de l’Opera cuts the grid drawn in the seventeenth century oblique. The rue Coquillière, which connects the district Les Halles was pierced in the twelfth century at the time of the construction of the enclosure of Philippe Auguste; it is the oldest way of the district.

 

Main buildings

The district is organized around the eponymous Royal Palace and its garden , open to the public.

Administration

Private Hotels

Religious life

Tourism

Theaters

Library

Cafes, restaurants, cabarets, bars

Closed house (closed)

Covered passageways

Along the Garden of the Palais-Royal

Clockwise:

Access to the Palais Royal Garden

Clockwise:

Second crown around the Jardin du Palais-Royal

Clockwise:

Fountains

Public art

In the subway :

Famous businesses

 

– Quartier Place Vendôme.

The section of the Place Vendôme was created in 1790, administrative district which became in 1792 the section of the Spades then in 1795 the area of ​​the Place-Vendôme, located then in the 1st district of Paris whose limits started from the place Vendôme and following on the left, the streets of Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Louis-le-Grand, Chaussée-d’Antin, Saint-Lazare, Arcade, Madeleine, Faubourg-Saint-Honoré and Saint-Honoré. ‘in the Place Vendôme 1 .

A new administrative district is created by the imperial decree of November 1 , 1859, whose annexed map defines the district as: “[Quartier] Place Vendome [sic] . A line starting from the rue de Rivoli and following the axis of the streets of [sic] Saint-Florentin, Richepance and Duphot. New-Capucines streets, Neuve-des-Petits-Champs. Neuve-Saint-Roch, of the Dauphin. And from Rivoli to the point of departure 2 .“

 

 

My secret garden

This rear garden sees a few visitors. Beatrix Potter would like it here.

Many residential gardens in France are hidden behind austere facades and this is particularly true in Paris apparently.

 

 

 

 

 

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A list of some notable gardens in Touraine

Just taking note of this while I think of it. It stands out in its omission of Villandry but the other gardens are less well known so a really good list

 

From Touraine Tourism Board

 

Nantes Parks – Parc de la Morinière en hiver

This week we experienced the “Moscow” winter, a cold front coming from Russia bringing the temperature down to -10 overnight for a week. It’s not cold enough on the north ice cap. In Paris, public transport was brought to a halt but the days weren’t all grey here near the Atlantique coast. Gloves, hat and coat and camera and one of the best walks ever.  A full display of new winter flowering plants was a surprise. A small but lovely consolation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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