Tuileries Garden

Paris

Introduction: Les Jardin des Tuileries (The Tuileries Garden) 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 Medicis 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 century, it was the place where Parisians celebrated, met, promenaded, and relaxed.

Historiography of the Gardens

In the Era of Catherine de Medicis

In July 1559, after the death of her husband, Henry II, Queen Catherine de Medicis decided to move from her residence at the chateau of Tournelles,
near the Bastille, to the Louvre Palace, along with her son, the new King, François II. She decided that she would build a new palace there for herself,
separate from the Louvre, with a garden modeled after the gardens of her native Florence.

At the time there was an empty area bordered by the Seine on the south, the rue Saint-Honoré on the north, the Louvre on the east, and the city walls
and deep water-flled moat on the west. Since the 13th century this area was occupied by workshops, called tuileries, making tiles for the roofs of
buildings. Some of land had been acquired early in the 16th century by King Francois I. Catherine acquired more land and began to build a new palace
and garden on the site.

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

The garden of Catherine de Medicis was an enclosed space five hundred metres long and three hundred metres wide, separated from the new chateau 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.

The Tuileries 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 the future Henry IV.

During the Reign 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, and 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 basin 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 the "New Garden," 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.

The Garden under Louis XIII

In 1610, at the death of his father, Louis XIII, age nine became the new owner of the Tuileries Gardens. 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 Medicis established a school of riding,
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'Orleans and the
niece of Louis XIII, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, held a sort of court in the cabaret, and the "Garden Neuf" 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
in 1652 for having supported an uprising, the Fronde, against her cousin, the young Louis XIV.

The Gilded Age of Louis XIV and Le Nôtre

The new king quickly imposed his own sense of order on the Tuileries Gardens. His architects, Louis Le Vau and Francois 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 the moat of Charles V and had been turned into a parade ground. Thereafter the
square was known as the Place du Carrousel.

In 1664, Colbert, the superintendent of buildings of the King, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to redesign the entire garden.
Le Nôtre was the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of the gardeners of Catherine De Medici, 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 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 parterres bordered by low boxwood hedges and filled with designs of flowers. In the centre of the
parterres he placed three basins with fountains. In front of the center first fountain he laid out the grand 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 la 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 a
octagonal water basin sixty metres 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 Notre 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 continued west to the present Rond-Point des Champs Elysees.

Le Nôtre and his hundreds of masons, gardeners and earth-movers worked on the garden from 1666 to 1672. But, in 1671, 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. It was the first royal garden to be open to the public.

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 Grand Allée. A movable bridge, a pont-tournant, 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, 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 price. Public toilets were added in 1780.

During the French Revolution

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 promenade 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. 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.

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.

The 19th Century

In the 19th century, the Tuileries Garden was the place where ordinary Parisians went to relax, meet, promenade, 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 Caroussel, 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 Napolen ordered 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 cafes 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 cortege 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 day of Saint-Charles in the garden.

In 1830, after a brief revolution, a 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 brief reign of the 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 balustrade of stone 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 Germans, 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.

The 20th Century

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 basins, donkey rides, and stands selling toys. At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the Gardens hosted the fencing events.
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 wars, the Jeu de paume was turned into a gallery, and its western part was used to display the series Water Lilies 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.

Until the 1960s, almost all the sculpture in the garden dated to the 18th or 19th century. In 1964-65, André Malraux, the Minister of Culture for President
Charles DeGaulle, 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 arch of triumph in the square.

In 1998, under President Jacques Chirac, works of modern sculpture by Jean Dubuffet, Henri Lawrence, Etienne 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, Francois Morrellet, Giuseppe Penone, Anne Rochette, and Lawrence Weiner.
Another ensemble of three works by Daniel Dezeuze, Erik Dietman, and Eugene Dodeigne, called Priére Toucher (please touch) was added at the same time.

The 21st Century

In 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 garden André Le Nôtre.