Chapter 7 THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS

No more sentimental interest ever attached itself to a royal French palace than that which surrounded the Tuileries from its inception by Charles IX in the mid-sixteenth century to its extinction by the Commune in 1871.

The Palace of the Tuileries is no more, the Commune did for it as it did for the Hotel de Ville and many another noble monument of the capital, and all that remains are the gardens set about with a few marble columns and gilt balls-themselves fragments of former decorative elements of the palace-to suggest what once was the heritage bequeathed the French by the Médici who was the queen of Saint Bartholomew's night.

It was a palace of giddy gayety that drew its devotees to it only to destroy them. "Crowned fools who wished to be called kings, and others." Even its stones were chiselled as if with a certain malignancy and fatalism, for they have all disappeared, and their history, even, has not been written as large as that of those of many contemporary structures.

Of the last five kings to which the Tuileries gave shelter-not counting the Second Emperor-only one went straightway to the tomb; one went to the scaffold and three others to exile. A sorry dowry, this, for an inheritor of a palace at once so noble and admirable in spite of its unluckiness.

With the court followers and the nobility of the last days of the monarchy it was the same thing; the Tuileries was but a temporary shelter. The scaffold accounted for many and banishment engulfed others to forgetfulness.

It was a commonplace at the time to repeat the warning: "O! Tuileries! O! Tuileries! Mad indeed are those who enter thy walls, for like Louis XVI, Napoleon, Charles X and Louis Philippe you shall make your exit by another door."

The origin of the name Tuileries is somewhat ignominiously traced from that of a tile factory which existed here in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, in the sixteenth century. The property, which comprised a manor-house as well as the tile fields, was known by the name of La Sablonnière, and came to the Marquis Neuville de Villeroy, Superintendent of Finances, who built on the spot a sort of fortified chateau, which, if not of palatial dimensions, was of a palatial prodigality of luxury.

Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis I, acquired the property in 1518 and nine years later gave it to Jean Tiercelin, the Maitre d'Hotel of the dauphin, who later was to become Henri II.

The lodge, or manor-house, had, by 1564, fallen into so ruinous a state that Catherine de Médici, the widow of Henri II, set about to lay the foundations of a new royal palace.

Catherine never resided in her projected palace, and in 1566 Charles IX, her son, gave the commission to Philibert Delorme to build a palace, "neighbouring upon the Louvre, but not to be connected therewith, on the site of the Tuileries."

On July 11, work was begun, and the central pavilion and the two extremes were carried up two stories within a year. The central structure was a great circular-domed edifice, enclosing a marvellous Escalier d'Honneur. The fa?ade, preceded by two terraced porticos, was on the courtyard, or garden, between the edifice and the Louvre. It sat back to the present Rue des Tuileries.

The Tuileries did not become a royal residence for some time after its completion, for Charles IX clung tenaciously to his well-guarded apartments in the Louvre; for the central structure of the Tuileries, because of its lack of comparative height, was hardly as much of a stronghold as he would have liked.

A contemporary note in connection with Charles IX and the Tuileries is found in Ronsard's "épitre à Charles IX."

"J'ay veu trop de ma?ons

Bastir les Tuileries,

Et en trop de fa?ons

Faire les momeries."

Work on the edifice so auspiciously planned by Delorme was practically discontinued during the reign of Henri III, owing to lack of funds.

The Renaissance of Delorme, Bullant, Lescot, each of whom had a hand in the building of the Tuileries, expressed certain characteristic phases of architectural art in the reigns of Francis I and Henri II. The reign of Charles IX was only another phase of that long reign of Catherine de Médici, and architectural influences continued to follow along the same reminiscent Italian lines, particularly with reference to such edifices as the Médici herself caused to be built. In the dedication of Philibert Delorme's "Traite d'Architecture" he expressed himself thus with regard to the Tuileries:

"Madame, I see from day to day with an increasing pleasure the interest that your Majesty takes in architecture. The palace which you have built at Paris near the Pont Neuf and the Louvre is, according to its disposition, excellent and admirable to the extent that it pleases me beyond measure."

After Delorme considerable changes were made and successfully carried out under the architects Ducerceau, Duperac, Levau and Dorbay.

A distinct feature of the work of Delorme was his use of the column ornamented throughout its length, which, as he says in his written works, he first employed in the "Palais de la Majesté de la Royne-Mere à Paris."

Of the ability of Delorme there is no diversity of opinion to-day, nor was there in his time. Besides the Tuileries he has to his credit the Chateau d'Anet, the Chateau de Saint Maur, that of Meudon-built for the Cardinal de Lorraine,-and his important additions to the Chateau de la Muette and the Chateaux of Saint Germain, Madrid and Fontainebleau.

As might be supposed Catherine de Médici professed a great admiration for Delorme and recompensed his talents with a royal generosity, even nominating him as Abbé of the Convent of Saint Eloi de Noyon, a fact which caused the poet Ronsard to evolve a political satire: "La Truelle Crossée."

At the same time that she was building the Tuileries Catherine de Médici caused additions to be made to the Louvre; at least she undertook the completion of the unfinished portion, which had been left for other hands to do.

The first historic souvenir which stands out prominently with regard to the Palais des Tuileries is the fête given four days before the fateful Saint Bartholomew's night. It was the marriage fête of the gallant Henri de Béarn, King of Navarre, and the wise and witty Marguerite de Valois.

Henri IV, coming to the throne a quarter of a century after the admirable first year's work on the Tuileries had been completed, found that little had been done towards making it a really habitable place. It had been hurriedly finished off to the second story, and had served well enough for a temporary residence, or as an overflow establishment where balls and fêtes might be given without crowding, but to the ambitious Henri IV nothing would do but that the pavilions should be bound together with a more imposing ligature, and that the Pavillon de Flore should in turn be linked up with the Louvre by a gallery.

Under Louis XIII this latter really came to a conclusion according to the plans of the architect Ducerceau, but the inspiration of making the Louvre and the Tuileries one was due to Henri IV.

Under Louis XIV and Louis XV the palace in its still attenuated form was scarcely more than a rambling lodging, utterly lacking any of the noble apartments with which it was afterwards endowed. The court at this time practically made Versailles its headquarters. Neither of the above-mentioned monarchs made aught but cursory visits to the Tuileries and left its occupancy to officers of the household and ministers of state.

It was in the reign of Louis XV that the Florentine artist, Servandoni, who was at the same time an eminent architect, a remarkable painter and a maestro of a musician, organized in the Palais des Tuileries the Theatre des Machines, the first installed at Paris, and there came the Comédie Fran?aise, the Opera and the Bouffes (the Comédie Italienne) and gave command performances before the court.

When the French resolved that Louis XVI should live in Paris, the Palais des Tuileries was actually offered him, but it was a rather shabby place of royal residence so far as its interior appointments were concerned, though in all ways appealing when viewed from without. Considerable repairs and embellishments were made, but warring factions did much to make difficult any real artistic progress.

With the advent of Louis XVI there came a contrast to gayety and freedom from care in royal hearts and heads. On October 5 Louis XVI and the royal family hid themselves behind barred doors, the convention taking up its sittings under the same roof and forthwith passing an act which allowed the completion of the palace according to the plans of Vignon at an expense of three hundred thousand livres. An almost entire transformation took place, the money being seemingly well spent, and the structure now first took its proper place among the monumental art treasures of the capital.

A dramatic incident took place at the great gate of the Tuileries, which faced the courtyard, when, on May 28, 1795, the populace surged in waves against its sturdy barrier. The Deputy Féraud met them at the steps. "You may enter only over my dead body," he said. No reply was made but to crack his skull, behead the trunk and carry the head aloft on a pike to the very Tribune where Boissy d'Anglas was presiding.

The Salle de Spectacle of the Tuileries was, even at this period, the largest auditorium of its kind in Europe, having eight thousand stalls and boxes, which gave a seating capacity of considerably more than that number of persons.

In 1793 this playhouse, of which the parquet occupied the ground floor of the Pavillon de Marsan, underwent a strange metamorphosis when it became the legislative hall for the National Convention. All the names and emblems showing forth in its decorations and indicative of its ancient rule were changed into Republican devices and symbols. The Pavillon de Marsan was called the Pavillon de l'Egalité, the Pavillon du Centre became the Pavillon de l'Unité and the Pavillon de Flore the Pavillon de la Liberté, where was lodged the Committee of Public Safety.

The Hall of the Convention, according to reports of the time, was an appalling mixture of grandeur and effeminacy with respect to its architectural lines. Surrounding that portion where the legislators actually sat was the great amphitheatre which for three years was occupied by a curious, vociferous public, more demonstrative, even, than those that had attended the former theatrical representations in the same apartment.

From the opening of the National Convention to the reaction of "Thermidor" it is estimated that more than three million people assisted at what they rightly, or wrongly, considered as a "spectacle" staged only for their amusement.

By the time Napoleon had come into power the Tuileries was hardly habitable, and before taking up his residence he was obliged to make immediate and extensive transformations.

On February 19, 1800, Napoleon, still First Consul, left the Palais de Luxembourg and took up his residence in the Tuileries, the Third Consul, Lebrun, being lodged in the Pavillon de Flore, in the "Petite Appartement," which Marie Antoinette had fitted up for her temporary accommodation when in town. Lebrun, however, gave up his lodging to the Pope when the Pontiff came to Paris at Napoleon's orders. Consul Cambacères, however, refused to shelter himself beneath the roof of the Tuileries, and indicated a preference for the magnificent Hotel d'Elb?uf, which was accommodatingly put at his disposition.

Salle des Marechaux, Tuileries

Napoleon entered the Tuileries in state, preceded and followed by an imposing cortège. At the gate of the Carrousel the consuls alighted from their carriages, and were received by the Consular Guard. On their arrival the consuls read the following inscription posted at the entrance: "On August 10th monarchy in France was forever abolished; it will never be restored." By the 20th of February the inscription had disappeared. Besides, orders were given to cut down the two liberty trees which had been planted in the courtyard. On August 10 a large quantity of cannon shot had been lodged in the fa?ade of the Tuileries, and around the shot were written these words: "Tenth of August." The cannon balls disappeared, as well as the inscriptions, when the Arc de Triomphe was erected on the Place du Carrousel.

This alteration gave great satisfaction. It was important for the tranquillity of France that the new government should inherit rather the sword of Charlemagne than the guillotine of Marat.

The imperial court soon displayed its splendour and magnificence in the Palais des Tuileries, as a foregone conclusion anticipated.

In a gorgeous and imposing Salle du Trone one might have seen in the deep casement of the central window, standing up, their hats off, the group of the Corps Diplomatique, the members of which, loaded with decorations, ensigns, and diamonds, trembled in the presence of the Little Corporal of other days; on the other side, the host of the Princes of the Rhine Confederation-all the personages that Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy, Denmark, Spain, all Europe, in one word, England excepted, had sent to Paris.

It is needless to say that the wedding reception of Napoleon and Marie Louise at the Tuileries was celebrated with unusual magnificence. Another event, on account of its peculiar moment, strongly excited the enthusiasm of the French. On March 20, 1811, at seven o'clock in the morning, the first salute of cannon announced that the empress had given birth to a child, the future Aiglon, the King of Rome.

After Napoleon's occupancy of the Tuileries it again served the monarch under the Empire, the Restoration, under Louis Philippe and under the Second Empire. The palace of unhappy memory saw successively the fall of Napoleon, the entry of Louis XVIII, the file-by of the Allies, the flight of Louis XVIII, of Charles X, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III.

Up to the time of the Second Empire the Tuileries preserved, more or less, its original interior arrangement, and, to a great extent, the decorations with which it had been embellished under Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and Napoleon I.

The Pavilion de Flore, at the juncture of the Tuileries and the Louvre of Henri IV, was practically rebuilt during the Second Empire, but it followed closely the contemporary designs of the adjoining building. Here are quartered executive offices of the Préfecture de la Seine. That portion facing the Pont Royal contains a series of fine sculptures by Carpeaux, the sole modern embellishments of this nature to be seen in or on a Paris palace.

As the Commune mob was fleeing before the army of Versailles a conflagration broke out in the Tuileries and soon the whole edifice was in flames. Within what may have been the briefest interval on record for a conflagration of its size the Tuileries was but a smoking pile of half-calcined stones.

The Tuileries had another brief day of glory when the Prince President, Louis Napoleon, entered its gates, coming straight from his inauguration at Notre Dame.

The cannon at the Hotel des Invalides blazed out a welcome and every patriot Republican shouted: "Vive Napoleon!" They little knew, little cared perhaps, that he would some day become the Second Emperor.

The throng poured forth from the cathedral after the Domine Salvum and the benediction, the clergy leading the way, followed by the president and his attendants. The orchestra played a lively march, and the great bell in the tower boomed forth a glorious peal.

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The president's carriage drew up before the gates of the Tuileries and he entered the great apartment where a reception was given to various public and military bodies. Between seven and eight thousand naval and military officers paid their respects, and about half a battalion of the army saluted, among them two Mamelukes. While this ceremony was going on, the Place du Carrousel was occupied by several squadrons of cavalry and the inner courtyards were practically infantry camps. The government was taking no chances at the beginning of its career. The reception lasted until well on towards evening, when a banquet of four hundred covers was laid and partaken of by the invited guests.

The last days of the Tuileries may be said to have commenced with that eventful September 3, 1870, at five o'clock in the afternoon, when the Empress Eugenie received a telegraphic despatch from Napoleon III announcing his captivity and the defeat of Sedan. It was the overthrow.

The evening and the night were calm; the masses, as yet, were unaware of the fatal news the journals would publish on the morrow. The following day was Sunday; the weather superb; the disaster was finally announced and the masses thronged from all parts to the Place de la Concorde, where a squadron of Cuirassiers barred the bridge leading to the Palais Bourbon where the deputies were in session.

On the arrival of the news the empress had called in General Trochu, the Military Governor of Paris, and asked him if he could guarantee order. He replied in the affirmative. Some hours later a group of deputies came to the empress and counselled her to sign, not an abdication, but a momentary renunciation of her powers as regent. Eugenie refused point-blank.

The throng, passing by the left bank, had arrived at the Chamber of Deputies, and the formal sitting became a revolutionary one. At three o'clock the imperial dynasty was proclaimed as at an end, and a provisionary government installed. Henri Rochefort, the present editor of the "Intransingeant," was delivered from the prison of Sainte Pélagie and made a member of the government.

By this time the mob which had invaded the Place de la Concorde became menacing. The cry, "Aux Tuileries," first launched by the street gamins, soon became the slogan of the crowd. To say it was to do it; the great iron gates were closed, but in default of a protecting force of arms it was an easy matter to scale them.

Behind the curtained windows of the palace the empress witnessed the assault and murmured to her ladies-in-waiting: "It is then finished." She turned towards the Prince de Metternich and the Chevalier Nigra, and, in the voice of a suppliant, demanded: "Que me consillez vous?"

"You must leave at once, Madame; in a moment the palace will be invaded."

The empress became resigned and accompanied by Madame Le Breton, Metternich and Nigra started for the Pavilion de Flore, passing through the Galerie de Musée and the Galerie d'Apollon, finally leaving by the gate of the Louvre, which is opposite Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.

The empress was at last out of the palace, but not yet out of danger. A band of manifestants, making for the Hotel de Ville and shouting; "Vive la Republique," recognized the empress, but she mounted an empty fiacre with Madame Le Breton, and giving the driver the first address that entered her mind thus escaped further indignities, and perhaps danger. Finally she found a refuge with Doctor Evans, the American dentist living in the Avenue Malakoff, from whose house she left for England on the following day.

This is the Frenchman's point of view of one of the picturesque incidents of history. It disposes of the legend that the empress left the Tuileries in the carriage of Doctor Evans, but this cannot be helped, with due regard for the consensus of French opinion. Doctor Evans was a family friend, besides being the dentist who cared for the imperial teeth, and it is not going beyond the truth to state that the fortunate American acquired not a little of his vogue and wealth by his association with Napoleon III and his family.

By this time the populace had invaded the palace and cursed with indignities unmentionable the marble halls, and the furnishings in general, and pillaged such portable property as pleased the individual fancies of the spoilsmen.

After the signing of the Peace Treaty by the Bordeaux Assembly, which now represented the governmental head, and Thiers had become president, that worthy would do away with the cannon of which the National Guard still held possession in their garrison on the Butte of Montmartre. The orders which he sent forth came to be the signal for another outbreak on the part of the populace. On March 18 the Commune was proclaimed and Citoyen Dardelle, an old African hunter, was appointed military governor of the Tuileries. Whatever this individual's military qualifications may have been, he delivered himself to the enjoyment of a high and dissolute life in his luxurious apartments in the palace; a fact which was speedily made note of by the still restless populace.

The Citoyen Rousselle, a member of the Communal Government, had the idea of organizing a series of popular concerts in the gardens of the Tuileries for the profit of the wounded in the late friction.

Hung on the walls, at the entrance of each apartment was a placard which read: "Fellow men, the gold with which these walls were built was earned by your sweat." "To-day you are coming to your own." "Remain faithful to your trust and see to it that the tyrants enter never more."

During one of these public concerts a poem of Hégésippe Moreau was read which terminated as follows, and set the populace aflame.

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"Et moi j'applaudirai; ma jeuneusse engourdie

Se réchauffera a ce grand incendie."

He referred to the burning of the former abode of emperors and kings as a sort of sacrifice to the common good. The public had held itself in hand very well up to this moment, but applauded the verses vociferously. The last of the concerts was held on May 21, the same day as the Army of Versailles entered Paris. Night came, and with it the raging, red flames springing skywards from the roof of the Tuileries.

In a few moments the flames had enveloped the entire building. All the forces that it was possible to gather had been ordered upon the scene, but they were unable to save the old palace, and by one o'clock in the morning it was but a mass of smoking ruins. The Communards had done their work well. Before leaving its precincts they had sprinkled coal oil over every square metre of carpet, window-hangings and tapestries, and the slow-match was not long in passing the fire to its inflammable timber. The library of the Louvre was destroyed, but the museums, galleries and their famous collections fortunately escaped.

For a dozen years the lamentable ruins of the old palace of the Tuileries reared their singed walls, a witness and a reproach to the tempestuosity of a people. Finally, in 1882, Monsieur Achille Picard undertook their removal for thirty-three thousand francs, and within a year not a vestige, not an unturned stone remained in its original place as a witness to this chapter of Paris history.

Two porticos of the Pavillon de l'Horloge, originally forming a part of the Tuileries, have been re-erected on the terrace of the Orangerie, facing the Place de la Concorde.

There remain but two survivors of the late imperial sway in France, the Empress Eugenie who lives in England, and Emile Olivier, "l'homme au c?ur lèger," who lives at Saint Tropez in the Midi.

A Paris journalist a year or more ago, while sitting among a little coterie of literary and artistic folk at Lavenue's famous terrace-café, recounted the following incident clothed in most discreet language, and since it bears upon the Tuileries and its last occupants it is repeated here.

"Last night beneath the glamour of a September moon I saw a black shadow silently creep out from beneath the gloom of the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli just below the Hotel Continental. It crossed the pavement and passed within the railings of the gardens opposite, one of the gates to which, by chance or prearranged design, was still open. It moved slowly here and there upon the gravelled walks and seated itself upon a solitary bench as if it were meditating upon the splendid though sad hours that had passed. Was it a wraith; was it Eugenie, late empress of the French?"

To have remembered such a dream of fancy for forty long years one must have been endowed with superhuman courage, or an inexplicable conscience.

The Rue des Pyramides, which has been prolonged to the banks of the Seine, will give those of the present generation who have never seen the Tuileries an exact idea of its location. If it still existed the fa?ade of the palace would front upon this street.

The most moving history of the detailed horrors of the Commune, particularly with reference to the part played by the Tuileries therein, is to be found in Maxime Ducamp's "Les Derniers Convulsions de Paris."

One relic of the Tuileries left unharmed found a purchaser in a Roumanian prince, at a public sale held as late as 1889. This was the ornately beautiful iron gate which separated the Cour du Carrousel from the Cour des Tuileries. Roumanian by birth, French at heart and Parisian by adoption, this wealthy amateur, for a trifle over eight thousand francs, became the owner of a royal souvenir which must have cost five hundred times that sum.

The eastern front of the Tuileries opened into a courtyard formed under the direction of the first Napoleon. It was separated from the Place du Carrousel by a handsome iron railing with gilt spear-heads extending the whole range of the palace. From this court there were three entrances into the Place du Carrousel, the central gate corresponding with the central pavilion of the palace, the other two having their piers surmounted by colossal figures of victory, peace, history and France. A gateway under each of the lateral galleries also communicated on the north with the Rue de Rivoli, and on the south with the Quai du Louvre. The Place du Carrousel was named in honour of a tournament held upon the spot by Louis XIV in 1662. It communicated on the north with the Rue Richelieu and the Rue de l'Echelle, and on the south with the Pont Royal and the Pont du Carrousel. To-day in the square stands the triumphal arch erected by Napoleon in 1806, after the designs of Percier and Fontaine.

The newly laid-out and furbished-up gardens make the Place du Carrousel even more attractive than it was when set about with flagged areas, gravelled walks and paved road ways, and, while the monumental and architectural accessories excel the horticultural embellishments in quantity, the general effect is incomparably finer at present than anything known before.

Plans for rebuilding the Place du Carrousel provide for a division into three distinct parts, three grand pelouses, à boulingrins à la Fran?ais, or lawns of a circumscribed area, according to the best traditions of Le Notre, a border of flowers and a few decoratively disposed clumps of flowering shrubs, the whole combined in such a way that the perspective and vista down the Champs Elysées will in no manner suffer. The architect-landscapist, M. Redon, who has been charged with the work, has drawn his inspiration from a series of unexecuted designs of Le Notre which have recently been brought to light from the innermost depths of the national archives. It was a safe way of avoiding an anachronism, and this time a government architect has chosen well his plan of execution.

In later years the question of the re?mbellishment of the Garden of the Tuileries has ever been before the public, but little has actually been changed save the remaking of certain garden plots, the planting of a few shrubs or the placing of a few statues.

The Garden of the Tuileries has a superficial area of 232,632 square metres. It is the most popular of all open spaces in the capital to the Parisian who would take his walks abroad not too far from the centre of things. The chief curiosity of the garden is the celebrated chestnut tree which burst into flower on the day of Napoleon's arrival from Elba-March 20. The precocious tree has ever been revered by the Bonapartists since, though the tree has never performed the trick the second time.

Statues innumerable are scattered here and there through the garden and give a certain sense of liveliness to the area. Some are by famous names, others by those less renowned, but as a whole they make little impression on one, chiefly, perhaps, because one does not come to the Garden of the Tuileries to see statues.

To the left and right are the terraces, first laid out by the celebrated Le Notre. Like the hanging gardens of Babylon, they overlook a lower level of parterres, gravelled walks and ornamental waters. Along the Rue de Rivoli is the Terrasse de l'Orangerie, and on the side of the river is the Terrasse de la Marine.

According to the original plans of Le Notre the garden was set down as five hundred toises in length, and one hundred and sixty-eight toises in width, the latter dimension corresponding to that of the fa?ade of the palace.

Along the shady avenues of this admirable city garden of to-day an enterprising concessionaire has won a fortune by renting out rush-bottomed chairs to nursemaids, retired old gentlemen with red ribbons in their buttonholes, and trippers from across the channel. It is a perfectly legitimate enterprise and a profitable one it would seem, and has been in operation considerably more than half a century.

It was from the Gardens of the Tuileries in 1784 that took place Blanchard's celebrated ascension in Montgolfier's balloon and brought forth the encomium from the British Royal Society that the body was not in the least surprised that a Frenchman should have solved the problem of "volatability." The French monarch, more practical, was so mightily pleased with the success of the experiment that he bestowed upon the author the sum of four hundred thousand francs from his treasury to be used for the perfection of the art.

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