Palais Royal
From Paris Hotels Reviews
Following the rue St-Honorè east you come to the Palais Royal (M° Palais-Royal-Musèe-du-Louvre), a complex of handsome buildings and gardens. There are two main parts: the palace itself and, beyond it, galleries surrounding gardens on three sides. The palace, a fine colonnade building, dates back to 1624, though has been much modified and renovated since. It was built for Cardinal Richelieu, who left it to the king, Louis XIV, then just a boy; he and his mother lived in the palace for a time, and Louis loved to play here with his toy soldiers and march up and down banging his drum. The palace later passed to his brother, the duc d’Orleans, and for a time provided sanctuary to Henrietta Maria, the widow of the executed English king, Charles 1. The palace is now occupied by various government departments and is rarely open to the public; an annexe to the side houses the Comedie Francaise, long-standing venue for the classic of French theatre. Beyond the palace lie sedate gardens lined with stately arcaded buildings, put up in the 1780s by Philippe-Egalitè, a descendant of the duc d’Orleans. Desperate to pay off his debts, he left out the spaces under the arcades to shops. One of them, Guillaumot, founded in 1785 and selling antiquarian books mostly on genealogy and heraldy (153 Galerie de Valois), is still there today. Many of the other shops also specialize in antiques or quirky collectors’ items, such as lead soldiers and medals – you can buy a Lègion d’Honneur for around €150 at A Marie Stuart, no. 3 Galerie de Montpensier. At no. 142 Galerie de Valois is an exquisite purple-panelled parfumerie, Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido, while the bright-red décor at Didier Ludot’s La Petite Robe Noire (no. 125) sets off to advantage his wonderful collection of new and vintage little black dresses.
Past residents of the desirable flats above the arcades include Cocteau and Colette – the latter lived here until her death in 1954 and enjoyed looking out over the gardens when she was too crippled with arthritis to walk. It’s certainly an attractive and peaceful oasis, with avenues of clipped limes, fountains and flowerbeds, and popular on weekends with newlyweds who come here to be photographed, though surprisingly unfrequented at other times. You’d hardly guess that for many years this was a site of gambling dens, brothels (it was to a prostitute here that Napoleon lost his virginity in 1787) and funfair attractions – there was even a cafè mècanique, where you sat at a table, sent your order down one of its legs, and were served via the other. As an 1815 guidebook put it; “There you can see everything, hear everything, know everything….All the senses are aroused, all the passions are excited and a general intoxication of pleasure may be said to prevail in this enclosure of luxury. “The clearing of Paris’s brothels in 1829-31 and the prohibition on public gambling in 1838, however, put an end to the fun, and the Grands Boulevards took up the baton. Folly, some might say, has returned – in the form of Daniel Buren’s black-and-white striped pillars, rather like sticks of Brighton rock, all of varying heights, dotted about the main courtyard in front of the palace. Installed in 1986 after the space was cleared of cars, they’re a rather disconcerting sight, but are certainly popular with children and rollerbladers, who treat them as an adventure playground and obstacle course respectively.
