Royal Palaces and Parks of France Part 10

After the edifice was finished it actually fell into disuse, except for the periodical intervals when the Cardinal visited the capital. At other times it was as quiet as a cemetery. Moss grew on the flags, gra.s.s on the gravelled walks and tangled shrubbery killed off the budding flowers of the gardens.

Richelieu's last home-coming, after the execution of Cinq-Mars at Lyons, was a tragic one. The despot of France, once again under his own rooftree, threw himself upon his bed surrounded by his choicest pictures and tapestries, and paid the price of his merciless arrogance towards all men--and women--by folding his wan hands upon his breast and exclaiming, somewhat unconvincingly: "Thus do I give myself to G.o.d." As if recalling himself to the stern reality of things he added: "I have no enemies but those of State."

In a robe of purple silk, supported by pillows of the finest down and covered with the rarest of laces, he rigidly straightened himself out and expired without a shudder, with the feeling that he was well beyond the reach of invisible foes. But before he died Richelieu received a visit from his king in person. This was another token of his invincible power.

Thus the Palais Royal was evolved from the Palais Cardinal of Richelieu.

Richelieu gave the orders for its construction to Jacques Lemercier immediately after he had dispossessed the Rambouillets and the Mercoeurs, intending at first to erect only a comparatively modest town dwelling with an ample garden. Vanity, or some other pa.s.sion, finally caused to grow up the magnificently proportioned edifice which was called the Palais Cardinal instead of that which was to be known more modestly as the Hotel de Richelieu.

Vast and imposing, but not without a certain graceful symmetry, the Palais Royal of to-day is a composition of many separate edifices divided by a series of courts and gardens and connected by arcaded galleries. The right wing enclosed an elaborate Salle de Spectacle while that to the left enclosed an equally imposing chamber with a ceiling by Philippe de Champaigne, known as the Galerie des Hommes Ill.u.s.tres, and further ornamented with portraits of most of the court favourites of both s.e.xes of the time. The architectural ornamentation of this gallery was of the Doric order, most daringly interspersed with moulded s.h.i.+ps'

prows, anchors, cables and what not of a marine significance.

In 1636, divining the att.i.tude of envy of many of the n.o.bility who frequented his palace, Richelieu--great man of politics that he was--made a present of the entire lot of curios to Louis XIII, but undertaking to house them for him, which he did until his death in 1642.

At the death of Louis XIII the Palais Cardinal, which had been left to him in its entirety by the will of Richelieu, came to Anne d'Autriche, the regent, who, with the infant Louis XIV and the royal family, installed herself therein, and from now on (October 7, 1642), the edifice became known as the Palais Royal.

Now commenced the political role of this sumptuous palace which hitherto had been but the Cardinal's caprice. Mazarin had succeeded Richelieu, and to escape the anger of the Frondeurs, he, with the regent and the two princes, Louis XIV and the Duc d'Anjou, fled to the refuge of Saint Germain-en-Laye.

In company with Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who had been rudely awakened from her slumbers in the Luxembourg, they took a coach in the dead of night for Saint Germain. It was a long and weary ride; the _Pavi du Roi_ was then, as now, the most execrable suburban highroad in existence.

When calm was reestablished Mazarin refused to allow the regent to take up her residence again in the old abode of Richelieu and turned it over to Henriette de France, the widow of Charles I, who had been banished from England by Cromwell.

Thirty odd years later Louis XIV, when he was dreaming of his Versailles project, made a gift of the property to his nephew, Philippe d'Orleans, Duc de Chartres. Important reconstructions and rearrangements had been carried on from time to time, but nothing so radical as to change the specious aspect of the palace of the Cardinal's time, though it had been considerably enlarged by extending it rearward and annexing the Hotel Danville in the present Rue Richelieu. Mansart on one occasion was called in and built a new gallery that Coypel decorated with fourteen compositions after the aenid of Virgil.

Under the regency the Salon d'Entree was redecorated by Oppenard, and a series of magnificent fetes was organized by the pleasure-loving queen from the Austrian court. Richelieu's theatre was made into an opera-house, and masked b.a.l.l.s of an unparalleled magnificence were frequently given, not forgetting to mention--without emphasis however--suppers of a Pantagruelian opulence and lavish orgies at which the chronicles only hint.

In 1661, Monsieur, brother of the king, took up his official residence in the palace, enlarged it in various directions and in many ways transformed and improved it. Having become the sole proprietor of the edifice and its gardens, by Letters Patent of February, 1692, the Duc d'Orleans left this superb property, in 1701, to his son the too famous regent, Philippe d'Orleans, whose orgies and extravagances rendered the Palais Royal notorious to the utmost corners of Europe.

The first years of the eighteenth century were indeed notorious. It was then that Palais Royal became the head-centre for debauch and abandon.

It is from this epoch, too, that date the actual structures which to-day form this vast square of buildings, at all events their general outline is little changed to-day from what it was at that time.

If the regent's policy was to carry the freedom and luxury of Richelieu's time to excess, replacing even the edifices of the Cardinal with more elaborate structures, his son Louis (1723-1752) sought in his turn to surround them with an atmosphere more austere.

A disastrous fire in 1763 caused the Palais Royal to be rebuilt by order of Louis Philippe d'Orleans, the future Philippe-Egalite, by the architect Moreau, who carried out the old traditions as to form and outline, and considerably increased the extent and number of the arcades from one hundred and eighty to two hundred and seven. These the astute duke immediately rented out to shopkeepers at an annual rental of more than ten millions. This section was known characteristically enough as the Palais Marchand, and thus the garden came to be surrounded by a monumental and cla.s.sic arcade of shops which has ever remained a distinct feature of the palace.

A second fire burned out the National Opera, which now sought shelter in the Palais Royal, and in 1781 the Theatre des Varietes Amusantes was constructed, and which has since been made over into the home of the Comedie Francaise.

The transformations imposed by Philippe-Egalite were considerable, and the famous chestnut trees, which had been planted within the courtyard in the seventeenth century by Richelieu, were cut down. He built also the three transverse galleries which have cut the gardens of to-day into much smaller plots than they were in Richelieu's time. In spite of this there is still that pleasurable tranquillity to be had therein to-day, scarcely a stone's throw from the rush and turmoil of the whirlpool of wheeled traffic which centres around the junction of the Rue Richelieu with the Avenue de l'Opera. It is as an oasis in a turbulent sandstorm, a beneficent shelf of rock in a whirlpool of rapids. The only thing to be feared therein is that a toy aeroplane of some child will put an eye out, or that the more devilish _diabolo_ will crack one's skull.

Under the regency of the Duc Philippe d'Orleans the various apartments of the palace were the scenes of scandalous goings-on, which were related at great length in the chronicles of the time. It was a very mixed world which now frequented the _purlieus_ of the Palais Royal. Men and women about town jostled with men of affairs, financiers, speculators and agitators of all ranks and of questionable respectability. Milords, as strangers from across the Manche came first to be known here, delivered themselves to questionable society and still more questionable pleasures. It was at a little later period that the Duc de Chartres authorized the establishment of the cafes and restaurants which for a couple of generations became the most celebrated rendezvous in Paris--the Cafe de Foy, the Cafe de la Paix, the Cafe Carrazzo and various other places of reunion whose very names, to say nothing of the incidents connected therewith, have come down to history.

It was the establishment of these public rendezvous which contributed so largely to the events which unrolled themselves in the Palais Royal in 1789. This "Eden de l'Enfer," as it was known, has in late years been entirely reconstructed; the old haunts of the Empire have gone and nothing has come to take their place.

Then came another cla.s.s of establishments which burned brilliantly in the second rank and were, in a way, political rendezvous also--the Cafe de Chartres and the Cafe de Valois. Of all these Palais Royal cafes of the early nineteenth century the most gorgeous and brilliant was the Cafe des Mille Colonnes, though its popularity was seemingly due to the charms of the _maitresse de la maison_, a Madame Romain, whose husband was a dried-up, dwarfed little man of no account whatever. Madame Romain, however, lived well up to her reputation as being "_incontestablement la plus jolie femme de Paris_." By 1824 the fame of the establishment had begun to wane and in 1826 it expired, though the "_Almanach des Gourmands_" of the latter year said that the proprietor was the Very of _limonadiers_, that his ices were superb, his salons magnificent--and his prices exorbitant. Perhaps it was the latter that did it!

Another establishment, founded in 1817, was domiciled here, the clients being served by "_odalisques en costume oriental, tres seduisantes_."

This is quoted from the advertis.e.m.e.nts of the day. The cafe was called the Cafe des Circa.s.siennes, and there was a _sultane_, who was the presiding genius of the place. It met with but an indifferent success and soon closed its doors despite its supposedly all-compelling attractions.

In the mid-nineteenth century a revolution came over the cafes of Paris.

Tobacco had invaded their precincts; previously one smoked only in the _estaminets_. Three cafes of the Palais Royal resisted the innovation, the Cafe de la Galerie d'Orleans, the Cafe de Foy and the Cafe de la Rotonde. To-day, well, to-day things are different.

The Theatre du Palais Royal of to-day was the Theatre des Marionettes of the Comte de Beaujolais, which had for contemporaries the Fantoches Italiens, the Ombres Chinoises and the Musee Curtius, perhaps the first of the wax-works shows that in later generations became so popular. The Palais Royal had now become a vast amus.e.m.e.nt enterprise, with side-shows of all sorts, theatres, concerts, cafes, restaurants, clubs, gambling-houses and what not--all paying rents, and high ones, to the proprietor.

In the centre of the garden, where is now the fountain and its basin, was a circus, half underground and half above, and there were innumerable booths and kiosks for the sale of foolish trifles, all paying tribute to the ground landlord.

Gaming at the Palais Royal was not wholly confined to the public gambling houses. During the carnival season of 1777 the gambling which went on in the royal apartments became notorious for even that profligate time: in one night the Duc de Chartres lost eight thousand _livres_. Louis XVI, honest man, took all due precautions to reduce this extravagance, but was impotent.

Between the courtyard fountain and the northern arcade of the inner palace was placed the famous Cannon du Palais Royal, which, by an ingenious disposition, was fired each day at midday by the action of the sun's rays. All the world stood around awaiting the moment when watches might be regulated for another twenty-four hours.

The celebrated Abbe Delille, to whom the beauties of the gardens were being shown, deplored the lack of good manners on the part of the habitues and delivered himself of the following appropriate quatrain:

"Dans ce jardin tout se rencontree Excepte l'ombrage et les fleurs; Si l'on y deregle ses moeurs Du moins on y regle sa montre."

The Galerie de Bois was perhaps the most disreputable of all the palace confines. It was a long, double row of booths which only disappeared when Louis-Philippe built the gla.s.s-covered Galerie d'Orleans.

Up to the eve of the Revolution the Palais Royal enjoyed the same privileges as the Temple and the Luxembourg, and became a sort of refuge whereby those who sought to escape from the police might lose themselves in the throng. The monarch himself was obliged to ask permission of the Duc d'Orleans that his officials might pursue their police methods within the outer walls.

It was July 12, 1789. The evening before, Louis XVI had dismissed his minister, Neckar, but only on Sunday, the 12th, did the news get abroad.

At the same time it was learned that the regiment known as the Royal Allemand, under the orders of the Prince de Lambesc, had charged the mult.i.tude gathered before the gates of the Tuileries. Cries of "A Mort!"

"Aux Armes!" "Vengeance!" were hurled in air from all sides.

At high noon in the gardens of the Palais Royal, on the 13th, as the midday sun was scorching the flagstones to a grilling temperature, the sound of a tiny cannon shot smote the still summer air with an echo which did not cease reverberating for months. The careless, unthinking promenaders suddenly grew grave, then violently agitated and finally raving, heedlessly mad. A young unknown limb of the law, Camille Desmoulins, rushed bareheaded and shrieking out of the Cafe de Foy, parted the crowd as a s.h.i.+p parts the waves, sprang upon a chair and harangued the mult.i.tude with such a vehemence and conviction that they were with him as one man.

"Citizens," he said, "I come from Versailles * * * It only remains for us to choose our colours. _Quelle couleur voulez vous?_ Green, the colour of hope; or the blue of Cincinnati, the colour of American liberty and democracy."

_"Nous avons a.s.sez delibere!_ Deliberate further with our hands not our hearts! We are the party the most numerous: To arms!"

On the morrow, the now famous 14th of July, the Frenchman's "glorious fourteenth," the people rose and the Bastille fell.

Revolutionary decree, in 1793, converted the palace and its garden into the Palais et Jardin de la Revolution, and appropriated them as national property. Napoleon granted the palace to the Tribunal for its seat, and during the Hundred Days Lucien Bonaparte took up his residence there. In 1830 Louis Philippe d'Orleans gave a great fete here in honour of the King of Naples who had come to the capital to pay his respects to the French king. Charles X, a.s.sisting at the ceremony as an invited guest, was also present and a month later came again to actually inhabit the palace and make it royal once more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Galleries of the Palais-Royal under Napoleon First.]

The table herewith showing the ramifications of the Bourbon Orleans family in modern times is interesting--all collateral branches of the genealogical tree sprouting from that of Louis Philippe. The heraldic embellishments of this family tree offer a particular interest in that the armorial blazonings are in accord with a decree of the French Tribunal, handed down a few years since, which establishes the right to the head of the house to bear the _ecu plein de France--d'azur a trois fleurs de lys d'or_, thus establis.h.i.+ng the Orleans legitimacy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Republic of 1848 made the palace the headquarters of the Cour des Comptes and of the etat Major of the National Guard. Under Napoleon III the Palais Royal became the dwelling of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the emperor. Later it served the same purpose for the son of Prince Napoleon. It was at this epoch that the desecration of sc.r.a.ping out the blazoned _lys_ and the chipping off the graven Bourbon _armoiries_ took place. Whenever one or the other hated Bourbon symbol was found, eagles, phoenix-like, sprang up in their place, only in their turn to disappear when the Republican device of '48 (now brought to light again), _Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite_--replaced them.

During the Commune of 1870 a part of the left wing and the central pavilion suffered by fire, but restorations under the architect, Chabrol, brought them back again to much their original outlines.

Through all its changes of tenure and political vicissitudes little transformation took place as to the ground plan, or sky-line silhouette, of the chameleon palace of cardinal, king and emperor, and while in no sense is it architecturally imposing or luxurious, it is now, as ever in the past, one of the most distinctive of Paris's public monuments.

To-day the Palais Royal proper may be said to face on Place du Palais Royal, with its princ.i.p.al entrance at the end of a shallow courtyard separated from the street by an iron grille and flanked by two unimposing pavilions. The princ.i.p.al facade hides the lodging of the Conseil d'etat and is composed of but the ground floor, a story above and an attic.

The Aile Montpensier, which follows on from the edifice which houses the Comedie Francaise, was, until recently, occupied by the Cour des Comptes. The Aile de Valois fronts the street of that name, and here the Princes d'Orleans and King Jerome made their residence. To-day the same wing is devoted to the uses of the Under Secretary for the Beaux Arts.

It is not necessary to insist on, nor reiterate, the decadence of the Palais Royal. It is no longer the "capitol of Paris," and whatever its charms may be they are mostly equivocal. It is more a desert than an oasis or a _temple de la volupte_, and it was each of these things in other days. Its priestesses and its gambling houses are gone, and who shall say this of itself is not a good thing in spite of the admitted void.

The mediocrity of the Palais Royal is apparent to all who have the slightest acquaintance with the architectural orders, but for all that its transition from the Palais du Cardinal, Palais Egalite, Palais de la Revolution and Palais du Tribunat to the Palais Royal lends to it an interest that many more gloriously artistic Paris edifices quite lack.