THE PALAIS CARDINAL AND THE PALAIS ROYAL
With the Louvre and the Tuileries the Palais Royal shares the popular
interest of the traveller among all the monuments of Paris. No other
edifice evokes more vivid souvenirs of its historic past than this
hybrid palace of Richelieu. One dreams even to-day, of its
sumptuousness, its legends, its amusing and extravagant incidents which
cast a halo of romantic interest over so many illustrious personages. So
thoroughly Parisian is the Palais Royal in all things that it has been
called "the Capital of Paris."
Not far from the walled and turreted stronghold of the old Louvre rose
the private palaces, only a little less royal, of the Rambouillets, the
Mercoeurs and other nobles of the courtly train. They lived, too, in
almost regal state until Armand du Plessis de Richelieu came to humble
their pride, by fair means or foul, by buying up or destroying their
sumptuous dwellings, levelling off a vast area of land, and, in 1629,
commencing work on that imposing pile which was first known as the
Palais Cardinal, later the Palais d'Orleans, then as the Palais de la
Revolution and finally as the Palais Royal.
It was near, yet far enough away from the royal residence of the Louvre
not to be overshadowed by it. The edifice enclosed a great square of
ground laid out with symmetrically planted trees and adorned with
fountains and statues.
From the great central square four smaller courts opened out to each of
the principal points of the compass; there were also, besides the living
rooms, a chapel, two theatres, ballrooms, boudoirs and picture
galleries, all of a luxury never before dreamed of but by kings.
The main entrance was in the Rue Saint Honore, and over its portal were
the graven arms of Richelieu, surmounted by the cardinal's hat and the
inscription: "Palais Cardinal." Like his English compeer, Wolsey,
Richelieu's ardour for building knew no restraint. He added block upon
block of buildings and yard upon yard to garden walls until all was a
veritable labyrinth. Finally the usually subservient Louis saw the
condition of things; he liked it not that his minister should dwell in
marble halls more gorgeous than his own. As a matter of policy the
Cardinal ceased to build more and at his death, as if to atone, willed
the entire property to his king.
As the Palais Cardinal, the edifice was subjected to many impertinent
railleries from the public which, as a whole, was ever antagonistic to
the "_Homme Rouge_." They did not admit the right of an apostolic
prelate of the church to lodge himself so luxuriously when the very
precepts of his religion recommended modesty and humility. Richelieu's
contemporaries did not hesitate to admire wonderingly all this luxury of
life and its accessories, and Corneille, in the "_Menteur_" (1642),
makes one of the principal characters say:
"Non, l'univers ne peut rien voir d'egal
Aux superbes dehors du Palais Cardinal;
Toute une ville entiere avec pompe batie,
Semble d'un vieux fosse par miracle sortie,
Et nous fais presumer a ses superbes toits
Que tous ses habitants sont des dieux ou des rois."
The ground plan of the Palais Cardinal was something unique among city
palaces. In the beginning ground values were not what they are to-day in
Paris. There were acres upon acres of greensward set about and cut up
with gravelled walks, great alleyed rows of trees, groves without number
and galleries and colonnades innumerable. Without roared the traffic of
a great city, a less noisy traffic than that of to-day, perhaps, but
still a contrasting maelstrom of bustle and furor as compared with the
tranquillity within.
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, grass 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 God." 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 passion,
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 Illustres, and
further ornamented with portraits of most of the court favourites of
both sexes of the time. The architectural ornamentation of this gallery
was of the Doric order, most daringly interspersed with moulded ships'
prows, anchors, cables and what not of a marine significance.
In 1636, divining the attitude of envy of many of the nobility 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 balls 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 classic 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 class 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 advertisements of the day. The cafe was called
the Cafe des Circassiennes, 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 amusement 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 glass-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
multitude 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 ship parts the waves, sprang upon a chair and
harangued the multitude 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 assez 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, assisting 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.
[Illustration: 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 establishing the Orleans legitimacy.
[Illustration]
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 scraping 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 principal entrance at the end of a shallow courtyard
separated from the street by an iron grille and flanked by two
unimposing pavilions. The principal 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.
There is a movement on foot to-day to resurrect the Palais Royal to some
approach to its former distinction, which is decidedly what it has not
been for the past quarter of a century. Satirical persons have demanded
as to what should be made of it, a _velodrome_ or a skating-rink, but
this is apart from a real consideration of the question for certain it
is that much of its former charm can be restored to it without turning
it into a Luna Park. It is one of the too few Paris breathing-spots, and
as such should be made more attractive than it is at the present time.
It was sixty years ago, when Louis Philippe was the legitimate owner of
the Palais Royal, its galleries, its shops, its theatre and its gardens,
that it came to its first debasement. "One went there on tip-toe, and
spoke in a whisper," said a writer of the time, and one does not need to
be particularly astute to see the significance of the remark.
It was Alphonse Karr, the _ecrivain-jardinier_, who set the new vogue
for the Palais Royal, but his interest and enthusiasm was not enough to
resurrect it, and so in later years it has sunk lower and lower. The
solitude of the Palais Royal has become a mockery and a solecism. It is
virtually a _campo santo_, or could readily be made one, and this in
spite of the fact that it occupies one of the busiest and noisiest
quarters of the capital, a quadrangle bounded by the Rues Valois,
Beaujolais, Montpensier and the Place du Palais Royal.
The moment one enters its portal the simile accentuates and the hybrid
shops which sell such equivocal bric-a-brac to clients of no taste and
worse affectations carry out the idea of a cloister still further, for
actually the clients are few, and those mostly strangers. One holds his
breath and ambles through the corridors glad enough to escape the bustle
of the narrow streets which surround it, but, on the other hand, glad
enough to get out into the open again.