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 façade 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.
CHAPTER VIII
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 Mercœurs 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.