Royal Palaces and Parks of France

by M. F. Mansfield

A disastrous fire in 1763 caused the Palais Royal to be rebuilt by order of Louis Philippe d'Orleans, the future Philippe-Egalité, 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 Varietés Amusantes was constructed, and which has since been made over into the home of the Comédie Française.

The transformations imposed by Philippe-Egalité 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 cafés and restaurants which for a couple of generations became the most celebrated rendezvous in Paris—the Café de Foy, the Café de la Paix, the Café 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 Café de Chartres and the Café de Valois. Of all these Palais Royal cafés of the early nineteenth century the most gorgeous and brilliant was the Café 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 Véry 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, très seduisantes." This is quoted from the advertisements of the day. The café was called the Café 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 cafés of Paris. Tobacco had invaded their precincts; previously one smoked only in the estaminets. Three cafés of the Palais Royal resisted the innovation, the Café de la Galerie d'Orleans, the Café de Foy and the Café 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 Musée 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, cafés, 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.