It was on the Palais Royal that Philippe Égalité let his eyes linger as the tumbrel bore him through a hooting mob, past the splendid old home which he had once inhabited, to where the guillotine awaited him in the Place de la Révolution—now the Place de la Concorde. From the windows of that self-same Palais Royal, in July 1830, did the son of Égalité look hopefully yet half-fearfully expectant on another mob, yelling and triumphant, which, after storming the Louvre and sacking the Tuileries, came screeching the Marseillaise, roaring "Vive la Charte!" "Vive la République!" "Vive Lafayette!" and most portentous of all for him, "Vive Louis Philippe!" The last cry won the day; and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, went forth from the Palais Royal to become the Citizen King.
Many queer characters haunted the galleries of the Palais Royal. As late as the early years of the reign of Louis Philippe there could on most days be seen there an aged individual who was pointed out as "Valois Collier." He had been the husband of the infamous Jeanne de St. Remy, "Comtesse" de la Motte, who was wont to boast (mayhap with some probability of truth) that a strain of the royal blood of the Valois ran in her veins.
On the side of the Galerie d'Orléans were the famous Galeries de Bois, the resort of all lovers of careless gaiety during the Directory, the Consulate, the First Empire, and the Restoration. In 1815 these galleries were nicknamed, owing to the extensive Muscovite patronage which they enjoyed, "Le Camp des Tartares."
The Palais Royal in its palmy days was the centre of luxury—an emporium of every alluring delight. While its brilliantly-lit piazzas were viewed with real or pretended horror by the austere, it was a very Mecca to the pleasure-seekers of the world. In England the place was often called "the Devil's Drawing-room," it being said that here a debauchee could run the whole course of his career with the greatest facility and ease.
On the first floor were cafés where his spirits could be raised to any requisite pitch; on the second, gaming-rooms where he could lose his money, and salons devoted to facile love—both, not unusually, ante-chambers to the pawnbrokers who resided above; whilst, if at the end of his tether and determined to end his troubles, he could repair to some of the shops on the ground floor, where daggers and pistols were very conveniently sold at reduced prices—every facility being thus provided for enjoying all the pleasures of life under one roof.
Besides the licensed gaming-tables there were also many forms of unsanctioned dissipation in divers subterranean chambers. A number of billiard-rooms, each containing two or three tables, provided further opportunities for passing the time. Women were everywhere, and from about midday till three o'clock in the morning, the galleries of the Palais Royal were thronged by crowds of gaily-attired nymphs ready to lend their aid in charming the dream of life. In the days of the Terror they absolutely dominated the whole place. It was an epoch when many knew that the guillotine was being made ready to receive them, and for this reason were seized with a veritable frenzy to snatch as much enjoyment as possible.
The close connection which at that time existed between illicit passion and death was well typified in the personality of one of the most popular sirens. Mademoiselle Dubois, known as "la fille Chevalier," who was a reigning favourite of the gardens. The girl in question possessed no great beauty, her chief attraction being that her father was the executioner at Dijon, who had sent numbers of people into the other world.
