Page 133 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Paris

TUILERIES QU AR TER  131

5 Jardin du
Palais-Royal
6 Rue de Montpensier, Pl du Palais-
Royal 75001. Map 12 F1. Tel 01 47 03
92 16. q Palais-Royal. Open daily.
Apr–May: 7am–10:15pm; Jun–Sep:
7am–11pm (Sep: to 9:30pm); Oct–
Mar: 7:30am–8:30pm.
The present garden is about a
third smaller than the original
one, laid out by the royal
gardener for Cardinal Richelieu
in the 1630s. This is due to the
construction, between 1781
and 1784, of 60 uniform houses
bordering three sides of the
square. Today, restaurants, art
galleries and specialist shops
line the square, which has
numbered Jean Cocteau,
Colette and Jean Marais among
its famous former residents.
The courtyard contains the
controversial black-and-white
striped stone columns that form
conceptual artist Daniel Buren’s
Les Deux Plateaux. The columns
were installed in the pedestrian-
ized Palais-Royal courtyard in
1986, despite strong opposition. Vien’s St Denis Preaching to the Gauls (1767) in St-Roch
These columns are now loved by
children and skateboarders alike. 7 St-Roch Jules Hardouin-Mansart added
the large Chapelle de la Vierge
296 Rue St-Honoré 75001. Map 12 E1.
Tel 01 42 44 13 20. q Tuileries, with its richly decorated dome
Pyramides. Open 9am–7pm Tue–Sun. and ceiling in the 18th century
Closed non-religious public hols. 8 and two further chapels
3pm 2nd Thu of month. 5 6:30pm extended the church to 126 m
daily, plus other times. Concerts. (413 ft), just short of Notre-
Dame. It is a treasure house of
This huge church was designed religious art, much of it from
by Lemercier, architect of the now-vanished churches and
Louvre, and its foundation stone monasteries. It also contains
was laid by Louis XIV in 1653. the tombs of the playwright
Pierre Corneille, the royal
gardener André Le Nôtre and
the philosopher Denis Diderot.
The façades reveal marks of
Napoleon’s attack, in 1795,
Statue in the Jardin du Palais-Royal on royalist troops who were
defending the church steps.
6 Fontaine Molière
8 Place des
Rue de Richelieu 75001. Map 12 E1. Pyramides
q Palais-Royal.
75001. Map 12 E1. q Tuileries,
France’s most famous play- Pyramides.
wright lived near here, in a
house on the site of No. 40 Joan of Arc, wounded nearby
Rue de Richelieu. The fighting the English in 1429, is
19th-century fountain is by honoured by a 19th-century
Louis Visconti, who also equestrian statue by the sculptor
designed Napoleon’s tomb at Emmanuel Frémiet. The statue
Les Invalides (see pp188–9). Seated statue of Molière is a rallying point for royalists.

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