Tuileries Palace

The Tuileries Palace (in French, Palais des Tuileries) was an imperial and royal palace located in the center of Paris, forming together to the Louvre a single architectural complex.

Built as a maison de plaisance (whim) for the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici, the palace was rarely used until 1789. At the height of the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his family moved their residence from Versailles to the Tuileries; thereafter, the palace would become the main residence of French monarchs in the 19th century. By metonymy, "the Tuileries" it came to designate the head of the French state and was the political center of France from 1789 to 1870.

During May 1871, the Tuileries Palace was one of several official buildings set on fire by members of the Paris Commune. The new republican regime decided to demolish it permanently in 1883.

Of the old palace, only the Tuileries garden annex remains, which houses the Musée de l'Orangerie and the symmetrical Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. The Tuileries Palace was located right between the homonymous garden (west) and the current Musée du Louvre (east).

Origin of name

The name is a hispanicization of the original French Palais des Tuileries, whose correct translation would be Palace of the Tejerías, named after the tile factories (tuiles in French) that formerly existed on what would later be the site of the palace, which were demolished to allow its construction.

Location of the palace (red lines), between the two wings of the Louvre that open to the Jardin des Tuileries.

History

Before the construction of the palace, they occupied the empty solar lots and tile factories (tuiles in French), located outside the walls that Charles V had ordered to be built during the second half of the century < span style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">XIV.

La maison de plaisance of Catherine de' Medici (1563-1582)

After the death of her husband, King Henry II of France, the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici asked the architect Philibert de l'Orme to build a palace there. The intention was for the building to serve as a retreat for the Queen Mother, far from the tumult of the court (located in the nearby Louvre), but at the same time close enough to maintain a certain political influence. Likewise, the large Italian garden that had to be built attached to the palace, sought to commemorate the Florentine gardens where Queen Catherine had spent her childhood.

Elevation and plant of the original project of the palace.

The initial idea projected the construction of a rectangular building organized around three interior patios and made up of pavilions connected by galleries. The profuse sculptural decoration of the façades, typical of the French Renaissance, recalled the François I Wing in Blois or the façade that Pierre Lescot had built a few years earlier at the Louvre.

The palace (inacabado) and the garden towards 1570.

However, the original project was never finished. Started in 1563, the works progressed slowly. After De l'Orme's death in 1570, he was replaced by Jean Bullant, although everything came to a standstill around 1574 and Bullant died four years later. Legend has it that the superstitious Catherine received a prediction one day that she would die "near Saint-Germain"; and, believing that it was the nearby parish church of Saint-Germain, the queen ordered work on the Tuileries halted. Most likely, however, the project progressed slowly due to political instability, the religious conflicts and certain economic difficulties. Starting in 1572, Catherine de Médicis moved her residence to the now defunct Hôtel de Soissons. During the reign of Henry III, there was a short-lived restart of the works, from 1578 to 1582, under the direction of Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau, son of the famous treatise writer Jacques Androuet du Cerceau. Thus, of the original project, only one wing emerged from the ground, the one that overlooked the garden, barely a sixth of all that was projected. In the center of said wing there was a pavilion covered by an elliptical dome, to the south the so-called Pavillon Bullant in honor of its architect, and to the north an unfinished pavilion of which only the ground floor was built..

Original project by De l'Orme of the palace and the garden of the Tuileries.

Yes, however, the Tuileries garden annex was finished, an example of an Italian garden, and which served as a place of recreation for the court, housed in the Louvre. Through this garden, King Henry III would flee Paris on the Day of the Barricades in May 1588. Catherine de' Medici died in 1589 and her son Henry III was assassinated the same year.

The unfinished Tuileries Palace in 1570, according to an engraving by Theodor Hoffbauer.

The Grand Dessein of Henry IV (1595-1609)

After years of religious and political conflicts, the arrival of the first Bourbon to the throne of France, Henry IV, marked the beginning of a period of stability and constructive fever. Large projects such as the Place Dauphine, the Place Royale or the Château Neuf in Saint-Germain-en-Laye are proof of this.

The Grand DesseinAccording to a fresco of the castle of Fontainebleau.

Installed in the Louvre, Henry IV decided to unite said palace with the Tuileries: the project was called the Grand Dessein (the Great Project), even though it is known that the sovereign himself took an active part in the designs, the name of the architect is unknown, shuffling, without much certainty, the names of Jacques II Androuet du Cerceau and Louis Métezeau. Between 1595 and 1607 a long gallery, the Grande Galerie, was built parallel to the River Seine, linking both palaces. To the west, at its junction with the Tuileries, the Gros Pavillon, a monumental pavilion, later called the Pavillon de Flore, was erected from 1603-1609. To the east, another gallery, the Petite Galerie, served as a connection to the Louvre. From then on, the historical and architectural evolution of the Louvre and the Tuileries would be inextricably linked.

The complex Louvre-Tuileries in 1615, according to map Merian.

The death of Henri IV in 1610 once again plunged the Tuileries into a period of lethargy. At the same time, however, the Louvre Palace underwent important architectural transformations.

The Baroque extension of Louis XIV (1659-1667)

The Tuileries then experienced a period of neglect. During the reign of Louis XIII, the expansion works of the Louvre captured the attention of the Crown. These works continued under the reign of his son and his successor, Louis XIV. It was, however, the latter who decided to resume work on the palace. As the expansion of the Renaissance Louvre seemed to take forever, the Sun King and his superintendent Colbert decided, at the same time, to expand the Tuileries, so that they could serve as an alternative residence. The famous architect Louis Le Vau, who had built Vaux and who would later expand Versailles, was in charge of directing the works, along with his disciple François d'Orbay.

From 1659 to 1662, Le Vau was in charge of correcting the asymmetry of the old Catherine de Médici palace: the Pavillon de Flore received its pendant with the Pavillon de Marsan (located at the northern end), in the same way that the Pavillon du Théâtre balanced the Pavillon Bullant. In this new northern section, the most striking element inside the palace was also built: a theater. The immense room was begun in 1660 and was inaugurated on February 7, 1662 with the ballet Ercole Amante by Franceso Cavalli and soon received the name Salle des Machines (Room of the Machines) due to its elaborate mechanisms, the work of the Italian engineers Gaspare and Carlo Vigarani. With a capacity of almost 4,000 spectators, the Salle des Machines was considered one of the largest in Europe. However, its success was short-lived. Apart from the 1662 inauguration, the room would only be used again in 1671 for the première of Moliere's ballet tragedy Psyché.

The new western facade of the Tuileries in the time of Louis XIV with all the pavilions.

Next, Le Vau's goal was to harmonize the disparate styles of the different buildings (Renaissance exuberance on the one hand and Baroque monumentality on the other). Therefore, between 1662 and 1665 the old palace of the XVI century was completely remodeled, all the facades were redone again in French classicist style, and from the work of Philibert de l'Orme only the arcades or loggias that overlooked the garden survived. The old central pavilion with its elliptical dome was also redone and in its place a pavilion was erected in the style of the Pavillon de Flore and de Marsan with a quadrangular dome, said pavilion received the name Pavillon de l'Horloge because of the clock on one of its façades. The Tuileries façades then reached a length of 328 meters. The surroundings of the Tuileries Palace would also undergo important transformations during the reign of Louis XIV. To the west, André le Nôtre remodeled the homonymous garden. From 1664, the landscaper transformed the secluded garden à l'italienne into a grandiose garden à la française; The pomp of Versailles was already being announced. To the east, another small garden was removed to create a wide cour d'honneur. In this courtyard, a carousel (military parade) was held in June 1662, which would give the place its name: the Place du Carrousel (Carousel square).

Carrusel celebrated by Louis XIV in 1662, facade east of the Tuileries.

Finally, the interiors were completely renovated from 1666 to 1667, receiving a sumptuous decoration based on frescoes surrounded by elaborate cartouches and golden stuccos. The main floor of the palace was organized as follows:

• the Grand Appartement by Louis XIV (carrousel face): Escalera, Hall of the Dome (in the central pavilion), Hall of Guards, Antecamara, Stop Chambre (Main of ceremony), Grand Cabinet and Gallery of Ambassadors.
• the Petit Appartement by Louis XIV (face to the garden): Antechamber, Bedroom, Oratory and Cabinet.
• the Appartement of the queen Mary Theresa of Austria (face to the garden): Hall, Antechamber, Stop Chambre,, Bedroom, Cabinet and Oratory.
• the north half of the palace was occupied by the chapel and Salle des Machines.

The rooms on the ground floor repeated a very similar distribution:

• the Grand Appartment bass and the Petit Appartment bass of Louis XIV: identical distribution that those above but without gallery were destined to the daily life of the monarch.
• the Appartment of the dolphin Louis of France: it was situated just under his mother the queen and with equal distribution.

The Gallery of Ambassadors (or Diana Gallery in the centuryXIX) in the Tuileries, Fournier watercolor (circa 1860).

In total, the French monarch owned four apartments in the new Tuileries Palace, two on each floor. However, he increasingly showed more interest in Versailles and more disgust towards Paris. With the extensions completed, the king and court moved into the palace in the winter of 1666, ending the Louvre's use as a royal residence forever. The relevance of the Tuileries was, however, short-lived: Louis XIV only spent three winters in the palace, his last winter being that of 1671. From 1678, the budgets for the works of Versailles skyrocketed while those of the unfinished Louvre palace collapsed. In 1682, the Sun King permanently moved the court to Versailles.

In the words of the Venetian ambassador Foscarini:

Much has been said about the fact that the king had left Paris as a result of a resentment, still alive, towards the revolutions that occurred in times of his minority [the Fronda]; but the fact that His Majesty hates all the ceremonies where there is gentius, his desire to avoid popular meetings makes us see that he does not detest Paris, but the populace of Paris and that he prefers to reside in a strong place where he is always the most. The tragic examples of kings their predecessors have increased their natural mistrust.

The 18th century: music and theater

Plant of the Salle des Machines and the new Salle Soufflot.

Paris and the Tuileries lost their king with the move of the court to Versailles, but the palace remained the official residence of the monarch in the capital. After the death of Louis XIV and during the regency of the Duke of Orleans, the young Louis XV lived in the palace from 1715 to 1722, in that year the court was reinstated in Versailles. Louis XV returned to inhabit the palace, briefly, in November 1744 returning from Metz and in May 1745 returning from Fontenoy, in both cases in the context of the War of the Austrian Succession.

The Tuileries were then inhabited by some courtiers who had been granted apartments by the king, and by numerous artists who were allowed to live and have workshops in the palace. Thus, the set designer Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni was allowed to live in the palace and open, in 1739, an exhibition of "panoramas" (dioramas) in the old Salle des Machines. Another example is that of the Countess de Marsan, Ruler of the Enfants de France, who lived for decades in the north pavilion, since then called Pavillon de Marsan.

Likewise, the real absence of the Tuileries was compensated with an intense musical and theatrical life, turning the palace into one of the largest centers of cultural diffusion of the French Age of Enlightenment. When in 1763 a fire destroyed its facilities in the Palais Royal, the Paris Opéra was forced to find a new venue. He then decided to settle in the immense, but ancient, Salle des Machines of the Tuileries. The architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot led the necessary reforms, which consisted of building a new room in front of the stage of the old room The capacity of the new Salle Soufflot, as it was called, was considerably less than the old one (500 seats compared to 4000. The auditorium of the old Salle des Machines remained unchanged, being used as a storage for decorations.

In 1770, the Comédie-Française moved into the Salle Soufflot, which was vacant because the Paris Opera had moved to its new hall in the Palais Royal. Eight years later, in the Tuileries room, the premiere of the controversial work by Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville, was held. From 1782 until the Revolution, the Salle Soufflot housed the Thêatre de Monsieur, a theater company named for being under the patronage of Monsieur, name given to the brother of Louis XVI, the Count of Provence.

Royal residence during the French Revolution (1789-1792)

It is paradoxically with the French Revolution that the Tuileries Palace becomes a royal residence and acquires relevance as a center of political power.

Some of the first riots of 1789 occurred in the Tuileries Garden. On the afternoon of July 12, the crowd gathered to protest the dismissal of Necker, stones, chairs and bottles were thrown at the mercenary soldiers of the Royal-Allemand regiment under the command of the Prince of Lambesc, who responded by charging into the crowd..

However, the future of the Tuileries Palace did not change radically until the days of October 5 and 6, 1789. On that date, Louis XVI and his family were forced to leave the isolation of Versailles, symbol of the absolute monarchy and move to the Tuileries, living among their subjects as a symbol of the constitutional monarchy that they wanted to establish. In the same way, the Constituent Assembly was also forced to move to Paris, establishing its headquarters in the old manège (in Spanish, picadero) of the palace located at the north end of the garden (on the site of the current Rue de Rivoli).

The royal family attending mass in the Diane Galerie.

At first, the installation of the royal family in the ancient palace was not easy, as it was inhabited by numerous courtiers and artists to whom the previous monarchs had ceded the spaces. These inhabitants were quickly evicted and little by little the palace was receiving furniture from other royal residences or from the Crown's furniture storage.

The rooms were distributed as follows:

• the grand appartement de parade it was in the long line of rooms on the first floor next to the Carrousel.
• the appartement privé of King Louis XVI and the stays of his sons, the dolphin Luis and Princess Maria Teresa, were located in the old quarters of Queen Mary Teresa of Austria facing the garden.
• the appartement of the queen Marie Antoinette was on the ground floor next to the garden, just below her children, in the old rooms of the dolphin Luis XIV (son of Louis XIV) that had been redecorated and remoderated by the Countess of Lamarck shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution.
• Princess Isabel and the Princess of Lamballe distributed the first floor and the ground floor, respectively, of the Pavillon de Flore.
• Princess Adelaide and Victoria had destined the first floor and the ground floor, correspondingly, of the Pavillon de Marsan; though they resided mostly in their Bellevue castle in Meudon.

For his part, the Count of Provence settled in his residence in the Luxembourg Palace, the Count of Artois had already gone into exile.

With the exception of the summer of 1790, which they spent in Saint-Cloud, the royal family would live in the Tuileries for three long years. But little by little, as a result of the discrepancies with the Constituent Assembly, it would become its golden prison. The death of Mirabeau, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the events of Easter in 1791 or the dismissal of the royal guard pushed Louis XVI to attempt an escape from the capital.

María Antonieta on 20 June 1792.

It was the night of June 20, 1791, when the king and his family left the palace to try to meet with troops loyal to the crown stationed in Montmédy. Barely a day later, the royal family was discovered and arrested in Varennes, on the 25th they returned to the Tuileries. Officially, it was said at first that Louis XVI had not fled, but had been kidnapped by a group of aristocrats. However, the so-called Fugue de Varennes damaged the image of the monarchy and not even the signing of the new Constitution in September of the same year managed to stop the fall in popularity.

The assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792.

The lack of food, the rise in prices, the defeats of the French army in the face of the invasion of the Austrian and Prussian armies, the discredit of the king who did not accept the loss of his absolute power and expected the victory of the powers foreigners, and the fiery speeches of Danton and Marat angered the spirits of the Parisian popular classes, who stormed the royal residence on June 20, 1792, being evicted later, and on August 10, this time forcing the king and his his family to take refuge in the headquarters of the Legislative Assembly.

That same day, as the Tuileries were looted and the Swiss Guard massacred, the Assembly voted to "suspension" of Louis XVI, imprisoned days later, along with his family, in the Temple.

The Terror and the Directory (1792-1799)

The new hemiciclo of the Convention.

The National Convention, the new republican parliament dominated by Jacobins and Cordeliers, took possession of the old royal palace, and in the Salle Soufflot (see above) the Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792.

The new regime soon commissioned the architect Jacques-Pierre Gisors to destroy the Salle des Machines and the Salle Soufflot to create a new chamber for the sessions of the Convention. The offices of the revolutionary government, and among them those of the Public Health Committee, were installed in the former royal apartments. At the same time, the Flore, de l'Horloge and Marsan pavilions were renamed Égalité, < i>Unité and Liberté respectively.

The Tuileries remained, therefore, during the Terror as the center of political power in France. One of the last revolutionary insurrections took place precisely in the palace when, on Prairie 1 of the year III (May 20, 1795 according to the republican calendar), the Jacobins stormed the legislative chamber and beheaded the Girondin deputy Jean-Bertrand Féraud.

With the proclamation of the Directory in 1795, political power was shared: the Council of Elders or upper house was installed in the old Convention room, while the Council of Five Hundred did so in the Palais Bourbon; the directors, for their part, resided in the Luxembourg.

The Consulate (1799-1804)

The Palace of Tuileries under the First Empire.

After the Brumaire coup, General Bonaparte, now first consul of the Republic, resided in the former residence of the directors in the Luxembourg Palace, but from January 19, 1800 he settled in the palace Parisian par excellence: the Tuileries. From then until 1870, with brief exceptions, the Tuileries Palace would be the center of political power in France.

The architect that the Directory had appointed for the Tuileries, Étienne Chérubin Leconte, had barely three months to adapt the palace as a new consular residence and remove the offices from the apartments to once again make them habitable. However, as soon as Napoleon was installed, Leconte was dismissed and Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine replaced him. Both would become Napoléon's chief architects and Fontaine would end up directing all the transformations of the palace until the late date of 1848.

Napoléon occupied the former appartement of the sons of the royal family as well as Louis XVI's bedroom, all located on the first floor facing the garden. On his part, his wife Josefina settled just below, in the rooms of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Both rooms, which were not excessively large, comprised a guard room, a first lounge, a large lounge, a bedroom, a boudoir/dressing room and an office. Napoleon's stepsons, Eugene and Hortensia, also moved into the palace. Likewise, the third consul, Lebrun, resided in the Pavillon de Flore (until 1802), while the second, Cambacérès, preferred the Hôtel d'Elbeuf, opposite the palace.

Apart from the interior dignification of the palace, the exterior was also embellished. Starting in 1801, the parasitic constructions of Plaça del Carrousel disappeared, leaving a wide free space suitable for military magazines, which would not undergo modifications until the end of the century XIX. The construction of a fence that had already begun in the time of the Revolution also continued.

The First Empire (1804-1815)

Throne of the Tuileries.

On December 2, 1804, Napoleon and his wife left for Notre-Dame to be crowned "Emperor of the French" (Empereur des français). During the event, Pope Pius VII stayed at the Pavillon de Flore from November 28 to April 4, exemplifying the normalization of the relationship with the Holy See after revolutionary anti-clericalism. the coronation, the old chambre de parade of Louis XIV facing the Carrousel was transformed into the Throne Room, it would retain this function until the disappearance of the palace. The progressive expansion of the French Empire and the victories in the successive conflicts resulted in improvements and embellishments in the interiors of the palace. From 1805 to 1808, Percier and Fontaine restored the Grand Appartment facing the Carrousel, a new court chapel was built in the Pavillon du Théatre (see above) and the old The Convention room gave way to the new Salle de Spectacles surrounded by a portico of Ionic columns and covered by golden domes.

In 1808, the architects concentrated on the private apartments of the Emperor and Empress, expanding them with two new bedrooms in the Pavillon Bullant, each bedroom given sumptuous Empire style furniture. i> which is now kept in the Grand Trianon.

Napoleon's bed, today at the Grand Trianon.

At the same time, from 1806 to 1808, a triumphal entrance to the palace was built: the arch of the Carrousel and a gate that separated the cour d'honneur from the Place du Carrousel and the neighborhood of narrow streets between the Tuileries and the Louvre. Later, in 1809, construction began on the Aile Neuve, a new wing that started from the Pavillon de Marsan and that, parallel to the Rue de Rivoli (opened at the same time), it was to join the Louvre but was never finished.

In 1810, the Tuileries reached their zenith when they were the scene of the wedding between Napoleon and Archduchess Marie Louise. The wedding procession left the palace and toured the entire Grande Galerie to the Salon Carré from the Louvre, where the wedding mass was celebrated. The banquet, for its part, took place in the Salle de Spectacles. In the Empress's apartments, the King of Rome was born in March 1811.

At the height of the First French Empire the interiors of the Tuileries were arranged as follows:

• the Grand appartement (on the first floor facing the Carrousel and practically unchanged since the time of Louis XIV): Escalera, Mariscale Hall, Hall of the Great Officers, Hall of Princes or Peace, Hall of the Throne, Grand Cabinet of the Emperor and Gallery of Diana.
• on the north wing of the first floor: Escalera, State Council Chambers, Chapel and Spectacles Salle.
• the Appartement Emperador (on the first floor facing the garden): Hall of Guards, First Hall, Grand Hall, Labour Cabinet, Topographic Cabinet, Bedroom and Cabinet de toilette.
• the Appartement of the Empress (on the ground floor facing the garden, below the previous): Antechamber, First Hall, Second Hall, Billiard, Cabinet, Bedroom, Boudoir and Bathrooms Room; Dining Room and Music Room (this last two rooms facing Carrousel).
• the Appartement of the king of Rome (on the ground floor facing Carrousel).

The Salon des Maréchaux (Mariscale Hall) in the central pavilion decorated with portraits of the Mariscales of Napoléon.

During the disastrous French Campaign, Napoleon evacuated the capital before the arrival of the troops of the Sixth Coalition, who took the city after the Battle of Paris on March 31. The emperor abdicated days later, on April 6, 1814, in Fontainebleau. Since May 3, the Tuileries Palace has been inhabited by Louis XVIII, a monarch restored to the throne.

However, Napoleon managed to escape from the Island of Elba and return to Paris. On March 19, 1815 at sunset, Louis XVIII left the palace in the direction of Ghent, the following day at noon Napoleon arrived, beginning the period of the Hundred Days. During those months, Napoleon I preferred the privacy of the Élysée to the magnificence of the Tuileries, which he rarely visited.

Napoléon's restoration to the throne was short-lived, after being defeated at Waterloo, he signed his second and final abdication at the Élysée Palace on June 22, 1815.

The Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830)

Facade west of the palace around 1820.

When Louis XVIII was restored to the French throne in 1814, the intention seemed to be a return to Versailles, however, after the return of Napoleon and the Hundred Days the idea was discarded. The Restoration wanted to establish itself as a conciliatory and moderate regime, and on the other hand, Versailles needed a profound overhaul that the state coffers could not afford. The court stayed in the Tuileries, which on the other hand were in perfect condition after the Napoleonic renovation.

Louis XVIII, was content to commission Napoleon's ex-architect, Fontaine, to replace the Ns with Ls and the imperial eagle with the fleur de lys. The monarch settled in the emperor's former appartement on the first floor, the Duchess of Angoulême in the empress's on the ground floor (which had been precisely that of her mother Marie Antoinette) and the duke of Angoulême, next to his wife, facing the Carrousel, in the former rooms of the King of Rome. The Count of Artois, for his part, lived in the Pavillon de Marsan and the Duke and Duchess of Berry settled in the Élysée.

Louis XVIII in his cabinet, which was formerly from Naples.

At this time the Tuileries were known by the nickname of "le Château", as opposed to "le Palais" it had had in Napoleonic times, and the court of France recovered the elaborate pre-revolutionary etiquette and hierarchy. However, it was not a period of pomp and parties, Louis XVIII was an invalid and both the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême were of a serious and reserved nature. It was, however, an important center of political intrigue, especially the Pavillon de Marsan, residence of the Count of Artois, leader of the ultra-royalist faction. Only the installation of the Duchesse de Berry in the Pavillon de Marsan after the murder of her husband in 1820 came to brighten things up a bit, the young princess wanted to liven up the gloomy daily life of the palace with parties and costume balls, especially from 1828. Also with the reign of Carlos X, court life became a little more lively.

On September 16, 1824, Louis XVIII died in his bedroom in the Tuileries, the last French monarch to die on the throne and not in exile. He was succeeded by his brother the Count of Artois, who reigned as Charles X, constituting the only time in the XIX century in the that a French head of state finished his mandate and was succeeded according to the legality established at that time, the following monarchs would be overthrown, the president of the Second Republic would carry out a coup and the presidents of the Third Republic would not finish their mandates until Émile Loubet in 1906.

The fiery chapel of Louis XVIII in the Throne Hall.

Under the Restoration there were no notable changes in the palace, the sumptuous decoration and furniture installed by Napoléon were used and the architect Fontaine, kept in charge, limited himself to conservation work. It was only possible to highlight three large and highly symbolic commissions. In the first place, the renovation of the throne, all the furniture and the hangings of the Throne Room, commissioned in 1816 to the decorator Jean-Démosthène Dugourc and the cabinetmaker Jacob-Desmalter and completed in 1822. On the other hand, from 1817 to 1819 new and sumptuous bourbon blue tapestries and hangings for the king's bedroom. From 1824 to 1826 it was the turn of the King's bed and its canopy made of gilded wood and commissioned by the new King Charles X to replace the bed in which his brother Louis XVIII had died (and which was Napoleon's)..

In the summer of 1830, while the royal family was in Saint-Cloud, an insurrection broke out in Paris, against what was perceived as a return to absolutist policies by Charles X. On July 29, after two days of In street fighting, the Tuileries were taken over by the mob and looted: furniture, paintings of the royal family, mirrors and chandeliers were destroyed, however, the assailants stood guard at the gates so that no one left with stolen items. At dusk, several revolutionaries delivered to the town hall the chapel's treasury, the king's silverware, jewels and other precious objects confiscated from the thieves. The palace servants were less lucky, when the usher Edmond Marc returned to the Tuileries to collect their belongings and asked the doorman for the keys to his room, they told him they weren't necessary because the mob had torn down all the doors. He found his room destroyed and full of workers' clothes, they had ransacked his dressing room and left only a hatbox.

Carlos X took refuge in Rambouillet with his family, abdicated in favor of his nephew, the Count of Chambord and went into exile.

The July Monarchy (1830-1848)

Aerial view of the Tuileries in 1840, still without joining the Louvre.

When the Duke of Orléans was appointed king in the summer of 1830, under the name of Louis-Philippe I, he refused to inhabit the Tuileries, preferring his habitual residence in Paris, the Palais-Royal, which had just been reformed. However, after the riots of February 1831 and at the instigation of Prime Minister Casimir Perier, who wanted to enhance the prestige of the young liberal monarchy, the monarch was finally forced to settle in the Tuileries. On September 21, 1831, the Tuileries once again became a royal residence. Luis Felipe I, whom he nicknamed & # 34;Le Roy Citoyen & # 34; (the Citizen King), decided to distance himself from his predecessors and renounce part of the extensive Maison du Roi and to appoint high positions of honor, in the same way he refused to inhabit the appartement on the first floor, preferring to share with his wife the apartments on the ground floor. The former rooms of Napoleon and Charles X were used for ministerial meetings, and the bedroom of the latter was transformed into a salon de famille, a room for family gatherings after dinner.

New staircase designed by Pierre Fontaine.

The reign of Louis Philippe was also a time of important architectural transformations. Once again, it was the experienced Fontaine who was commissioned to add a new staircase (the one from the time of Louis XIV was too small), removing one of the terraces (the north one) that Le Vau had built facing the garden (see above).). In the place of the old staircase and adjoining rooms, an immense ballroom was built, which received the name Galerie de la Paix (Gallery of Peace) in reference to an allegorical sculpture that was placed there. The new spaces of the palace were inaugurated on January 30, 1833 with a massive reception that brought together 2,500 people.

Multitudinary Souper des Dames in the Salle des Spectacles1835.

The distribution of the palace was, therefore, organized as follows:

• the Grand Appartement on the first floor facing Carrousel, without major alterations except the new staircase and the Galerie de la Paix.
• the Appartement Gouvernemental on the first floor facing the garden, intended for audiences and the council of ministers and to which one was added Salon de Famille And a billion.
• the Appartment of the King and of the Queen on the ground floor the garden, with a shared bedroom following the bourgeois customs.

The monarch's large family, which had five sons and three daughters with their respective spouses and children, also sought accommodation in the palace:

• the rooms of the Marie and Clementine princesses stood on the ground floor facing the Carrousel.
• in the Pavillon de Marsan and part of the Aile Neuve The Dukes of Orléans were installed on the ground floor, and the Dukes of Nemours on the first floor.
• in the Pavillon de Flore Princess Adelaide was accommodated on the ground floor, the princes of Joinville on the first floor and the Dukes of Aumale and those of Montpensier on the second floor.
• in the Aile Neuve There was also a appartement reserved for Princess Louise and her husband King Leopold I of Belgium.

Luis Felipe I in the council of ministers, held in the old hall of Napoleon I.

Under the monarchy of Louis-Philippe I, the Tuileries shook off Napoleonic military rigidity and the tedium of the Restoration and for the first time became the center of innumerable receptions, balls and concerts that brought together thousands of people. people. In the palace, transformed into a "receiving machine" the old and new nobility, the upper bourgeoisie, parliamentarians, senior administration officials, visiting foreigners, etc. came together. The king wanted to exemplify with these receptions the conciliatory and inclusive spirit that should characterize his reign and the meritocratic social project of Orleanism. Complaints from the legitimist nobility did not wait, some guests were accused of not dressing or behaving in adequately, although, in the same way, they also regretted that the court of Louis XVIII and Carlos X had not had such an open spirit. Despite the criticism, under the aegis of Queen Marie-Amélie, the court knew how to clothe itself with a character patriarchal and simple in audiences and intimate receptions but maintaining etiquette and ceremonial on grand occasions. More elitist and stricter with etiquette, the Duke of Orléans and Crown Prince organized his own receptions in his apartments in the Pavillon de Marsan, surrounding himself with writers, artists, and liberal thinkers. Likewise, the apartments of the Duke of Orléans and those of his brother the Duke of Némours were sumptuously redecorated in 1837 and 1842, respectively, following historicist tastes and mixing 17th and 18th century antiques with neo-boulle and neo-boulle furniture. rococo.

Reception of the Duke of Orléans.

Unlike the Restoration court, which rarely left the Tuileries, Louis Philippe I and his family supplemented their winter stay in Paris with visits to other historic royal residences that were extensively restored and renovated. In spring excursions to Fontainebleau were frequent, in July/July a stay in St-Cloud, in August/September at the Château d'Eu, in September a short visit to Compiégne to preside over military maneuvers and in autumn again excursions to St-Cloud. Cloud or Fontainebleau. There were also occasional stays at the Grand Trianon and many one-day visits to the Palace of Versailles in full transformation as a museum. Likewise, the private residences of the Orléans were used constantly, whether it was the castle of Neuilly, very close to Paris, and used throughout the year; or more distant residences such as La Ferté-Vidame, Bizy or Dreux.

The Revolution of 1848 and the Second Republic (1848-1852)

Throne Room in 1848.

With the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, the royal family was forced to abandon the Tuileries in extremis at noon on February 24, shortly before it was stormed by the mob, proof of the hasty escape was that the assailants found the table set for lunch. Once more the Tuileries were looted: portraits of the royal family were torn, shot, and trampled, except for those of the late Duke of Orléans (d. 1842) and his brother the Prince of Joinville; in the Hall of the Marshals the portraits of Marshals Soult and Bugeaud were vandalized; a bronze statue of the king in the Salon de Famille was thrown out of the window and then melted down; the porcelain, chandeliers and mirrors were broken into a thousand pieces and scattered on the floor; bedding and wardrobes were stolen; some furniture was thrown on makeshift pyres in the square and the royal throne was carried in a procession to the Place de la Bastille to be burned on a bonfire. The palace cellars and servants' quarters were also looted; To the chagrin of historians, the same thing happened in the administration offices, burning the archives of the house and the administration, as well as all the archives of the architect Fontaine who, widely disappointed, would leave office months later. The great clock that crowned the central pavilion, the Pavillon de l'Horloge, stopped at one twenty, after some assailants stole part of the mechanism.

Some apartments were spared, however: those of the Duke of Orléans (untouched since his death in 1842) and his widow and those of the Dukes of Némours in the Pavillon de Marsan; as well as those of Princess Adélaïde (died 1847) in the Pavillon de Flore; those of the popular Prince de Joinville, originally preserved, were devastated after two barrels of rum were discovered. Similarly, the sacred objects in the chapel were saved thanks to the intervention of a student from the École Polytechnique who took them to the Church of St-Roch. The provisional government was forced to paint on the palace walls "Les voleurs sont punis de mort" ("The thieves will be executed"). In the days that followed, several humble workers and other citizens returned jewels, valuables and personal belongings of the royal family to the authorities. Three large tables were set up in the Salle des Spectacles where the representatives of Orléans came to collect the returned objects: tattered dresses and decorations and jewelery covered in mud.

In order to save the palace from further explosions of popular anger, from February 24th the Tuileries were set up as a hospital for the disabled and its name changed to Hôtel des Invalides civils. Closed the hospital in June, since then the building has housed General Thomas, head of the National Guard. After Fontaine's resignation, the architect Firmin Bourgeois was in charge of merely repairing the damage suffered and maintaining it. In September of the same year, the architect Abel Blouet proposed the installation of the National Assembly in the palace, building an immense octagonal session room in the Carrousel square, but the project did not continue. Pending a precise use, the palace was opened to the public.

When the new president of the Second Republic, Prince Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, inaugurated his mandate in December 1848, the official residence assigned to him, in order to break with the monarchical tradition, was not the Tuileries but the palace of the Élysée. He lived there during his four years in office and, in the same room where his uncle Napoléon I had signed his second and last abdication, he engineered the coup that would bring him to power on December 2, 1852.

The Second Empire (1852-1870)

With absolute powers and the new title of "prince-président" (Prince-President), Louis Napoléon installed himself in the Tuileries on January 1, 1852; the same year, the Empire was proclaimed and he named Emperor Napoléon III. On January 30, 1853, he married the cosmopolitan and sophisticated Spanish aristocrat Eugenia de Montijo.

The reception in the gardens during the 1867 Exhibition.

Reconverted into an imperial residence, the Tuileries under the Second Empire experienced its last period of splendor. Initially, the works were limited to restoring and refreshing the decoration of the rooms. Following in the wake of the previous reign, the Emperor settled on the ground floor, in the former appartement of Luis Felipe I and his wife. On the contrary, the Empress did it in the former apartments of Napoléon I and Carlos X, in these rooms the only son of the couple was born on March 16, 1856. In the Tuileries, the court resided in winter, the arrival of good weather marked the transfer to the nearby Château de Saint-Cloud, then in June/July to Fontainebleau, in August it was the turn to take the waters in Vichy or Plombières, in September the bains de mer in Biarritz, followed by a short stay in Saint-Cloud and finally the autumn in Compiègne. While the court resided in the Tuileries, they were the center of innumerable festivals and celebrations.

In 1858, Hector Lefuel (architect of the palace since 1852) undertook an important transformation of the imperial apartments, the loggia and south terrace that Le Vau had built disappeared to make way for new rooms for the imperial couple. On the first floor, in the Empress's appartement, three new salons were built: the salon vert, the salon rose and the salon bleu, used respectively as a ladies' room, an antechamber and an audience room. These salons can be considered the most perfect example of what will be called Louis XVI-Impératrice style, in other words the typical example of Second Empire decoration, which mixed historical revivals, antiques and new and comfortable furniture with capitoné upholstery.

The Emperor's Cabinet.

The Chamber of Ministers.

In one of the most splendid periods of its existence, shortly before its final destruction, the Tuileries Palace was organized in a similar way to previous times:

• the Grand Appartement on the first floor facing Carrousel: Staircase, Gallery des Travées with access to the Chapel, Guards Room, Peace Gallery, Column Room (fumoir), Mariscales Hall, First Consul Hall, Apollo Lounge, Throne Hall, Louis XIV Hall (dining room) and Diana Gallery.
• the Appartement of the Empress on the first floor facing the garden, with access from the central pavilion: Escalera de la Emperatriz, Ujieres Hall, Green Hall (company), Rosa Hall (waiting room), Blue Hall (hearing room), Cabinet of the Empress, Boudoir of the Empress, Dormitory of the Empress. The rest of the rooms to the Pavillon de Flore They were destined for the imperial prince since 1868.
• the Appartement of the Emperor on the ground floor facing the garden, with access from the central pavilion: Ujier Hall, aides-de-camp, Council Hall, Emperor’s Library, Emperor’s Tocador, Emperor’s Bathroom and Emperor’s Bedroom. The rest of the rooms to the Pavillon de Flore They were destined for their secretaries.
• the Pavillon de Marsan He was occupied by high offices of the Emperor's House: the Grand Mariscal of Palace and the Grand Chambelán of Palace.
• the Pavillon de Flore He was originally destined to Prince Louis Napoleon, then he was in works since 1861.

The Nouveau Louvre

Map of the complex with the Nouveau Louvre In black, the Tuileries on the left and the Louvre on the right.

Parallel to the installation of the Imperial Family in the palace, from 1852 to 1861 the long-awaited meeting of the Louvre and the Tuileries to the north took place, following the "Grand Dessein&# 3. 4; from the beginning of the XVII century and definitively eliminated the decrepit neighborhood that stood between the two palaces. The architects Louis Visconti and, after his death in 1853, Hector Lefuel were responsible for directing the first pharaonic project of the reign.

Panoramic Nouveau Louvre from the Palace of Tuileries.

In 1857, after six years of work, the Emperor inaugurated the new buildings, called "Le Nouveau Louvre", with their characteristic sculpture-filled pavilions and soaring roofs. The new buildings contained not only museum exhibition halls, but also the new imperial stables plus various ministerial offices, the Bibliothèque du Louvre and a vast throne room for joint sessions of Parliament (the Salle des Etats). The conditioning and decoration of the interiors lasted until 1861. After its completion, the gigantic complex formed by the Louvre and the Tuileries became a true "quadrilatère impérial".

The quadrilatère impérial with the Louvre (at the bottom) Tuileries (first floor) and the Nouveau Louvre in the middle.

Les Nouvelles Tuileries

As soon as work on the Nouveau Louvre was completed in 1861, Lefuel considered that it was time to continue the renovation of the complex, now focusing on the Tuileries Palace. Not surprisingly, the Pavillon de Flore, built more than two centuries earlier under the reign of Henry IV, threatened ruin. Since 1850, the pavilion remained propped up and, in 1860, part of the cornice had detached. Lefuel proposed to demolish it and rebuild it again. The architect also convinced the Emperor to do the same with the western part of the Grande Galerie that communicated with the Louvre palace, partly for structural reasons, partly because he considered the colossal order of its façade & #34;an unfortunate invention that had an ominous influence".

The new Pavillon de Flore was rebuilt with a superimposed order profusely decorated with reliefs and sculptures and a high roof. On the cornice, Carpeux carved an exuberant "Triumph of Flora". A similar articulation followed the façades of the Grande Galerie and, in addition, a monumental portico was built in the central part that communicated with the Cour du Carrousel.

The new Pavillon de Flore.

The interior underwent changes in its distribution, in the pavilion and in the part taken from the old Grande Galerie an appartement was projected for visiting foreign sovereigns. Likewise, a new pavilion (the Pavillon des Sessions) was added, facing the Cour du Carrousel, which was to contain a large throne room to replace the Salle des États of the Nouveau Louvre (see above). In the summer of 1870, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the works were finished, essentially lacking decoration and interior fitting-out work.

The reform of the entire northern part was left unanswered, including a new façade for the Pavillon de Marsan and the expansion of the Aile Neuve, all of which were to house offices of the administration of the court; Not to mention a new twin pavilion to the Pavillon des Sessions and which was to contain a new court theater to replace the already outdated Salle des Spectacles. In the same way, the transformations that Lefuel planned for the nucleus of the palace, including new façades similar to those of the Grande Galerie, a new chapel or a monumental staircase, did not begin.

The fall of the Empire (September 1870)

In July 1870, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, soon the first news of the military failures began to reach the capital, the Empress Eugenia, regent in the absence of the Emperor, decided to leave Saint-Cloud and settle in the Tuileries. At midnight on August 6, the Empress and the court re-entered the capital. On August 9, the government of Émile Ollivier fell and a new one was formed with General Palikao at the head.

During these weeks, the palace remained as if the court were not there, with the covers thrown over furniture and lamps, and, in the face of the disastrous course the war was taking, no celebration took place.

On September 3, the first news of the defeat of Sedan and the capture of the Emperor arrived. The next day the first riots broke out in Paris, the crowd invaded the Hôtel de Ville and proclaimed the republic. In the Tuileries, before a dismayed Empress, various possibilities were considered to leave the palace, while groups of protesters began to invade the Tuileries garden and the Carrousel square. Using one of the Seine barges was too risky since before the first closed lock, everyone would be arrested, nor was it advisable to use one of the official carriages, with the liveried coachmen and the imperial arms engraved on the sides. Finally, it was decided to use a conventional carriage, but it was agreed that it would be safer to catch it in front of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois. At half past one noon, the Empress and her small entourage, Madame Lebreton (her lady-in-waiting), Constantine Nigra (the Italian ambassador) and Richard von Metternich (the Austrian ambassador) left the Tuileries through the Pavillon de Flore and the Grande Galerie, which were still under construction. They walked through the deserted rooms of the Louvre, filled with works of art, and exited through the Colonnade, at the eastern end of the Louvre-Tuileries complex. There, the two women took a rental fiacre. After visiting the houses of two members of the court (which they found empty), they proceeded to the residence of Doctor Evans, the American dentist of the Empress. Thanks to his help, three days later, the fugitive empress arrived in London.

After Eugenia's departure, the palace servants and members of the court were leaving their uniforms and liveries and leaving the Tuileries, around four o'clock everyone had left. This time, unlike in 1830 and 1848, there was no looting, but once again "Mort aux voleurs" (Death to thieves) on the walls.

On September 4, 1870, the Second Empire had ceased to exist, and with it, the monarchy in France. The darkest hours of the Tuileries Palace were yet to come.

The Provisional Government (September 1870 - March 1871)

As it had happened in 1848, after the fall of the monarchy, the palace was transformed into a hospital for the war wounded and on its doors was written "PROPIÉTÉ NATIONALE".

On September 10, the palace was officially disaffected by the new republican government. All the former members of the court and palace servants definitively abandoned their chambers, only the administrator and maintenance staff remained along with the hospital patients and nurses. Little by little, the most important pieces of art and furniture moved to the neighboring Louvre Palace or the former Gardemeuble Impérial (now Gardemeuble National). At the same time, the same was done with the personal effects of the Imperial Family, which were stored in suitcases and boxes and sent to London (where the Empress had gone into exile) or to the Austrian Embassy in Paris. Likewise, a detailed examination was carried out of the "Tuileries papers", that is to say, of the documents found in the cabinets of the Emperor and the Empress, these documents were later published.

Occasionally, Parisians were allowed to visit the iconic building, following former servants as guides. At the beginning of March 1871, it was the victorious Prussian officers who visited the palace.

The Commune and the destruction of the palace (March-May 1871)

While the Tuileries seemed to fall asleep, the Franco-Prussian War continued and with it the defeat of the new republic. The signing of the armistice with the Kingdom of Prussia revolted part of the Parisian population and the new French government, headed by Adolphe Thiers, was forced to move to Versailles. In Paris the Commune was proclaimed on March 18.

The Pavillon d'Horloge In ruins.

The Paris Commune used the former grand appartement of the Tuileries for parties and popular concerts: the “community concerts”. In addition, several communards leaders settled in the former apartments of high officials of the imperial court in the Pavillon de Marsan.

On May 22, government troops at Versailles began the harsh recapture of the city, beginning the so-called "Bloody Week" in reference to the hardness of the combats and the repression. That same day, the "general" Bergeret installed himself in the palace with his staff, declaring then: "When I leave the Tuileries, the Tuileries will be ashes."

On May 22 and 23, the communards cornered by advancing government troops set fire to several emblematic buildings before withdrawing. They were known as pétroleurs, so called because they carried buckets of oil with them.

The old main staircase built by Fontaine in 1831 in ruins.

Finally, on the afternoon of May 23, under orders from Bergeret, his assistants Bénot and Boudin led a band through all the rooms of the palace and had the walls sprayed with oil. Around 8 pm the fire started; shortly before 9 o'clock, the Tuileries clock stopped due to the effect of the fire and around midnight the central pavilion, the Pavillon de l'Horloge, where barrels of gunpowder had been stored, was rocked by a huge explosion that collapsed the dome. Bergeret, who had observed the fire from the terraces of the Nouveau Louvre, then sent a message to the town hall, the headquarters of the Commune: "The last vestiges of royalty have just disappeared. I wish the same thing to happen to all the monuments in Paris." The Tuileries Palace burned for almost two days until the fire began to spread through the side wings that linked it to the Louvre. The museum and its collections were only saved thanks to the intervention, on May 24, of the government soldier Martian de Bernardy de Sigoyer, who led the 26th battalion of chasseurs à pied and who before continuing the fighting decided to help extinguish the flames.

The old Salon des Maréchaux under the central dome after the fire.

By burning the Tuileries, the Commune aspired to destroy one of the symbols of the French monarchical regime, not in vain all the French sovereigns of the century XIX had resided in it. It was argued that the burning of the building responded to tactical reasons, a cause that is difficult to justify when one takes into account that most of the buildings burned down in Paris were the headquarters of government institutions such as the Ministry of Finance, the Bibliothèque du Louvre with its precious documentation on the history of art, the Palais-Royal, the Hôtel de Ville and the Palais de Justice (with its irreplaceable parish archives) or the headquarters of the Legion of Honor. The residences of important personalities such as the politician Adolphe Thiers (who led the new republican government) or the writer Prosper Mérimée (linked to the overthrown imperial regime) were also burned.

Shortly before the start of the fighting, the anarchist Louise Michel, one of the leaders of the Commune, had declared: "Paris will be ours or it will not exist".

Ruins during the Third Republic (1871-1883)

The garden facade with the Pavillon de Marsan in the foreground after the fire.

For the new republican regime that emerged from the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, the charred ruins of the once lavish palace were a doubly uncomfortable symbol, on the one hand they reminded of monarchical splendours (the monarchy was about to be restored in 1873) and on the other on the other, the excesses of the Commune and the annus horribilis of 1870-1871.

The ancient Galerie de la Paix (see above) after the fire.

From 1873, some parts of the palace began to be restored, pending a definitive reconstruction project. Through demolition, the central part was separated from the pavilions and side wings, which were rebuilt. From 1874 to 1878, Hector Lefuel rebuilt the Pavillon de Marsan and the Aile Neuve following the model he himself had made for the Pavillon de Flore and part of the Grande Galerie. Since 1905 this space has housed the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. From 1878 to 1879, it was the turn of the Pavillon de Flore and the wing parallel to the river, much less damaged by fire thanks to the use of iron in its structure and roof. In 1879 the Paris City Council settled in that area, where it remained until 1890, with the inauguration of the new Hôtel de Ville. In 1877 Avenue Général-Lemmonier was opened on the side of the ruins, separating, for the first time in more than three hundred years, the Tuileries from the garden of the same name.

Facade towards the garden, with the Emperor’s rooms on the ground floor and the Empress on the first floor, in ruins.

With the election of Jules Grévy as President of the Republic in 1879, the French government made a series of decisions aimed at eliminating various symbols of the monarchy. That same year the demolition of the ruins of the Tuileries was voted in the National Assembly which, finally, occurred in 1883 during the government of the republican Léon Gambetta. In the same context, the sale of the Crown Jewels in 1887 or the demolition of the castle of Saint-Cloud in 1892 was also decided.

Vestiges

The remains of the Tuileries were, for the most part, acquired by the French state or sold to French or foreign individuals. The emblematic newspaper Le Figaro, for example, gave its subscribers free paperweights made with fragments of marble from the palace. Despite the dispersion, some remains can still be seen in:

In Paris

• the sculptures that prayed the attic Pavillon de l'Horloge on its east facade (make the Cour du Carrousel) are displayed in the Louvre, next to the medieval foundations of the museum.
• the fronton and the clock of the same facade were traced back to Square Georges-Cain, in Le Marais.
• several remains are located in the courtyard of number 9 of the Rue Murilloin Paris
• the frame of a window of the ground floor of the east facade (made the Cour du Carrousel) is hidden between the foliage of the Jardin du Trocadero.
• a lush arcade built by De l'Orme for the loggia the garden is exhibited in the Louvre sculpture section since 2011.
• another very similar arch is erected in the Tuileries Garden.
• a column, also from De l'Orme, is preserved in the courtyard École de Beaux-Arts.
• one villa in Suresnes and another in Marly also have fragments of the facade.

On other sites

• a lot of elements of the palace facades were used for the construction of the Château de la Punta in Ajaccio, property of the Duke of Pozzo di Borgo, declared enemy of the Bonaparte.
• the iron balustrades would be those of the distant Palace of Carondelet (Palacio de Gobierno), in Quito, Ecuador.
• part of the bars were bought for Plaza Grande de Quito, Ecuador and dismantled in 1938, lacking lags in several private properties around the city.
• part of the fences Cour du Carrousel They would be in a palace of the Esterhazy family in Hungary.

Reconstruction proposal

In February 2004, at the initiative of the Académie du Second Empire, the "National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Tuileries" (French: Comité national pour la reconstruction des Tuileries) which sought to rebuild the palace with private subscriptions, for an estimated amount of around 350 million euros. The project was inspired by other contemporaries such as the Frauenkirche in Dresden or the Stadschloss in Berlin. In June 2006, the Ministry of Culture and Communication created by ministerial decree a study commission chaired by the former Minister of Culture Maurice Druon.

This project, which at first found no opposition from the French government or the Paris City Council, was, from its inception, highly debated in French public opinion. On January 17, 2009, the members of the French Committee for the History of Art (Comité français d'Histoire de l'Art — CFHA) unanimously approved a motion against the reconstruction project, arguing that the new building would be a pastiche, which would imply the destruction of part of the façades of the Marsan and Flore pavilions, that history cannot be redone and resources could be allocated to endangered French heritage.

The lack of enthusiasm from the institutions, the economic crisis of 2008 and the death of its main promoter Alain Boumier in 2010 ended up leaving the project in the air.