The Italian Garden of Catherine de' Medici (16th century) File:Tuileries projet et jardins.jpg|Plan for the palace and gardens by
Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau, 1576–1579 File:Map of Tuileries and Louvre, as in c. 1589.png|Plan of the Tuileries garden in about 1589. The Louvre is to the right In July 1559, after the accidental death of her husband,
Henry II, Queen
Catherine de' Medici decided to leave her residence of the
Hôtel des Tournelles, at the eastern part of Paris, near the
Bastille. Together with her son, the new king of France
Francis II, her other children and the royal court, she moved to the
Louvre Palace. Five years later, in 1564, she decided to build a new residence with more space for a garden. For that purpose, Catherine bought land west of Paris, just outside the city
Wall of Charles V. It was bordered on the south by the
Seine, and on the north by the
faubourg Saint-Honoré, a road in the countryside continuing the
Rue Saint-Honoré. Since the 13th century this area had been occupied by tile-making factories called
tuileries (from the French
tuile, meaning "tile"). The new residence was called the
Tuileries Palace. Catherine commissioned a landscape architect from Florence, Bernard de Carnesse, to create an
Italian Renaissance garden for the palace. The new garden was an enclosed space five hundred metres long and three hundred metres wide, separated from the new palace by a lane. It was divided into rectangular compartments by six alleys, and the sections were planted with lawns, flower beds, and small clusters of five trees, called
quinconces; and, more practically, with kitchen gardens and vineyards. It was further decorated with fountains, a
labyrinth, a
grotto, and
faience images of plants and animals, made by
Bernard Palissy, whom Catherine had tasked to discover the secret of Chinese
porcelain. The development of the garden was interrupted by a civil war. In 1588
Henry III had to flee through the garden to escape capture from the
Catholic League on the
Day of the Barricades of the
French Wars of Religion and did not return. The gardens were pillaged. However, the new king,
Henry IV, returned in 1595 and, with his chief landscape gardener
Claude Mollet, restored and embellished the gardens. Henry built a chamille, or covered arbor, the length of the garden, Another alley was planted with
mulberry trees where he hoped to cultivate
silkworms and start a silk industry in France. He also built a rectangular ornamental lake of 65 metres by 45 metres with a fountain supplied with water by the new pump called
La Samaritaine, which had been built in 1608 on the
Pont Neuf. The area between the palace and the former moat of
Charles V was turned into the "New Garden" (Jardin Neuf) with a large fountain in the center. Though Henry IV never lived in the Tuileries Palace, which was continually under reconstruction, he did use the gardens for relaxation and exercise.
Garden of Louis XIII and Louis XIV – The French formal garden (17th century) File:Israel Silvestre, Palais de la Reyne Catherine de Medicis - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|Garden of Louis XIII in 1649–51 File:S7001316.JPG|Tuileries Garden of Le Nôtre in the 17th century, looking west toward the future Champs-Élysées, engraving by
Gabriel Perelle File:Plan du Jardin des Tuileries par Israel Silvestre 1671 - Gallica 2011 (adjusted).jpg|Le Nôtre's Tuileries Garden plan, engraving by
Israël Silvestre, 1671 File:Carrousel-LouisXIV-1662.jpg|The Carrousel of 5–6 June 1662 at the Tuileries, celebrating the birth of Louis XIV's son and heir After the assassination of his father in 1610,
Louis XIII, age nine, became the new owner of the Tuileries Gardens. It became his enormous playground - he used it for hunting, and he kept a small zoo of exotic animals. On the north side of the gardens, his mother and the regent,
Marie de' Medici, built stables and a riding school, the
Manége, which survived until the French Revolution, when it was used as the meeting hall of the revolutionary parliament. The garden was entirely enclosed, and was used exclusively by the royal family when they were in residence, but When the king and court were absent from Paris, the gardens were turned into a pleasure spot for the nobility. In 1630 a
parterre at the west end of the garden, between the Louvre and the Tuileries Palace, where the moat of the old city walls had been, was turned into a parterre of flower beds and paths. This parterre was transformed into a sort of a playground for the aristocracy. The daughter of
Gaston, Duke of Orléans and the niece of Louis XIII, known as
La Grande Mademoiselle, held court there, and it became known as known the "Parterre de Mademoiselle". However, in 1652, "La Grande Mademoiselle" was expelled from the palace and garden for having supported an uprising, the
Fronde, against her cousin, the young
Louis XIV. Louis XIV had the space transformed into large parade ground, When his first child was born, on Jun 5-6 1662, the parterre was the setting for a spectacular circular horseback promenade by the nobility, slowly circling the parterre. This became known as a "
Carrousel", and gave its name to that portion of the garden. Louis XIV quickly imposed his own sense of order on the Tuileries Garden. His architects,
Louis Le Vau and
François d'Orbay, finally finished the Tuileries Palace, making a proper royal residence. In 1664,
Colbert, the King's
superintendent of buildings, commissioned the landscape architect
André Le Nôtre, to redesign the entire garden. Le Nôtre was the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of Catherine de' Medici's gardeners, and his father Jean had also been a gardener at the Tuileries. He immediately began transforming the Tuileries into a formal
jardin à la française, a style he had first developed at
Vaux-le-Vicomte and perfected at
Versailles, based on symmetry, order and long perspectives. Le Nôtre's gardens were designed to be seen from above, from a building or terrace. He eliminated the street which separated the palace and the garden, and replaced it with a terrace looking down upon flowerbeds bordered by low boxwood hedges and filled with designs of flowers. In the centre of the flowerbeds he placed three ornamental lakes with fountains. In front of the centre of the first fountain he laid out the Grande Allée, which extended 350 metres. He built two other alleys, lined with chestnut trees, on either side. He crossed these three main alleys with small lanes, to create compartments planted with diverse trees, shrubs and flowers. On the south side of the park, next to the
Seine, he built a long terrace called the Terrasse du bord-de-l'eau, planted with trees, with a view of the river. He built a second terrace on the north side, overlooking the garden, called the Terrasse des Feuillants. On the west side of the garden, beside the present-day Place de la Concorde, he built two ramps in a horseshoe shape
Fer à Cheval and two terraces overlooking an octagonal lake
Bassin Octogonal in diameter, respectively from corner to corner, with one fountain in the centre with a waterjet of height, additional powerful waterjets from each corner to the center. The terraces frame the western entrance of the garden, and provide another viewpoint to see the garden from above. Le Nôtre wanted his grand perspective from the palace to the western end of the garden to continue outside the garden. In 1667, he made plans for an avenue with two rows of trees on either side, which would have continued west to the present Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées. Le Nôtre and his hundreds of masons, gardeners and earth-movers worked on the gardens from 1666 to 1672. In 1682, however, the King, furious with the Parisians for resisting his authority, abandoned Paris and moved to Versailles. In 1667, at the request of the famous author of
Sleeping Beauty and other fairy tales,
Charles Perrault, the Tuileries Garden was opened to the public, with the exception of beggars, "lackeys" and soldiers. It was the first royal garden to be open to the public.
Louis XV and Louis XVI – balloon flights, an invasion, and revolutionary ceremonies File:Expérience du globe aérostatique de MM Charles et Robert au Jardin des Thuileries le 1er décembre 1783 (2).jpg|First flight of a hydrogen-filled balloon from garden on 1 December 1783 File:Jacques Bertaux - Der Tuileriensturm am 10. August 1792.jpg|Fighting in the Tuileries Garden and massacre of Swiss Guards, 10 August 1792 File:Louis XVI dans la salle du Manège lors de son proces 1682x1209.png|Louis XVI makes his plea at his trial, in the
Salle du Manège, or riding school in the gardens, 26 December 1792 File:Vue du char qui a servi à la cérémonie de la fête dédiée à l'Etre suprême le 20 prairial l'an deuxième de la République et exposée au jardin national (1794).jpg|Ceremony of the
Cult of the Supreme Being in the National Garden (Tuileries), 1794 After the death of Louis XIV, the five-year-old
Louis XV became owner of the Tuileries Garden. In 1719, two large equestrian statuary groups,
La Renommée and
Mercure, by the sculptor
Antoine Coysevox, were brought from the king's residence at
Marly and placed at the west entrance of the garden. Other statues by
Nicolas Coustou and
Guillaume Coustou the Elder,
Corneille Van Clève,
Sébastien Slodtz,
Thomas Regnaudin and Coysevox were placed along the Grande Allée. A swing bridge was placed at the west end over the moat, to make access to the garden easier. The creation of the Place Louis XV (now
Place de la Concorde) created a grand vestibule to the garden, though entrance to the north side of the garden, prior to the construction of
Rue Saint-Honoré by
Napoleon, was obstructed by residences, convents and private gardens. Certain holidays, such as 25 August, the feast day of
Saint Louis, were celebrated with concerts and fireworks in the park. Small food stands were placed in the park, and chairs could be rented for a small fee. Public toilets were added in 1780. A famous early balloon ascent, the first free flight of a manned hydrogen balloon, was made from the garden on 1 December 1783 by
Jacques Alexandre César Charles and
Nicolas Louis Robert. The King watched the flight from the tower of the palace. The first trial of the balloon was attended by the first American ambassador to Paris,
Benjamin Franklin. The balloon and passengers landed safely at
Nesles-la-Vallée, thirty-one miles from Paris. On 6 October 1789, as the
French Revolution began, King
Louis XVI and family were brought against his will to the Tuileries Palace. The garden was reserved exclusively for the royal family in the morning, then open to the public in the afternoon. Queen
Marie Antoinette and the
Dauphin were given a part of the garden for her private use, first at the west end of the Promenade Bord d'eaux, then at the edge of the Place Louis XV. After the King's
failed attempt to escape France on 21 June 1791, the King and family were placed under house arrest in the palace. The royal family was allowed to walk in the park on the evening of 18 September 1791, during the festival organized to celebrate the new
French Constitution, when the alleys of the park were illuminated with pyramids and rows of lanterns. But as the Revolution took a more radical turn, On
10 August 1792, a mob stormed the palace, the King was imprisoned, and the King's
Swiss Guards fell back through the gardens where they were massacred. The new revolutionary government, the
National Convention, met in the
Salle du Manège, the former riding academy in the northwest corner of the gardens, which was the largest meeting hall in the city. Louis XVI was
put on trial by the National Convention at the Manège, and was sentenced to death. Afterwards the Tuileries became the National Garden (Jardin National) of the new
French Republic. The Convention ordered that statues from the former royal gardens of Marly, Versailles and
Fontainebleau be brought to Paris and installed in the National Garden. The originals are now in the Louvre, with copies taking their place in the gardens. The garden was also used to celebrate revolutionary holidays and festivals. On 8 June 1794, a series of events to honour the
Cult of the Supreme Being was organized in Paris by
Robespierre, with sets and costumes designed by
Jacques-Louis David. The opening event was held in the Tuileries. After a hymn written for the occasion, Robespierre set fire to mannequins representing Atheism, Ambition, Egoism and False Simplicity, revealing a statue of Wisdom. The ceremony then moved on the a larger event in the
Champs de Mars. Two months later, however, Robespierre was accused of excessive ambition,
arrested and sent to the guillotine. During their storming, the gardens had been badly damaged, with many buildings set on fire. The National Convention assigned the renewal of the gardens to the painter Jacques-Louis David, and to his brother in law, the architect August Cheval de Saint-Hubert. They conceived a garden decorated with Roman porticos, monumental porches, columns, and other classical decoration. The project of David and Saint-Hubert was never completed. All that remains today are the two
exedres, semicircular low walls crowned with statues by the two ponds in the centre of the garden.
Early 19th century – the garden of Napoleon and the Restoration File:Hippolyte Bellangé - Un jour de revue sous l’Empire - 1810.jpg|An Imperial review at the new
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel built by Napoleon, 1810
Napoleon Bonaparte moved into the Tuileries Palace on 19 February 1800 as
First Consul, and began making improvements to suit a consular and soon to be imperial residence. His major addition to the palace-garden complex was the
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in the large courtyard between the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre, This was modeled after the triumphal
Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, and was designed to be the ceremonial entrance to his palace, It also became the centerpiece of the large parade ground where Louis XIV had held his Carrousel procession. In 1801, Napoleon ordered the construction of a new street along the northern edge of the Tuileries Garden through space that had been occupied by the riding school and stables built by Marie de' Medici, and the private gardens of aristocrats and convents and religious orders that had been closed during the Revolution. This new street also took part of the Terrasse des Feuillants, which had been occupied by cafés and restaurants. The new street, lined with arcades on the north side, was named the
rue de Rivoli, after Napoleon's victory in 1797. Napoleon made few changes to the interior of the garden. He continued to use the garden for military parades and to celebrate special events, including the passage of his own wedding procession on 2 April 1810, when he married the Archduchess
Marie-Louise of Austria. After Napoleon's fall,
Russian and
Prussian troops were camped in the garden, and the
restored monarchs moved into the Tuileries Palace. During the
July Revolution of 1830, the garden again became a battleground, stormed by opponents of the monarchy. King
Charles X was replaced by a constitutional king,
Louis Philippe. Louis-Philippe, reluctant to have garden visitors walking by his window, had a large flower garden protected by a moat created to isolate his residence in the palace from the popular footpaths. This made him unpopular among Parisians and contributed to his
downfall in 1848.
Concerts and promenades - the garden of Louis-Napoleon and the Third Republic File:MANET - Música en las Tullerías (National Gallery, Londres, 1862).jpg|
Édouard Manet,
Music in the Tuileries, 1862 File:The Garden of the Tuileries on a Spring Morning.JPG|
Camille Pissarro,
The Garden of the Tuileries on a Spring Morning, 1899 File:Restes des arcades du palais des Tuileries reconstruits au jardin des Tuileries.jpg|Vestige of the
Tuileries Palace in the Tuileries Garden File:Autosalon Parijs 1898.jpg|Post for the 1893 Salon d'Automobile in the garden In 1852, following another revolution and the short-lived
Second Republic, Emperor
Napoleon III became owner of the garden, and made major changes. He enlarged the royal reserve within the garden further to the west as far as the north–south alley that crossed the large round basin, He decorated the gardens with beds of exotic plants and flowers, and new statues. In 1859, he turned the Terrasse du bord-de-l'eau into a playground for his son,
Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial. He also constructed twin pavilions. The garden embellishments added by Napoleon III included an indoor handball court, the
Jeu de Paume, and an
Orangerie. He built a new stone balustrade at the west entrance. When the Emperor was not in Paris, usually from May to November, the entire garden, including his private garden and the playground, were opened to the public. In 1870, Napoleon III was defeated and
captured by the Prussians, and Paris was the scene of the uprising of the
Paris Commune. A red flag flew over the palace, and it could be visited for fifty centimes. When the army arrived and fought to recapture the city, the Communards
deliberately burned the Tuileries Palace, and tried to burn the Louvre as well. The ruins, burned out inside but with walls largely intact, were torn down in 1883. The empty site of the palace, between the two pavilions of the Louvre, became part of the garden. Dozens of statues were added to the garden. It also served as the setting for large civic events such as the banquet given during the
1900 Paris Universal Exposition on 22 September 1900, in honour of the twenty-two thousand mayors of France, served under large tents. The Tuileries Garden was filled with entertainments for the public; acrobats, puppet theatres, lemonade stands, small boats on the lakes, donkey rides, and stands selling toys. It was a meeting for major commercial events, such as the first
Paris Motor Show in 1898. At the
1900 Summer Olympics, the Gardens hosted the
fencing events.
20th and 21st century – restoration, updating and the cauldron During the
First World War (1914–1918), the gardeners were drafted into the army, and maintenance of the garden was reduced to a minimum. The statues were surrounded by sandbags. In 1918, two German long-range artillery shells landed in the garden. In the years between the two World Wars, the
Jeu de paume tennis court was turned into a gallery devoted to contemporary art. The
Orangerie, originally used to keep citrus trees during the winter, was also made into a gallery, with the eastern wing devoted to the display of eight paintings of the
Water Lilies series by
Claude Monet. They were installed there in 1927, shortly after Monet's death. During
World War II, the Jeu de paume was used by the Germans as a warehouse for art they had
stolen or confiscated. An exposition of work by the German sculptor
Arno Breker, a favourite of Hitler, was held in the Orangerie. The
liberation of Paris in 1944 saw considerable fighting in the garden between the Germans and the French resistance. Monet's paintings were damaged during the fighting. In 1946, after the end of World War II, many masterpieces from private collections were recovered in
Germany by the French
Commission for Art Recovery and the
Monuments Men and they were brought to the Orangerie, in a program to restore them to owners or surviving family members. Until the 1960s, most sculpture in the garden dated from the 18th or 19th century. In 1964–65,
André Malraux, the Minister of Culture for President
Charles de Gaulle, removed the 19th century statues which surrounded the Place du Carrousel and replaced them with contemporary sculptures by
Aristide Maillol. In 1994, as part of the
Grand Louvre project launched by President
François Mitterrand, the Belgian landscape architect
Jacques Wirtz remade the garden of the Carrousel, adding labyrinths and a fan of low hedges radiating from the
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in the square. In 1998, under President
Jacques Chirac, works of modern sculpture by
Jean Dubuffet,
Henri Laurens,
Étienne Martin,
Henry Moore,
Germaine Richier,
Auguste Rodin and
David Smith were placed in the garden. In 2000, the works of living artists were added; these included works by
Magdalena Abakanowicz,
Louise Bourgeois,
Tony Cragg,
Roy Lichtenstein,
François Morellet,
Giuseppe Penone,
Anne Rochette and
Lawrence Weiner. Another ensemble of three works by
Daniel Dezeuze,
Erik Dietman and
Eugène Dodeigne, called
Prière Toucher (Eng: Please Touch), was added at the same time. At the beginning of the 21st century, French landscape architects Pascal Cribier and
Louis Benech have been working to restore some of the early features of the André Le Nôtre garden. Starting in November, 2021, ninety-two
elm trees are being added to the Grande Allée to recreate its historic appearance. Since the beginning of 2020, a project for the erection of a large national memorial is also being prepared, the latter will feature the list of names of the 200,000 slaves freed by the French abolition of 1848. File:2024 Summer Paralympic Games opening ceremony - balloon carrying Paralympic flame 2999.jpg|Paralympic balloon lighting ceremony File:2024 Summer Paralympic Games opening ceremony - balloon carrying Paralympic flame 3000.jpg|Lighting the Paralympic flame File:2024 Summer Paralympic Games opening ceremony - balloon carrying Paralympic flame 3036.jpg|Balloon carrying the flame rises In 2024, a platform was installed in the middle of the Grand Bassin Rond on which the city's new
Olympic and Paralympic cauldron rested. Mathieu Lehanneur designed the cauldron as part of a hot air balloon in tribute to the
Montgolfier brothers – a helium sphere high with a ring of fire in diameter hanging from the bottom. It is also the first such cauldron that burns without using fossil fuels. The final torch bearers in their respective torch relays who lit the flame during their respective opening ceremonies were: •
Olympics (28 July) –
Judoka Teddy Riner and sprinter
Marie-José Pérec, both native
Guadeloupeans •
Paralympics (28 August) – Triathlete
Alexis Hanquinquant, sprinters
Nantenin Keïta and
Charles-Antoine Kouakou, table tennis player
Fabien Lamirault and swimmer
Élodie Lorandi The cauldron has remained landed during the day and has risen into the sky at sunset and when lit during both opening ceremonies, anchored to the ground by a wire-like conduit in the middle of the Grand Bassin Rond. The maximum 10,000 people per day visited the cauldron daily during the Olympics, and calls have been made to make the cauldron a permanent fixture. == Plan ==