The French king Henri IV assumed the throne in 1589 (Paris vaut bien une messe...). His first queen was la reine Margot, who was the daughter of Catherine de' Medici of Chenonceaux and Chaumont fame. Henri and Margot hadn't succeeded in producing an heir to the throne and as a result the marriage ended. In 1600, he married another de' Medici offspring from Italy, Maria, who was only a distant cousin of the great Catherine (called de Médicis in French). The young Marie de Médicis has been described as vindicative, hautaine et sotte (vindictive, haughty, and foolish). Even if she wasn't really prepared to be a queen, her arrival on the scene wouldn't have had great consequence except for one thing: Henri IV was assassinated in 1610.
The son Henri had with Marie, who was later to become Louis XIII, was a mere child, and Marie became his regent. She was in charge. Before she ended up in prison and then in "impoverished exile" in Germany, sent there by her own son, she had the Palais du Luxembourg built. Meantime, there had been much intrigue involving Marie and the Cardinal Richelieu. Anyway, Marie had long dreamed of having a replica of her childhood home, the enormous Pitti Palace in Florence, built for herself in Paris. An architect persuaded her to build a more conventional Paris hôtel instead. To please the regent, he had it decorated, according to the Cadogan guidebook to Paris, "with Florentine touches — especially the rusticated bands of stone that give it a corrugated look, and its 'ringed' Tuscan columns."
Above, you can see the Luxembourg palace and its beautiful now-public garden as it sits in the context of the Saint-Germain des Prés neighborhood and the Latin Quarter that surround it. You can also see Notre-Dame cathedral and the Panthéon in the distance — not to mention the Pompidou Center. You can see all those and more in the photo below, especially if you enlarge it.
I hope this panoramic photo isn't too hard on the eyes for you. I like toying with photos like these to make them useful and interesting (to me). This is not a composite image. It's just a crop out of a photo that I took from the top of the Tour Montparnasse, near the Luxembourg Garden, in 2015. In it you can see, in addition to the landmarks I mentioned above, a good part of the Louvre (on the left), the Église Saint-Sulpice toward the center, and, at the top right, the green patch that is the Père Lachaise cemetery.
The last photo shows how big Paris is when you think it's roughly about a third
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The area of Paris is actually just 40 square miles. It's smaller in area than the District of Columbia, and smaller in area than San Francisco, for example. The area of Chicago, which has a population similar to that of Paris, has an area of about 230 square miles.
DeleteWhat a treat it is, to have the Jardins de Luxembourg park in a big city.
ReplyDeleteI have never looked into the history of the Palais, so thanks for this. I find that Henri IV, Reine Margot era confusing to keep track of everyone!
I learn a lot myself just putting these blog posts together.
DeleteThank you so much for these aerial shots, I love them! And, yes, Paris was definitely worth a mass to Henri IV. I’m guessing that Louis XIII died early since Louis XIV became king at a very young age. (?)
ReplyDeleteHe was born in 1601 and died in 1643. He wasn't yet 9 years old when his father, Henri IV, was assassinated. He had an unhappy childhood. It's all a very complicated story, how he pushed his mother aside when he was just 16 years old. He ended up dying on the 33rd anniversary of his father's assassination, May 14, after a long illness.
DeleteThe three photos of the Luxembourg gardens are excellent. I love standing on the Pantheon steps and seeing la tour Eiffel.
ReplyDeleteYou know I worked on the rue Soufflot, just a couple of blocks from the front steps of the Pantheon for a couple of years. I always enjoyed seeing the Eiffel Tower in the distance from that vantage point.
DeletePalais du Luxembourg is beautiful. So interesting that Pitti Palace was the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteIn his "Grey Eminence," Aldous Huxley characterized Marie de Medicis as "a bedizened barmaid," spot on!
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