If the Tuileries garden is today a very popular place for Parisians of a day and always, we often forget today that a palace was once built in this beautiful green setting. However, the Palais des Tuileries was the starting point of the great historical axis of Paris, which offers a beautiful perspective on the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde.
Commissioned by Queen Catherine de Medici, the Tuileries Palace takes its name from the former tile factory on whose site it was built in 1564. It became the Parisian residence of many French rulers among whom we find the kings Henri IV and Louis XIV as well as the emperor Napoleon 1st. Ravaged by fire in 1871 during the Paris Commune, the Palace was destroyed and its remains are now found abroad.
But some remains of the Tuileries Palace remained in the capital, sometimes far from its original location. To find them, it is a real treasure hunt. So, where can we see the remains of the Tuileries Palace in Paris?
Let's start with the starting point: the Jardin des Tuileries. Towards the entrance on the Place de la Concorde side, an archway can be found. Originally there were two of them, they were called the Delorme and Bullant arcades. They had been removed in 1993 in order to restore them but only one was reinstalled in 2011. We can discover it at the foot of the Jeu de Paume.
Then, we go to the Louvre Museum. In the Cour Marly, if you look carefully, you will notice that the entrance to a passage is marked by a beautiful arcade surrounded by two columns. In the Galeries du Carrousel of the Louvre, several statues from the Tuileries Palace are also on display.
We now move away from theformer site of the Palais des Tuileries for a walk on the side of the Marais. A few steps away from the Carnavalet Museum , which plunges us into theHistory of Paris, a pretty and rather secret green setting catches the eye. It is the square Georges Cain. Its particularity? It shelters many vestiges of disappeared monuments and serves as a lapidary depository for the Carnavalet Museum. One can then discover the pediment of the central pavilion of the Tuileries Palace.
Other elements can also be found in other famous places of the capital such as the Jardin du Trocadero, the Jardin du Luxembourg, in theHôtel de Rochechouart and the courtyard of theEcole des Beaux-Arts. If you walk along rue Murillo in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, linger in front of n°9. In this small courtyard, hidden behind a climbing plant, you can see a bust. It too belonged to the Tuileries Palace. While walking through the capital, it is thus necessary to open the eye, and the good one!
