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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 in 1649–51
The Carrousel of 5–6 June 1662 at the Tuileries, celebrating the birth of Louis XIV's son and heir
Plan of the Jardin des Tuileries
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.
Place and Jardin du Carrousel.
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The Grand Carré
The Grand Bassin, or circular pond, originally part of the private royal garden
The Grand Carré, with its three ponds. The Musee d'Orsay is in the background
Louvre_Museum_from_the_Roue_de_Paris
The Grand Couvert, the forested central portion of the garden, looking toward the Louvre
The octagonal basin and the Grand Couvert, looking toward the Louvre
By the octagonal basin, looking toward the Place de la Concorde
Musée de l'Orangerie, a greenhouse converted to a gallery for Monet's Water Lilies
Detail of one of the eight Les Nymphéas (Water Lilies) by Claude Monet, put into the Orangerie in 1927
Nymphe by Auguste Levêque, (1866). In the Grand Carré, at the beginning of the Grand Allée
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus par Denis Foyatier (1793-1863), jardin des Tuileries, Paris
Aristide Maillol, The River, bronze, (1938–1943), Jardin du Carrousel
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