The Luxembourg Palace by Esther Singleton

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

The Rue de la Seine will bring us to the Palace of the Luxembourg, / now the Palace of the Senate (open from nine to four in winter, nine / to five in summer), built by Marie de' Medici on the site of a hotel / erected by Robert de Harlay de Saucy early in the Sixteenth Century, / which was bought by the Duc de Pincy-Luxembourg. The queen employed / Jacques Debrosses as her architect in 1615, and his work was completed / in 1620. The ground floor, in the Tuscan style, was intended to convey / a reminiscence of the Florentine Palazzo Pitti, in which Marie de' / Medici was born: the upper stories are Grecian.

The queen intended to call the palace Palais Medicis, though the name / has always clung to it which is derived from Francois de Luxembourg, / Prince de Tingry, who owned the site in 1570. The palace was bequeathed / by Marie de' Medici to her youngest son Gaston, Duc d'Orléans, / from whom it came to his two daughters, who each held half of the / Luxembourg -- "La Grande Mademoiselle," and the pious Duchesse de Guise / (whose mother, sister of the Duc de Lorraine, had clandestinely become / the second wife of Monsieur), who was terribly tyrannized over by her / rich half sister. It was here that Mademoiselle received the visits / of M. de Lauzun, whilst La Fosse was painting the loves of Flore and / Zephyr, and here that she astonished Europe by the announcement of / her intended marriage, to which -- for a few days -- Louis XIV. was induced / to give his consent.

At her death, Mademoiselle bequeathed her right in the Luxembourg / to her Cousin Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, brother of Louis XIV. During / the Regency, the palace was the residence of the Duchesse de Berry / (daughter of the Regent Philippe d'Orléans), who by her orgies here / rivalled those of her father at the Palais Royal. The Luxembourg was / bought by Louis XV., and given by Louis XVI. to his brother "Monsieur," / who resided in it till his escape from Paris at the time of the flight / to Varennes.

Treated as national property during the Revolution, the Luxembourg / became one of the prisons of the Reign of Terror. Amongst other / prisoners, comprising the most illustrious names in France, were the / Vicomte de Beauharnais and his wife Josephine, afterwards Empress of / the French: "_De quoi se plaignent donc ces damnés aristocrates? _" / cried Montagnard; "_nons les logeons dans les châteaux royaux._" / David, the painter, designed his picture of the Sabines during his / imprisonment at the Luxembourg, in a little room on the second floor. / Here also in a different category, were imprisoned Hébert, Danton, / Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, Hérault de Séchelles, Payne, / Bazire, Chabot, and Fabre d'Eglantine. In 1793, people used to come and / stand for hours in the garden in the hope of being able to have a last / sight of their friends, from their being allowed to show themselves at / the windows.

It was at the Luxembourg that (December 10, 1797), Bonaparte presented / the treaty of the peace of Campo Formio to the Directory, after / returning from his first campaign in Italy. At the end of 1799, the / palace became for a time _Le Palais du Consulat_: _Le Palais du / Sénat_, then _de la Pairie_. Marshal Ney was condemned to death / here, under the Restoration (November 21, 1815), and was executed in / the Allée de l'Observatoire, at the end of the garden on December 7. / The iron wicket still remains in the door of his prison, opening west / at the end of the great gallery of archives. The ministers of Charles / X. were also judged at the Luxembourg, and Fieschi and the other / conspirators of July, 1835, were condemned here; as was Prince Louis / Napoleon Bonaparte, after the attempt at Bologne in 1840.

The Luxembourg is only shown when the Senate is not sitting. The / apartments best worth seeing are the Chapel of 1844, decorated with / modern paintings; and _the Ancienne Salle du Livre d'or_, where / the titles and arms of peers were preserved under the Restoration and / Louis Philippe, adorned with the decorations of the apartment of Marie / de' Medici. The ceiling of the gallery, which forms part of the hall, / represents the Apotheosis of Marie. The arabesques in the principal / hall are attributed to Giovanni da Udine: the ceiling represents / Marie de' Medici reestablishing the peace and unity of France. The / first floor is reached by a great staircase which occupies the place / of a gallery once filled with the twenty-four great pictures of the / life of the Regent Marie by Rubens, now in the Louvre. The oratory of / the queen and another room are now united to form the _Salle des / Gardes_, her bedroom is the _Salle des Messagers d'état_ and / her reception-room is known as the _Salon de Napoléon I_. The / cupola of the _Salle du Trône_ by Alaux represents the Apotheosis / of the first Emperor.

The _Hôtel du Petit Luxembourg_ is a dependency of the greater / palace, and was erected about the same time by Richelieu, who resided / here till the Palais Royal was built. When he moved thither, he gave / this palace to his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, from whom it / passed to Henri Jules de Bourbon-Condé, after which it received the / name of _Petit Bourbon_. Anne, Palatine of Bavaria, lived here, / and added a hôtel towards the Rue Vaugirard to accommodate her suite. / Under the First Empire the Luxembourg was occupied for some time by / Joseph Bonaparte. It is now the official residence of the President / of the Senate. The cloister of the former convent of the _Filles du / Calvaire_, whom Marie de Medici established near her palace, is now / a winter garden attached to the Petit Luxembourg. The chapel, standing / close to the grill of the Rue de Vaugirard, is an admirable specimen / of the end of the Sixteenth Century; on the summit of its gable is a / symbolical Pelican nourishing its young.