Who, meanwhile, was to live at the Tuileries? It was a royal palace, but not the palace of the French kings. Valois did not live there, Catherine de Médicis gave magnificent entertainments at the Tuileries, but held her Court at the Louvre. Nor did Henri IV. reside at the Tuileries. His private apartments, decorated by the genius of Pierre Lescot, were at the Louvre, from which Paris could be better observed. Henri's widow, Marie de Médicis, mourned for her generally excellent though not too faithful husband in the Luxembourg Palace. When Richelieu came to power and worked out the problem of the unity of France, he built the Palais Cardinal, but took no thought of the Tuileries. His eyes were fixed on the Louvre, where Louis XIII. was domiciled. Louis XIV. passed no more time at the Tuileries than any of his predecessors. His mother, Anne of Austria, established her regency at the Palais Cardinal, soon to become the Palais Royal; and all idea of completing the Tuileries seemed to have been given up, when in 1660, under Louis XIV., then twenty-two years of age, the architects Levan and Dorbay were ordered to resume the work of Philibert Delorme and Ducerceaux--the work begun by Catherine, continued by Louis XIV.'s grandfather, Henri IV., and abandoned by his father, Louis XIII. The Palace of the Tuileries having at last been completed, it became the residence simply of Mlle. de Montpensier. From time to time Louis XIV. visited the place, but only to make it the scene of some occasional entertainment. His favourite abode was always Versailles. While the Regent was at the Palais Royal, the youthful Louis XV. lived at the Tuileries. But as soon as he could walk alone, Louis le bien aimé, as he was afterwards to be called, hastened to Versailles; and the Tuileries Palace of strange destinies was now occupied by the French Opera Company. It became the Paris Opera House, the Académie Royale de Musique--to give the establishment its official title--whose theatre at the Palais Royal had been burnt down. In 1720 the Opera was replaced at the Tuileries by the Comédie Française. To Lulli succeeded Corneille and to Rameau Voltaire.