Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
Now, pass through the Pavillon de l’Horloge (called on its W side
Pavillon Sully) into the =second= of the three courts of the Louvre. To
understand this portion of the building, again, you must remember that
shortly after the erection of the Old Louvre, Catherine de Médicis began
to build her palace of the =Tuileries=, now destroyed, to the W of it.
She (and subsequent rulers) designed to unite the Old Louvre with the
Tuileries by a =gallery= which should run along the bank of the river.
Of that gallery, Catherine de Médicis herself erected a considerable
portion, to be described later, and Henri IV almost completed it. Later
on, Napoleon I conceived the idea of extending a similar gallery along
his new Rue de Rivoli, on the N side, so as to enclose the whole space
between the Louvre and the Tuileries in one gigantic double courtyard.
Napoleon III carried out his idea. The =second court= in which you now
stand is entirely flanked by buildings of this epoch—the Second Empire.
Examine it cursorily as far as the modern statue of Gambetta.
Stand or take a seat by the railing of the garden opposite the Pavillon
Sully. The part that now faces you forms a portion of the building of
François I^{er} and Louis XIII, re-decorated in part by Napoleon I. The
portions to your R and L (consult Baedeker’s map) are entirely of the
age of Napoleon III, built so as to conceal the want of parallelism of
the outer portions. Observe their characteristic Pavillons, each bearing
its own name inscribed upon it. This recent square, though quite modern
in the character of its sculpture and decoration, is Renaissance in its
general architecture, and, when looked back upon from the gardens of the
Tuileries, affords a most excellent idea of that stately style, as
developed in France under François I^{er}. The whole of this splendid
plan, however, has been rendered futile by the destruction of the
Tuileries, without which the enclosure becomes wholly meaningless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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