Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
Now, pass through the Pavilion de l'Horloge (called on its west side
Pavilion 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 Médici began
to build her palace of the Tuileries, now destroyed, to the west 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 Médici 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 north 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 Pavilion
Sully. The part that now faces you forms a portion of the building of
François I, and Louis XIII., redecorated in part by Napoleon I. The
portions to your right and left are entirely of the age of Napoleon
III., built so as to conceal the want of parallelism of the outer
portions. Observe their characteristic Pavilions, each bearing its own
name inscribed upon it. This recent square, tho 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. 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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