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Luxembourg Palace
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The Palais du Luxembourg in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, north of the Jardin du Luxembourg, is where the French Senate meets.
The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model boats. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees and the théâtre des marionettes (puppet theatre).
palace was built for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France, just near the site of an old hôtel particulier owned by François, duc de Luxembourg, hence its name (now called Petit Luxembourg, home of the president of French Senate).
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Encyclopedia
The Palais du Luxembourg in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, north of the Jardin du Luxembourg, is where the French Senate meets.
The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model boats. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees and the théâtre des marionettes (puppet theatre).
History
The palace was built for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France, just near the site of an old hôtel particulier owned by François, duc de Luxembourg, hence its name (now called Petit Luxembourg, home of the president of French Senate). Marie de Médicis bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médecis, in 1615. Her architect was Salomon de Brosse. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.
Most famously, a series of twenty-four triumphant canvases were commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet Doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. To the right of the block of the Luxembourg, erected at the same time, was the mass of the Palais du Petit-Luxembourg (see below).
She installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments to one side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite on the other for Louis XIII (floor plan). Construction was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court the same year, following the "Day of the Dupes". Louis commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second son, Gaston d'Orléans, the king's younger brother. It passed to his widow and to his daughter, Anne, Duchess of Montpensier, who made it her residence. Her daughter, the duchesse de Guise, inherited it in 1660 and gave it to Louis XIV in 1694. The palace became a museum—the forerunner of the Louvre—in 1750, and was open two days a week until 1779. In 1778 the palace was given to the Comte de Provence by his brother Louis XVI. During the French Revolution, it was briefly a prison, then the center of the French Directory and later the first residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of France. It has continued its senatorial role, with brief interruptions, ever since.
In the nineteenth century the palace was extensively remodeled, with a new garden façade by Alphonse de Gisors (1836-1841), and a cycle of paintings (1845-1847) by Eugène Delacroix that was added to the library.
During the German occupation of Paris (1940-1944), Hermann Göring took over the Palais as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital.
His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, also took an apartment and spent most of the war enjoying the luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence," wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.
The Palais was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of commanding Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the Palais was only minimally damaged.
The building was later used for the peace conference of 1946.
The Petit-Luxembourg
To the west of the Luxembourg, and communicating with it through interior courts, the sixteenth-century original hôtel of françois de Luxembourg was rebuilt during the same years, the smaller palace now called the Petit-Luxembourg; it is composed of two main blocks, or corps de logis separated by a courtyard that is entered through a grand convex portal flanked by Tuscan columns. The Petit-Luxembourg has been used since 1958 as the residence of the president of the Sénat.
The Queen Mother passed it to the Cardinal de Richelieu, who occupied it while his own grand palace, the Palais-Royal, was constructed in the rue St-Honoré. Once there, he ceded the Petit-Luxembourg to his niece the duchesse d'Aiguillon. By inheritance it passed to her son Henri-Jules de Bourbon, prince de Condé, whose widow Anne, princesse palatine de Bavière, made it the habitual residence of her widowhood, making adjustments to suit her status that included the grand staircase and salon by Germain Boffrand (1709-13 and adding another hôtel for her household, with her kitchens and stables, on the other side of rue Vaugirard; an underground passage linked the two residences.
Gallery of Residents
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