The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the

6th arrondissement of Paris The 6th arrondissement of Paris (''VIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as ''le sixième''. The arrondissement, called Luxembourg in a reference to the seat o ...

. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the

regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

Marie de' Medici Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom ...

, mother of

King Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. ...

. After the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

it was refashioned (1799–1805) by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building and subsequently greatly enlarged and remodeled (1835–1856) by Alphonse de Gisors. The palace has been the seat of the

upper house An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restric ...

s of the various French national legislatures (excepting only the unicameral National Assembly of the Second Republic) since the establishment of the '' Sénat conservateur'' during the

Consulate A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth co ...

; as such, it has been home to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958. Immediately west of the palace on the Rue de Vaugirard is the

Petit Luxembourg The Petit Luxembourg (; "Little Luxembourg") is a French ''hôtel particulier'' and the residence of the president of the French Senate. It is located at 17–17 bis, rue de Vaugirard, just west of the Luxembourg Palace, which serves as the seat ...

, now the residence of the

Senate President President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for ...

; and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former

orangery An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very lar ...

. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a green

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

of gravel and lawn populated with statues and large basins of water where children sail model boats.

History

Palace as royal residence

After the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow,

, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Having acceded to a much more powerful position, she decided to erect a new palace for herself, adjacent to an old '' hôtel particulier'' owned by François de Luxembourg, Duc de Piney, which is now called the

and is the residence of the president of the French Senate. Marie de' Medici desired to make a building similar to her native

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

; to this effect she had the architect Métezeau (either

Louis Métezeau Louis Métezeau (1559 – 18 August 1615) was a French architect.Babelon 1996, p. 345. Life and career He was born in Dreux, Eure-et-Loir, and died in Paris. He was the son of Thibault Métezeau, the brother of Clément II Métezeau and the ...

or his brother,

Clément Métezeau Clement or Clément may refer to: People * Clement (name), a given name and surname * Saint Clement (disambiguation)#People Places * Clément, French Guiana, a town * Clement, Missouri, U.S. * Clement Township, Michigan, U.S. Other uses * Ad ...

) sent to Florence to make detailed drawings of the building. Luxembourg-Livre d'Or-4

She bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her ''Palais Médicis'', in 1615. 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 advisers, are scattered among museums. De' Medici installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting (''floor plan''). The 24 Marie de' Medici cycle canvases, a series commissioned from

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradit ...

, were installed in the ''Galerie de Rubens'' on the main floor of the western wing. These paintings were executed between 1622 and 1625 and depicts Marie's struggles and triumphs in life. They are now visible in the Galerie Medicis of the Louvre, one of the treasures of the museum's Flemish paintings department. A series of paintings executed for her ''Cabinet doré'' ("gilded study") was identified by

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...

in 1967. The gallery in the east wing had been intended for the display of paintings celebrating Henri IV and buildings housing stables and services were planned to either side of the pavilions flanking the entrance on the street, but these projects remained unfinished in 1631, when the Queen Mother was forced from court, following the " Day of the Dupes" in November. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...

and Philippe de Champaigne. In 1642, Marie de' Medici bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, who called it the Orléans Palace (''Palais d'Orléans'') but by popular will it was still known by its original name. Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier, ''La Grande Mademoiselle''. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King

Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...

, in 1694. In 1715, the Luxembourg Palace became the residence of

Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Berry (born Marie Louise Élisabeth, Mademoiselle d'Orléans; 20 August 1695 – 21 July 1719) was Duchess of Berry by marriage to the French prince Charles, Duke of Berry. She is known affectionately by the mon ...

, Duchess of Berry. The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French

Messalina Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputation ...

, relentlessly driven by her unquenchable thirst for all pleasures of the flesh. The palace and its gardens thus became stages where the princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. In some of her more exclusive parties, Madame de Berry also played the leading part in elaborate "tableaux-vivants" that represented mythological scenes and in which she displayed her person impersonating Venus or Diana. According to various satirical songs which scurrilously evoked her amours "the Lady of the Luxembourg" hid several pregnancies, shutting herself up from society when about to give birth. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalized the court. On 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

at the Luxembourg. She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her growing corpulence for she was then in an "interesting condition". On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the Duchess of Lorraine. The entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated. The lavish banquet was followed by a masked ball. Madame de Berry made a dazzling appearance before her guests. She was then in the full splendour of her youthful beauty and pride and acted as if she were the very incarnation of the goddess of love, mirth, beauty and sensual pleasures. On 2 April 1719, after a grueling four-day labour, shut up in a small room of her palace, the young widow was delivered of a still-born baby girl, supposedly fathered by her lieutenant of the guards, the Count of Riom. Berry's delivery was extremely troublesome and almost killed her. The Church refused her the Sacraments thus adding moral infamy to the physical tortures of the labouring woman. Saint-Simon wrote a very sarcastic description of this childbirth. Hoping to regain her health and undeceive the public that she had been confined, Madame de Berry left Paris and the Luxembourg Palace. She died in her castle at La Muette on 21 July 1719 and, according to Saint-Simon, was found to be again pregnant. In 1750, the palace became a museum, the forerunner of the Louvre, and was open two days a week until 1779.Andrew L. McClellan, "The Musée du Louvre as Revolutionary Metaphor During the Terror", ''The Art Bulletin'', vol. 70 (June, 1988), pp. 300–313 (300) https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051121?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. In 1778, the Luxembourg Palace was given to the comte de Provence by his brother

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

. During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, it was briefly a prison, then the seat of the

French Directory The Directory (also called Directorate, ) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 2 November 1795 until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced b ...

, and in 1799, the home of the '' Sénat conservateur'' and the first residence of

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

, as

First Consul The Consulate (french: Le Consulat) was the top-level Government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term ''The Co ...

of the French Republic.

Palace as legislature seat

From 1799 to 1805, the architect Jean Chalgrin transformed the palace into a legislative building. He demolished the grand central staircase (''escalier d'honneur''), replacing it with a senate chamber on the first floor, which incorporated and destroyed Marie de Médicis' chapel on the garden side of the '' corps de logis''. Chalgrin also enclosed the flanking terraces, making space for a library. At the same time he created a neo-classical ''escalier d'honneur'' in the west wing, a single monumental flight enclosed by an Ionic colonnade and covered with a

coffer A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also ...

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

, the construction of which resulted in the destruction of the long gallery that had formerly housed the cycle of paintings by Rubens.Ayers 2004, p. 131. Beginning in 1835, the architect Alphonse de Gisors added a new garden wing parallel to the old ''corps de logis'', replicating the look of the original 17th-century facade so precisely that it is difficult to distinguish at first glance the old from the new. The new senate chamber was located in what would have been the courtyard area in-between. Luxembourg -Salle conf

The new wing included a library (''bibliothèque'') with a cycle of paintings (1845–1847) by

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

. In the 1850s, at the request of

Emperor Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephe ...

, Gisors created the highly decorated Salle des Conférences (inspired by the Galerie d'Apollon of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

), which influenced the nature of subsequent official interiors of the Second Empire, including those of the

Palais Garnier The Palais Garnier (, Garnier Palace), also known as Opéra Garnier (, Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera fro ...

. During the German occupation of France (1940–44),

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

took over the palace as the headquarters of the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

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 Wilhelm Hugo Sperrle (7 February 1885 – 2 April 1953), also known as Hugo Sperrle, was a Nazi Germany, German military aviator in World War I and a Generalfeldmarschall in the Luftwaffe during World War II. Sperrle joined the German Army (Germ ...

, was also given an apartment in the Luxembourg Palace; he 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 Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, h ...

after a visit to Sperrle in Paris. The palace was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of Commanding General

Dietrich von Choltitz Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz (; 9 November 1894 – 5 November 1966) was a German general. Sometimes referred to as the Saviour of Paris, he served in the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as serving ...

to surrender the city rather than fight, the palace was only minimally damaged although furniture was stolen. On 7 November 1944, following the

Liberation of France The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance. Nazi Germany inv ...

, the Provisional Consultative Assembly held its first meeting at the Luxembourg Palace. From 29 July to 15 October 1946, the Luxembourg Palace was the site of the talks of the Paris Peace Conference. Hemicycle Senat France (cropped)

Gallery

Paris Palais du Luxembourg façade s printemps 2014.jpg, View of the south facade and the garden basin File:Luco.jpg, View from the Luxembourg Gardens File:Palais Luxembourg Sunset Edit.JPG, At sunset File:luxembourg palace panorama.jpg, Panorama of the palace and its gardens File:L'hémicycle du Sénat français en septembre 2009.jpg, Senate chamber File:Escalier d'honneur palais lux1.JPG, Grand staircase File:Luxembourg Palace - 2018-04-07.jpg, View from south File:Palais du Luxembourg (44119496324).jpg, Clock

References

Notes

Sources

* Ayers, Andrew (2004). ''The Architecture of Paris''. Stuttgart; London: Edition Axel Menges. . * BeauxArts éditions (2012), ''Palais du Luxembourg'', * Benevolo, Leonardo (1978). ''The Architecture of the Renaissance'', vol. 2. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. . * Collins, Peter (2004). ''Concrete: The Vision of a New Architecture'', 2nd edition. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. . * Hustin, Arthur (1904). ''Le Palais du Luxembourg''. Paris: P. Mouillot
Listings
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

View
at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

External links

"The Luxembourg Palace"
at the website of the

French Senate The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 348 senators (''sénateurs'' a ...

{{Authority control 1615 establishments in France Baroque buildings in France Buildings and structures in the 6th arrondissement of Paris Châteaux in Paris French Parliament Gardens in Paris Defunct prisons in Paris Houses completed in 1615 Legislative buildings in Europe Palaces in France Royal residences in France Seats of national legislatures Terminating vistas in Paris Government buildings with domes