Jardin du Palais Royal

The Jardin du Palais-Royal is a long, rectangular garden enclosed by arcades in the first arrondissement of Paris, a few steps from the Louvre, and it is one of the calmest places in the centre of the city. It is surrounded on three sides by the uniform façades of the Palais-Royal, a complex whose history goes back to the seventeenth century. Cardinal Richelieu had it built in the 1630s as his residence, the Palais-Cardinal, and he left it to the king. Anne of Austria and the young Louis XIV lived here for a time, and the palace passed in 1692 to the Orléans family, who held it until the Revolution.

The present garden and arcades are largely the work of Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, the future Philippe Égalité, who in the 1780s needed money and decided to develop the grounds. He had the architect Victor Louis surround the garden with three-storey buildings with a covered arcade at the ground floor, which he rented out to shops, cafés, gambling houses and theatres. The Palais-Royal became the most fashionable and notorious place in Paris, a centre of commerce, pleasure and politics, where the police had no right of entry since it was private property. It was here, on 12 July 1789, that the young journalist Camille Desmoulins climbed on a table at the Café de Foy and called the crowd to arms, two days before the storming of the Bastille, which makes the garden a place associated with the beginning of the Revolution.

The arcades still hold fine shops and restaurants. One of them, Le Grand Véfour, has served customers since 1784 and keeps its original decoration, and the writers Colette and Jean Cocteau lived in apartments above the garden at different times, leaving their mark on the literary history of the place. The palace itself houses the Ministry of Culture and the Conseil d'État, and is not open to the public, but the garden and the courtyards are open.

Two modern works of art have been added to the garden. In the main courtyard, the Cour d'honneur, the artist Daniel Buren placed in 1986 a field of black and white striped columns of different heights, called Les Deux Plateaux, which caused a debate at first and has since become one of the attractions of the place, a favourite with photographers and with children who like to climb the lower columns. In the garden stand two fountains by the sculptor Pol Bury, made of steel spheres that move in the water. Rows of lime trees, formal lawns and benches fill the garden, and the arcades provide shelter from sun and rain.

The garden is open every day from early morning until late in the evening, with hours that change by season, and entry is free. It is quietest at opening time and in the evening, and it is pleasant in spring and early autumn. Nearby are the Louvre, the Comédie-Française theatre, the covered passages of Paris and the Place des Victoires. The garden suits walkers, photographers and anyone who wants a quiet break in the middle of the city.