Lounging Around The Luxembourg
Left Bank Island of Tranquility and Play
Paris Kiosque - June 1996 - Volume 3, Number 6
Copyright (c) 1996 Richard Erickson - Used with permission.
It is a sunny day on the Left Bank; white cotton-wool clouds
that some people describe as an 'Ile-de-France sky' are dotting
the sky with plenty of blue in between. The 'Quartier Latin' is
roaring away slightly less than usual, when I step into the Luxembourg Gardens.
When I do, it is like stepping into another country, another century.
Here are the trees and there are the benches with people lounging in the
shade, but there are also single chairs, so visitors to the gardens, alone,
in groups, are not all facing one way; they are parked here and there, as
fancy suits them. Older people seem to be sitting along the sunny side of the
pool in front of the Médicis Fountain, while writers are sitting on the shady side.
Many people are taking drinks at one of the kiosks - which have no
defined terraces; you can just pick up an unused chair and bring it
close enough to a waiter to be served - or serve yourself. You hear
the birds, and the nearby street noise is well-muffled. Out from under
the trees, many are on the terrace overlooking the oval pond, getting a
full blast of sunlight and occasional blasts of dust, picked up by transitory
breezes. Some are reading, some are dreaming and a few are fast asleep.
Dreaming is good, because with eyes open it is hopeless to ignore the
Tour Montparnasse, sticking up above the regular height of the apartment
buildings on the rue Guynemer. Sitting with your back to this out-of-place
thing, you sit with your back to the sun.
I wander past the pond and the rental toy sailboats, to see what the
Petit Luxembourg looks like, but it is completely screened by its private
garden so the only thing there is the Delacroix statue group by Dalou.
My 1972 edition of the Michelin Green guide says the gardens are full of 'not
impressive crowds of figures' - but most of these seem to have been removed
sometime in the last 24 years.
A plan on a kiosk directs me to a carrousel, to see what the kids are up
to - but this is completely dwarfed by a large 'activity' park - that is full
of kids; climbing, jumping, swinging, crawling, laughing and having a good
time - for 13 francs entry, while their guardians sit in the shade of a shed
for seven francs. The age limit is 12, and this play-park is open daily from 10
to park closing time.
If your Michelin guide is as old as mine, this play-park is right
beside the old marionette theatre, which is also operating, and I think
movies are shown there as well.
I almost fell into the bee ranch - started here by Carthusians - while
looking for something else - the 'formal' gardens, as opposed to the less
formal 'English' style gardens, which seem to be the norm now - with curving
paths and lots of chairs available for unstressful sitting around doing
nothing - to view vistas of lawns with some flower beds thrown in - as everything
here is - for free.
If I can believe the symbols on the various plans scattered about,
the north-east section of the gardens - along the boulevard St. Michel side - permits
the entry of dogs. I don't know whether this area is set aside because dogs have a
basic right to a park, or so other users will be able to walk in the rest of the
gardens without watching where they step.
Besides a few tennis courts for the Left Bank 'sportifs,' there is an area
where boules are played, near the rue Fleurus entrance on the rue Guynemer side.
This is pretty typical: trees provide shade over three or four sand lots where
men - usually - throw cannon balls at little wooden ping-pong balls or at other
cannon balls. This is another one of those sports where equipment is minimal - you
need only three cannon balls per player - and any piece of ground - and the game
looks deceptively simple to play, but is not.
I suppose there are other things to see in the Luxembourg Gardens,
but the main thing is that it is a big park in Paris where you can
go and sit outside, for free.
Writing this has relaxed me so much that I feel reluctant to go and get the
history books - but if you're paying some charge or other to read this,
I guess I better hold up my end.
This is quite a long story with many names, some of them separated
from their bodies, that I will make short. It starts with the Luxembourg
Palace, at 17, rue de Vaugirard, which started at number 15, when the
Queen, Marie de Médicis bought the hotel du Petit-Luxembourg in 1613.
The Chateau de la Tuleries was not then finished, so Salomon de Brosse was
commissioned in 1615 to build a palace resembling the Pitti Palace in Florence.
Parisians did not accept the name 'Palais Médicis' for the palace and
called it Luxembourg instead.
Queen Marie installed herself in the palace around 1625 after
having some decor done by Rubens; but she had to move out in 1631
to retire to Cologne where she died in abject circumstances in 1642,
aged 69 years. Whole gangs of royals moved in; had to sell or died there; it
was brought and sold and re-sold, until it ended in the hands of the Count of
Provence, Louis XVI's brother - who emigrated suddenly on 20. June 1791.
In 1793 the palace become a prison, the Maison Nationale de Sûreté,
and of the 800 held there - many, many big names - about a third of them lost their
heads; until 1795 when the prison reverted to palace again, to house the Directoire.
In 1800 Citizen Bonaparte turned it into the Sénat, which it has remained until
today, except for the period when it was burned out by the Commune in the 1870's.
The Médicis Fountain is still a hang-out of writers.
As for the gardens, the land for them was obtained by Marie de Médicis in
1617, but did not reach their dimensions of today until 1790. After 1650, the gardens
where used much as they are today, by artists like Watteau, and other writers and painters,
seeking solitude. The Swiss guards, who were looking after the garden's three gates,
augmented their salaries by selling refreshments to visitors and milk was sold from a tent
at the southern end of the park. The monument, the Médicis fountain, was also built
by Salomon de Brosse, in 1620, and was moved slightly south to were it presently is, in
1860 - and it represents Léda sitting by the banks of the Eurotas next to Jupiter,
metamorphosed into a swan.
You may not care for revolutions, but when you consider that the Palace du
Luxembourg has been the seat of the French Sénat more or less continually
since 1800, it makes popular ownership seem more stable than that of the royalty -
even though the park itself was open to the public from the 17th century, long before
the Count of Provence saw need to emigrate hastely on 20. June 1791.
This then brings us to the urgent question of when is somebody going to lop
the top 40 floors off the Tour Montparnasse, to bring the skyline back to into
order? Until this comes to pass, I suggest you take the sun in the Luxembourg
between 10 and noon, so you can face away from it.
Richard Erickson, a Canadian in Paris for the last twenty years, has been putting
Paris online as long as anyone. More of his writings can be found in
Metropole - Paris Online where this
article first appeared.
He can be contacted via
erickso@world-net.sct.fr.
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