Palais-Royal

From Cardinal's palace to public garden

Built between 1633 and 1639 by the architect Jacques Lemercier as the Palais-Cardinal, the residence of Cardinal Richelieu, it passed to the crown on his death in 1642 and took the name Palais-Royal. The young Louis XIV lived here as a child before moving the court to Versailles, and the palace later belonged to the Dukes of Orléans. In the 1780s Louis Philippe d'Orléans enclosed the garden with the uniform arcaded galleries lined with shops and cafés, turning it into the liveliest public promenade of pre-Revolutionary Paris — it was here, on 12 July 1789, that Camille Desmoulins leapt onto a café table and called the crowd to arms, two days before the Bastille fell.

The arcades, the columns and the Comédie-Française

Today the Cour d'Honneur holds Daniel Buren's Les Deux Plateaux (1985–86), an installation of 260 black-and-white striped columns of varying height that has become one of the most photographed courtyards in Paris. Behind it, the arcaded Galerie de Valois and Galerie de Montpensier frame a quiet formal garden and shelter antique dealers, perfumers and the historic restaurant Le Grand Véfour. At the southern end stands the Comédie-Française, France's national theatre, founded in 1680; the writer Colette spent her last years in an apartment overlooking the garden.

Good to know before you go

The garden, the courtyard and the arcades are free and open every day, with hours that shift by season; the palace buildings themselves house state institutions and are not open to visitors. It is one of the most peaceful corners of central Paris — a shortcut worth taking between the Louvre and the grands boulevards.