Paris - Parc Monceau - 8me

 Plate LXXX – Parc Monceau… 

I can still recall the date, and even the time, of my arrival at the gates of Parc Monceau. I recall the fact that the usually bustling Metro and the very streets of Paris, were unusually quiet this day as I made my way towards upper part of the arrondissement. I recall too that the Rotunda entrance to the Parc was decidedly closed at what I understood was opening time. It was September 25^th. For those who do not live in a country where daylight savings takes place (as I do not) you would never expect to wake up with your pre-set alarm and expect to find the day a full hour younger than you expected find it – if you get my meaning. September 25^th was the date on which Parisians (and much of Europe) set their clocks and watches backwards by one hour – it becomes winter time - and the somehow noticeably different skies of the morning should have informed me that something was changed.  I did not notice the disparity between my watch and the city clocks throughout the day, and it was not until late afternoon when the Palais Luxembourg did not close at the time I expected it to do so, that I discovered what exactly that difference was.

Public property after the execution of its founder during the Revolution, the gardens of the Parc Monceau were first established in 1769 by the Duke of Chartres who, Anglophile that he was, requested landscaper Louis Carmontelle to create an English styled design. This implied randomly placed statuary along curved pathways and less formality than was found in typical Parisian gardens of the time.

Immortalised in a series of paintings by Monet, the Parc is today a semi-private estate with the city having purchased the land in 1860. This led to a redesign of the grounds by Thomas Blaikie, but many of Carmontelle’s original features remain. Baron Haussman, in his redesign of the city, preserved some half of the area as green space the remainder being allocated for private housing with direct twenty-four hour access to the gardens.

The first recorded silk parachute jump took place from a hot air balloon over the Parc in 1797, and “la semaine sanglante” in 1871 saw a massacre of Paris Communards in the Parc’s grounds at the hands of the troops of Napoleon III. The tranquil hour or so I spent wandering through the grounds of what I found to be one of the city’s most attractive open spaces with its statues of public figures and musicians gave no hint of that horror.

Paris - Tuileries Gardens - 1er

Plate VII - Tuileries Gardens - towards the Grande Louvre

One of the first places I head for when revisiting Paris is the oldest and largest of the Parisian public parks, the Tuileries Gardens. Nothing could make anyone feel more immediately French than a cheese baguette or croque monsieur and a good Burgundy wine taken in the convivial surroundings of the gardens.

Originally the setting of the Tuileries Palace, the gardens that remain hint at what was to be enjoyed with a royal lifestyle. Destroyed by fire during the Paris Commune on May 23, 1871 the palace was named after the ‘tuiles’ or roof tile kilns (tuileries) that operated for many years near the site. The gardens are still largely as laid out in 1664 by landscaper Henry le Notre with fountains and pathways, and many statues have been placed around the grounds while the vision of the Grande Louvre becomes a completed reality.

The acres (some 60 or more) of limestone gravel found here started me on an unusual habit of collecting an interesting piece of stone at each place I have visited. This stone collection that now covers many places of interest in Europe, the UK, America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East all started right here in the Tuileries Gardens. I can still recall the origin of each piece. I will occasionally succumb to a local curio (‘No more stuff’, my wife’s voice echoes in my mind), but mostly these stones along with many enduring images are my souvenirs, and best of all … they’re free.