The lost Palais des Tuileries
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For much of its life, the Palais du Louvre was twinned with the Palais des Tuileries, which stood some 500m to the west. Built in 1559 for Catherine de Médicis shortly after the accidental death of her husband, Henri II, it was a place where she could maintain her political independence while wielding power on behalf of her sickly son, François II. It was apparently Catherine herself who conceived the idea of linking the two palaces by a grande galerie running along the right bank of the Seine, but in 1572 she abandoned the entire project. Tradition has it that she was warned by a soothsayer to "beware of St-Germain" if she wanted to live into old age – the Tuileries lay in the parish of St-Germain l'Auxerrois. It's more likely that the palace's situation just outside the protection of the city walls was the problem, as 1572 was a dangerous year. On 24 August, the bells of St-Germain l'Auxerrois rang out according to a pre-arranged signal, whereupon radical Catholics set about the murder of some 3000 Parisian Protestants, possibly under the secret orders of Catherine herself.It wasn't until forty years after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, under Henri IV, that the two palaces were finally linked, and thereafter the Tuileries superseded the Louvre as a principal home of the royal family. It was here that Louis XVI was kept under virtual house arrest by the revolutionary mob until the sans-culottes finally lost patience on 20 June 1792, breaking in and forcing the king to don the revolutionary red bonnet. The Tuileries was revived under Napoleon, who built the Arc du Carrousel facing its central pavilion, and its status grew still greater under his nephew, Napoléon III, who finally enclosed both royal palaces around a single gigantic courtyard, the whole complex being dubbed the Cité Impérial. This glorious perfection didn't last long: the Tuileries was completely burnt during the Paris Commune of 1871. Today, the Louvre faces only gardens, though they still bear the illustrious Tuileries name.
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