Court Life Of The 2nd French E

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY A elanoe at the History of the Tuileries--Louis Napoleon, Prince President Emporor of the French--The Solemn Proclamation of the Second Empire Tb.e Restoration of the Tuileries. Thirty-stx years ago, during that Bloody Week in May, 1871, hen with the fury of despair, the Commune of Paris battled vainly against the army of Versailles, the chief metropolitan lace of the rulers of France was destroyed by fire. Architecturally inferior to the Louvre, though some of its apartments were masterpieces of decoration, it was a massive but not particularly imposing pile. It laid no claim to antiquity. The "te on which it stood was, in the twelfth century, outside Paris, J ffiven over to brick and tile works, whence the name of T ileries -was derived. About 1342 a couple of pleasure-houses re built on the spot, and a hundred and sixty years later these properties were acquired by Louise of Savoy, mother of "F ancis I-> who during her regency in 1525 gave them "for 1"f ** to Jean Tiercelin, master of the Dauphin's household. T"hev subsequently reverted to the crown, and in 1564 Catherine A ' Medici ordered the demolition of the old houses, to make m for a. new royal palace by which she intended to replace +h. Qf Les Tournelles, which, in conjunction with her son, "Francis H- s DEGREESe superstitiously destroyed because her husband, Henri II., had died there from the effects of the lance-thrust he received in a joust with Montgomery. The original design for the palace of the Tuileries was prepared by the famous Philibert Delorme, and the building was entrusted to him and another notable man, Bullant, conjointly. But all at once Catherine stopped the work, and devoted herself to erecting near...