This matched pair stand at the entrance to the
Tuileries gardens. They are by Coysevox and
represent Fame and Mercury on horseback.

Fame is the one with the ankle-warmers.

The gardens were commissioned in 1664 as an
addition to the palace originally built by who else
but that enthusiastic Palace-builder Catherine de
Medicis.

The gardens were designed by Andre le
Notre who later on was to design
Versailles and there is a bust of Le
Notre by Coysevox just inside the gates.

The Grande Allee runs in a straight line
towards the old Palace but as in all Paris
parks there are so many diversions the
walk could take quite a while. First up is
the huge octagonal pond,reminiscent of
the Luxembourg, where huge carp feed
and is always surrounded by people
sitting as close as they can to the water.

Le Notre was the foremost garden
designer of his day and most of the
Palaces in Europe have blatantly
copied his designs. Capability Brown
came to Paris to study his designs
and many of the great Houses of
England have borrowed from his
ideas. The statue in Liverpool is just
one proof of the high regard in which
he is held in Great Britain.

The first time I saw a Joan Miro totem pole in the
courtyard of the German Embassy I did a double-
take. It was the first time I had ever seen Modern
Art placed within the setting of an ancient building.

But it worked - and since that time I have noticed
all over Paris the same audacious mixture.

The Tuileries is no different. There are statues
everywhere with an eclectic mix of modern and
classical and they are placed very cleverly among
the trees and on the lawns so as to catch the eye
at every turn.

The two you see here are by Maillol - the lady at the top
is checking out her deodorant while the girl on the right
is practising sitting-down Tai-Chi.

There are copies of Rodin bronzes and like so many
gardens in Paris they can be construed as open air
sculpture parks.

The statue of LeNotre on the right

would look great in the Tuileries
gardens but is actually situated in
front of the Palm House in Sefton
Park, Liverpool. So, eat your heart
out Paris.

One of the most distinguishing features of Paris is that no matter
where you go you can guarantee that the place has had some
historical connotations or was frequented by the great and the
good. This 1862 representation of the Tuileries by Edouard
Manet is not a great deal different today apart from the crinolines
and cravats. Baudelaire is in the painting as well as Offenbach
and Manet would often do a Hitchcock and paint himself in ---so
he is in there somewhere also.

The gardens were quite a different place to Louis the Sixteenth when he would stroll in the
autumn sunshine of 1792. "The leaves are falling early this year" he said to the Dauphin. He
went to the scaffold in January 1793.

I was once in Paris when the avant garde artist Christo was in town.
If you are not familiar with Christo's art then it should be explained
that he chooses an object, usually of gigantic proportions and covers
it with canvas whereupon the chosen object assumes a totally
different guise altogether. Once he had covered a whole Pacific
Island but that year he had chosen the Pont Neuf.

Never having seen this before I asked a waiter why the Pont Neuf
was covered in wrapping. After a moments thought he said " C'est
peut-etre un cadeau pour quelqu'un" which I thought was a beautiful
example of French sang-froid - n'est ce pas ? .

The Tuileries gardens proper end at this
point, although many people think that they
continue right up to the Louvre. The
following page will explain the difference.