Luco: the history of the Luxembourg garden

Luco(s) means sacred wood in ancient Gaellic. The Luxembourg garden is a man-made natural light-box whose inception took enormous human sacrifice, as history and archaeological evidence demonstrate.

How did it all begin? Originally Druids performed sacred rites here in the woods. Thus it's not surprising to be called Luco, a Latin term coined by students of the Latin quarter and the Sorbonne.

The Luxembourg garden rises 40-50 meters above the water-level of the Seine, to the west of the montagne Saint Genevieve, where the Pantheon stands today and 2000 years ago stood the Forum.

The deepest well discovered in the Luxembourg garden goes 28,5 meters down. Julius Caesar called the gently sloping hill mont Leucotitus, after the Leuci, a Gaulish tribe originally from Toul, near the grand duchy of Luxembourg.

Before the Parisii, a different Gaulish tribe, arrived around 300 BC, and settled on the current ile de la Cité, Leucotitus was a strategic vantage point overlooking the Seine from a safe distance. The banks of the river and ile de la Cité that later became the bastion of Paris, were still marshland.

The Romans named it Lutetia, which comes from "marshland" in Gaulish - in French marais. The Parisii were the first to fortify the present ile de la Cité with pole housing, palisades and wooden bridges which they burned once the Roman legions came to conquer in 52 BC.

The Parisii's resistance, however, broke down when their chief Camulogène was slain by the troops of Labiénus, who drew the Gaulish warriors into a merciless battle that most likely took place on the Luxembourg plane at sunset.

The Pax Romana introduced architects, masons, and engineers of waterworks whose aqueducts fed Lutetia's baths, homes and fountains with clean running water. On Leucotitus the Romans built the first stone housing from local quarries of exquisite limestone, temples, and barracks for their centurions, and later on luxurious villas, public baths, the Forum, and a theater at the location of the theatre de l'Odéon.

Lutetia became a kind of French Tivoli, a replica of the exceptional classical city built by emperor Hadrian that combined the best cultural elements of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and was destined to become an ideal city.

The Romans planted vines and fig trees on Leucotitus. The main Roman highway south to Lyon - the Via Antiqua (now the boulevard Saint Michel and rue Saint Jacques) - ran past the luscious grounds of the Luxembourg. Another road branched off east towards Valgirard and Dreux, which later became the rue Vaugirard.

Life was peaceful and pleasant for several centuries until the vandals came from the east on a rampage, pillaging, looting, and devastating what they encountered. Applying their scorched earth tactic they left Lutetia in ruins. The rich buried their treasures on Leucotitus, some which were discovered in 1838 at the Orangerie, and in 1860 by the rue de Medicis when the Medicis fountain was moved.

Their owners had either been killed or died before they could recover their fortunes. In the VI century Lutetia was named Paris by Clovis who was the first Gaulish king to be christened. Paris became the capital of the kingdom of France. In 508 Clovis fulfilled his promise to build a church on Mont Leucotitus where Saint Genevieve, who saved the Parisians from starvation under the siege of the Huns, lay buried.

During the early middle ages the resilient vines spread over Leucotitus and the Luxembourg was called vallis viridis or Valvert (from vallis - hollow, and verdere - green). The wine was expensive but acid, turning quickly into vinegar. Valvert was divided into vineyards - clos Vigneray, clos Saint Sulpice, clos Bourgeois, and there was even a trail called sentier du pressoir - wine-press trail - leading to the abbey of Saint Germain, founded in 745.

Saint Germain des prés was a sprawling farming community to which Valvert was attached as the faulxbourg Saint Germain, or the suburbs. But then again the Normans, known as Vikings, invaded in tidal waves during the IX century. They sailed their flat bottomed ships up the Seine to Paris laying siege to the city entrenched on the island. They discharged their fury on both rives, killing, raping, looting, burning, and wrecking buildings and churches.

A century later the pious king Robert II (970-1031) had a pleasure castle built for his retirement in Valvert. Neglected by his successors, it was squatted by highway robbers as their repair.

From 1190 to 1220 king Philippe-Auguste raised a fortified wall around Paris that excluded Valvert, leaving it outside the city gates at the mercy of bandits and marauding armies. The superstitious population of the middle ages identified the chateau Valvert with the devil's residence, coining the legendary expression le Diable Valvert (from the devil in the green).

The boulevard Saint Michel outside the city gates was called rue d'Enfer, implying that it was a road straight through hell. Perhaps with the intention to drive the devil out, king Louis IX, the saint, invited the Carthusians to move into the chateau Valvert in 1257. They were granted permission to build a cloister and a church, which was finished in 1325. Saint Bruno's monks prospered in quiet meditation and prayer. They labored the land, dug wells, built a windmill, and took on wealthy citizen who wished peaceful retirement and burial on their sacred grounds. As a consequence the rest of Valvert was partitioned into smaller properties that sparked a real estate boom.

Princes and the rising bourgeoisie competed to build their stately hotel particulier in this paradise. In the XVI century the financial counselor to the crown Alexandre de La Tourette began building his hotel particulier on rue Vaugirard. His debts, however, as well as a golden chain owed to a Monsieur de Harley worth 724 livres, were his perdition. La Tourette was condemned to two years in the Conciergerie prison, and the unfinished palace assigned to Harlay's widow, Madame de Harlay, as compensation estimated at 6000 livres.

Although La Tourette promised to redeem his debts, and even charmed Mme. de Harlay into letting him move back once he was released from prison, he was unable to fulfill his pledge. The widow sold the unfinished building in 1570 to the elegant ambassador duc François de Luxembourg for 7500 livres tournois.

François de Luxembourg finished the palace, decorated it sumptuously, and till his last days avidly acquired property to expand his park which eventually reached to the rue d'Enfer and bordered the walls of the Carthusian's in the south, covering the center of Valvert.

A frequent visitor of François de Luxembourg's social events was no less than Henri IV's wife, Marie de Medicis. Her son, the future king Louis XIII, played and hunted in the Luxembourg park during his childhood. Marie was charmed by the healthy air and the lush greenery which was the antithesis to her Paris residence, the Louvre palace, whose lugubrious architecture was an offense to her Florentine sensitivities, and the stinking moat floating with refuse and occasional corpses cause of repeated dysentery and depression.

Another neighbor on rue Vaugirard was Lorenzo Stornato whose reputable Ville de Bresce restaurant was the meeting point of the Florentine community. Across the street at 10, rue de Tournon, lived her childhood friend, Leonora Galagai, with her husband Concini. At their sumptuous home Marie attended concerts, dabbled in necromancy, concocted perfumes, and plotted her dream project.

King Henri IV's assassination by Ravaillac on May 14, 1610 sealed the fate of the Luxembourg.

The day before she'd been consecrated queen of France, putting her in charge of the state. It was the turning point in Marie's life. She seized the opportunity to burst into an effervescent activity to substitute for her grief and realize her dream. Henri IV's death propelled Marie de Medicis into the center of a web of political intrigues for the succession and she capitalized from the chaos.

The Louvre's atmosphere became unbearable, hallways and back-rooms were nests of conspiracy. She fled to Fontainebleau from where she could reign quietly over her son Louis XIII who was only 9, until his coming of age and consecration in 1614. Besides ruling France, Marie became the chief architect of her private dream. Marie must have been aware that she only had 4 years left to benefit from unfettered freedom, wielding unlimited royal power and wealth, to accomplish a project of gigantic proportions in the tradition of her ancestors, at the best location of Paris, the Luxembourg. She budgeted the cost at 200 000 Ecus (600000 livres), most of it from her own pension and dowry, but short of money she borrowed from her servants, if the royal treasury or bankers refused her. Her dream was grandiose, and her ambition knew no limits.

She used and abused everyone with her intuitive command to attain her goal. Now she just needed a strategy and a plan to carry it out. The first step was to obtain the hotel de Luxembourg. Her aging friend François de Luxembourg sold it for 30000 Ecus (90000 livres) in a promissory note in September 1611. The contract was signed the following year, but she immediately started moving in and fixing it up.

Her idea was to build a larger palace next doors, where the hotel Champrenard stood, and join both buildings. In October she wrote her aunt in Florence, urgently requesting detailed plans of the Pitti Palace where she'd grown up. She chose Salomon de Brosse, the finest architect of the day, asking for 4 galleries to hang paintings, and in the park, a round marble fountain of 18 meters with a bronze Triton fountain head holding a fish in its mouth spouting water. She thought of the rehabilitation of the Roman aqueducts that would bring water from Rungis to Saint Germain and feed the fountains of her dream park.

In October 1612 she ordered 2000 elm saplings from Doullens and Orléans, 600 of which were delivered in November to be planted in the hotel de Luxembourg garden. Simultaneously she sent her team of agents out to claim all properties of Valvert at the best prices, since royal expropriation was illegal.

Only the Carthusians were reluctant and recalcitrant to sell. Their property lay diagonally in the way of the oval lay out of the intended park extending to the south. The monks were unwilling to move or even give up part of their property, fearing the queen's garden parties and ribaldry would distract from their peace and prayers.

The park was extended to the east in a hasty redesign, but a corner of the Carthusian's garden still butted in.

The Carthusians finally ceded under cardinal Richelieu's pressure a decade later, exchanging part of their garden for a larger orchard Marie owned on rue d'Enfer, and requesting the reconstruction of a windmill, and the raising of a high wall to keep the immorality in the park concealed from their eyes and ears.

As soon as Marie acquired the hotel Champrenard, de Brosse started demolishing all the buildings on her property with the exception of the hotel de Luxembourg, where Marie was living with her children, and de Brosse had a room.

Digging the foundations an ancient metal sculpture of a Mercury was unearthed. 5-6 inches tall, described as Mercurius redivivus, it was a Roman god of commerce, eloquence, travel, cunning and theft who served as messenger of other gods. It was a curious omen that unfortunately got lost to posterity. A silver replica found in 1860 is still in the Louvre.

The founding stone was laid in April 1615. It was a moving ceremony since nobody present had any idea how things would eventually turn out. It was also the time her son, king Louis XIII, had come of age. Marie started losing control of state affairs.

In 1617 her minister and influential friend Concini was murdered on the king's order. Marie was exiled to Blois, escorted by Richelieu, who became her personal treasurer and secretary. From Blois she eagerly followed the construction of her palace with Richelieu's assistance, while he kept the king informed of Marie's intentions and moves.

Even from the distance of Blois, or fleeing down the Loire river, she relentlessly drove the Luxembourg project forward. In 1619 Marie finally reconciled with Louis XIII in Tours through Richelieu's skilled intervention. Louis XIII paid her debts of nearly 2 million livres and let her return to Paris.

Work at the Luxembourg was delayed by the lack of qualified masons which lead to a quarrel with de Brosse, who was replaced by Richelieu as maitre de chantier to speed up the construction. On the 26 February 1622 Rubens came to Paris to sign a contract for 24 large sized paintings that were to represent the history of the illustrious queen on one side, and in another gallery the battle of Henry the Great, to be delivered in 2 years.

The inauguration of the palace took place on May, 16, 1625 in honor of Marie's 14 year old daughter marrying Charles I of England in Paris. The guests were stunned by Ruben's fabulous allegories. But for Marie de Medicis it was her first and last great party at the Luxembourg, with fireworks, and all the musical and theatrical spectacles of those days, even though the park was not quite finished. As a reward for his services, Marie de Medicis donated the hotel de Luxembourg, now described as Petit Luxembourg, to Richelieu in 1927.

But soon a dispute erupted between Marie and Richelieu's niece, Madame de Combalet, who had moved into the Petit Luxembourg. Her rival of sorts, Marie wanted her to leave. But the Combalet refused, and Marie demanded the restitution of her Petit Palais. The donation contract, however, presented two major flaws: the price to be paid for the restitution was the same she had paid for the entire hotel de Luxembourg, 90000 livres, vastly raising the real value of the property; second, the restitution did not belong to her, but the king of France.

She denounced the contract as forgery, but neither the king, nor Richelieu were willing to comply to her wishes. From then on Marie's relation to Richelieu, who had become cardinal and principal minister of the state, deteriorated. Marie concluded that their personal and political conflict could only be resolved by removing Richelieu. In French history the event that determined the final decision taken by Louis XIII is known as la journée Des dupes.

It was the year the grotto of Medicis, now known as the Medicis fountain, whose duplicitous basin may have been designed by Rubens, was installed. In the morning of the 10th of November 1630 she received the king alone in her boudoir of her palace. After carefully locking all doors she implored Louis XIII to dismiss Richelieu whose reputation, she assured, was ruining the nation. Perhaps Louis XIII would have been persuaded by his mother, had not Richelieu appeared like a ghost through an unlocked door leading from his hotel particulier through the chapel into her bedroom that only he knew, since he had built the palace.

He humbly knelled down declaring he was sorry to hear such calumny, but if it was true, he was ready to resign. His cunning and neglect of protocol sent Marie into a hysteric fit that frightened her son who fled the scene upset and angry. Marie still believed that she had convinced her son, but in the afternoon Richelieu was called to meet the king hunting in Versailles and their bond was forged.

Louis XIII set the interest of the state above the interest of his family. It was the beginning of absolute monarchy, and Marie was the only obstacle. Still believing that she could change his mind, Marie followed Louis XIII with her retinue to Compiegne. But there was no solution to the conflict, and the king resolved to have her exiled.

Marie de Medicis died in Cologne, in 1642, never to see her palace again. The Luxembourg palace (it was never called Medicis palace), including the park, was estimated at 1 170 000 livres after her death. The rest of the history of the Luxembourg is well known. Marie's son Gaston duc d'Orleans inherited it and named it Palace d'Orleans. The famous garden architect Le Notre finished the park that with few exceptions always remained open to the public.

During the Revolution the Luxembourg palace was first used as a prison whose famous inmates included Danton and David. Then it was assigned to house the Senate, and Chagrin named chief architect to rearrange the interior.

He even accomplished to extend the garden to the south once the Carthusians were expropriated, following Salomon de Brosse's original plans. During the grands travaux de Haussman in the IXX century the park was reduced to its present size. The Jardin de Luxembourg always attracted writers, philosophers, poets and painters, and photographers, since with due respect to other great gardens, the Luco is the greatest, and a great restorer of mankind!

©2002 Einar Moos  

P.S. All the research for this article was done in the Bibliothèque André Malraux.