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The Park

Photo: The Park The garden party traditionally given by the President after the July 14 parade is held in the Palace gardens. Originally, in 1720, the gardens of the Comte d'Evreux's town house were drawn to a regular design.

ElysÃ © e palace map The Regent, the Duc d'OrlÃ © ans, was invited to inaugurate the residence on December 14, 1720. He suggested that the grounds be enlarged. So the regular, French-style garden was modified, with a semi-circle at its southern end, as it stands today. The Marquise de Pompadour completely altered this arrangement, though retaining the central flowerbeds and lawns.

When he bought the Palace in 1773, the banker Nicolas Beaujon found the garden too regular for his taste, so he commissioned his architect, BoulÃ © e, to create an English-style garden (then in fashion). To impart a sense of movement to the grounds, which he thought too flat, he ordered winding paths to be laid, and a stream, called the Serpentine, was added.

The central flowerbeds and lawns disappeared, to be replaced by clumps of trees adorned with statues. The Duchesse de Bourbon turned the park into a landscaped garden. Murat, and subsequently Napoleon I, left the garden intact, although the architect Fontaine added an islet to it.

At the end of the 19th century, a monumental iron gate, known as the Grille du Coq (The Rooster Gate), designed by the architect Adrien Chancel, was erected at the bottom of the garden, along the Avenue Gabriel. Until recently, the overriding impression created by the grounds was of a vast, incurving lawn, surrounded by clumps of trees. Since 1991, the clumps have been reconfigured and planted with new species of trees, producing a greater variety of blossoms, giving an added sense of movement and above all pleasure, to the garden. Finally, fountains â€“ something the park had singularly lacked â€“ have been introduced to bring it to life.