Les Tuileries

A spring morning in Paris' most famous garden.

05/10/2005
Les Tuileries
I was unpacking my suitcase from my first trip to Paris. It was the end of August, that brief period of suspended animation between the end of summer and the beginning of fall. I was in a fragile mood--full of nostalgia already for the city where I'd just spent three delicious weeks, and unwillingly contemplating how to face another year of Indiana. My shoes were the last thing left in the suitcase, and taking them out was like resigning myself to the finality that my trip was over.

Reluctantly, I pulled the shoes out of their cloth bag. They were covered with a film of grayish-white powder. Peering at the shoes, I remembered that I had last worn them in the Tuileries. That powder was the dust of its August-dry paths. I had the dust of the Tuileries on my shoes! That thought made feel so sentimental that unconsciously, I never cleaned them until I once more had a ticket to Paris waiting like a wish in my desk drawer.

When I visited this quintessentially Parisian garden on a recent spring morning, the dust of its paths had been subdued by rains. Shallow puddles reflected a changeable spring sky--full of dark gray clouds one minute and brilliant blue sunshine the next. It was somewhere between ten and eleven in the morning, and the Tuileries were waking up, getting ready for another day in the life of Paris' oldest park. Its long vistas, stretching from the Louvre in the east to the Place de la Concorde in the west, were still mostly empty of people.

I had been reminded that I needed to write about this garden when I had passed by one of its entrance gates the week before. I was in a hurry and had no time to wander its paths, but caught only a glimpse of brilliant pink tulips incandescing in the spring sun. The image was so Paris--so spring--that I vowed to get back before the ephemeral tulips were gone. I had to wait a bit for a transient moment of similarly brilliant light to light them up as they were in my memory of that day the week before.

Part of the power of the Tuileries is the sense of place that comes from the place having existed for so long. When I consider the age of this garden and all the human lives that have wandered through it, I feel at once less important than a fly, and strangely honored to be one of this almost timeless multitude. From the 12th century, this historic space was occupied by roof-tile factories (hence the name, Les Tuileries) that were surrounded by pumpkin fields. Francois Ier wanted to build a luxurious palace there, but his grandiose plans were never realized. Then, in 1564, Catherine de Médicis constructed a palace on the site, and surrounded it with extensive Florentine-inspired gardens.

In 1664, the legendary landscape designer André LeNôtre was commissioned by Louis XIV to redesign the garden. It was opened to the public for the festival of St.-Jean (the summer solstice) and so became Paris' first public park. Under Louis XV, the park became home to the first of many of the classic statues which still inhabit it today.

The latest 'relooking' of the park took place from 1991 to 1996, when landscape architect Louis Benech and others gave it a thorough overhaul, while of course conserving its classic features. The park as it exists today is a typically French, quixotic blend of old and classic with ultra-modern, high-tech, and sometimes simply kooky. For instance, the apparition in red (photo below right) is a "sculpture" that is part of what I believe is supposed to be a children's garden. I say "supposed" because it is fenced off with a squiggly iron fence painted turquoise blue. I'm not sure when this item--which reminds me somehow of those unfortunate "Bottoms-up" midwestern lawn gags--made its appearance, but I'm going to guess it was during the Mitterand years.

The Tuileries fortunately has sculptures for every taste, including 18 exquisite statues by Maillol in the Carrousel du Louvre, as well as many other works both classic and contemporary. One of my favorites is a life-size sculpture of a fallen tree, which is situated in the midst of a semi-wild garden of mingled groundcovers and small shrubs. I first saw this work shortly after the huge windstorm of December 1999, and for a moment I wasn't sure whether it was storm damage or sculpture.

One thing that I find especially endearing about Paris' parks and gardens is that many of them include a potager (vegetable garden), and the Tuileries is no exception. When I visited, strawberries were blooming and a glass cloche was protecting a tender seedling (photo below right). To me, the ever-presence of the humble potager in even the most elegant and classical surroundings bears testament to the fundamental and essential place in the French consciousness of the food garden. As someone who has managed to have a potager of some sort almost everywhere I've lived since the age of 18, I can relate to that sense of primacy.

Of course, ever since Louis XIV opened the Tuileries to the public, the garden's main role has been as a place to host human interaction...or inaction. Perhaps no other garden is as magnificently attentive to the demands of whiling away the hours. Benches abound, and the long allees of horse chestnut trees create inviting patterns of light and shade--shelters for games of checkers, animated discussions, quiet reading, or simply the fine art of doing nothing at all. There is a large population of metal chairs which, miraculously, you are allowed to drag around to suit yourself--whether it's sunbathing alone or chatting in a gregarious group. On this particular morning, groupings of chairs bore mute testament to the previous day's social constellations.

I relished the sense of being in the Tuileries as the garden was just waking up. I saw a worker dragging out a large stand-alone sign announcing "Toilettes" in huge letters, an incredibly humane gesture in a city where public toilets are usually ingeniously hidden from the uninitiate. And, in an ultimately Parisian gesture of indulgence for children, another, less obvious sign announces that the toilets are free for those less than 12 years of age.

Actually, Paris is a very child-oriented city, and the Tuileries proves no exception. Like all Paris parks, it is furnished with a wonderful carrousel, surrounded with chairs where proud mothers can watch their mounted charges go round. I saw a handler leading out a mixed string of ponies and donkeys, which will be on hand all day long for thrilling pony rides. One of them was hauling a bucket and broom, to be used to instantly sweep unsightly droppings from the immaculate paths.

I realized the park was waking up when, walking in the dark shade under the chestnut allees, I was almost bowled over by a sudden invasion of toddlers squealing with excitement, bursting through the trees like an army of agitated dwarves. The playground is furnished with lots of unusual equipment which would probably be considered lawsuit material in the U.S., but which French children seemingly enjoy without mishap. I spent many pleasant moments watching mothers playing as happily as their children.

Like American public parks, the Tuileries has its share of joggers, but most people come for quieter pursuits. The smooth, flat gravel spaces are perfect for slow-paced games of pétonque, that inimitably French bowling sort of game whose rules seem inpenetrable to American observers. Old ladies stroll decorously arm-in arm (bras dessus-bras dessous). Nannies chat on benches while their charges play toddler games. And, as everywhere in Paris, dogs lead their own well-regulated social lives.

The park's many fountains are favorite places to sunbathe in warm weather, or just to admire the sparkling jets of water on a cool morning. And of course, reading the paper in a leisurely way is always a time-honored Tuileries pursuit.

As you traverse the Tuileries from east to west, you'll have to do a lot of crossing back and forth and winding around to discover all it has to offer. Just as you approach the esplanade of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk glinting gold in the sun, you might miss one of the park's best-kept--and for a gardener--most interesting secrets: the Monum bookstore, dedicated exclusively to books on gardening, botany, landscape, and related topics. And in a special tip of the hat to tourists, there are a surprising number of works in English and other languages as well. The store is ingeniously hidden in a sort of bunker on the north side of the west entrance to the garden. With consummately French commercial discretion, the only indication that you're about to discover a hidden treasure is this:

Jeanne, this one's for you!

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