13 Interesting Facts About Tuileries Gardens

Do you want to know some interesting facts about the Tuileries Gardens in Paris?

Situated between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, Jardin des Tuileries, or the Tuileries Gardens, is a public park that has been a place where Parisians go for celebrations, meet-ups, and relaxation since the 19th century.

The Tuileries Gardens were opened to the public in 1667, more than a century since its creation. After the French Revolution, the famous gardens became a public park, which is a delightful place for walking and for a dose of French culture that both Parisians and tourists are welcome to enjoy.

The Tuileries Gardens have two ponds that are perfect for relaxation. You can see Rodin statues standing alongside those of Giacometti and Maillol. In the southwest part of the Tuileries, visitors can admire the works of Monet that are housed in the Musée de l’Orangerie.

The gardens were listed as a historical monument in 1914.

You can enjoy free tours in French if you’re in Paris from March to December. From June to August, Fête des Tuileries is set up in the gardens, where you can enjoy fairground rides and cotton candies.

These and more interesting things to know about the Tuileries Gardens in the following list.

Interesting Facts About the Tuileries Gardens

Here are 13 interesting facts about the Tuileries Gardens worth knowing.

1. The Tuileries Gardens are the largest in Paris.

The gardens cover 55 acres (22.4 hectares), surrounded by the Rue de Rivoli to the north, the Seine to the south, the Louvre to the east, and the Place de la Concorde to the west.

Shaped like a long rectangle, the Tuileries Gardens are a 1.2-mile route, which is equivalent to about 3,000 steps.

2. Catherine de’ Medici built the Palais des Tuileries in 1564.

After the accidental death of her husband, King Henry II, Catherine de’ Medici left the Palais de Tournelles, where the French king had lain dead after getting pierced in his eye and brain in a joust.

In 1563, Catherine decided to build herself a new residence in Paris – an Italianate palace – to replace the Tournelles. The new palace was built on the former site of some tile factories.

3. The Tuileries Gardens were named after these tile factories.

The French tuileries is the feminine plural form of tuilerie, which is translated as “a place for manufacturing tiles.”

The name “Jardin des Tuileries” is derived from the tile factories that had existed on the site since the 13th century, long before the Tuileries palace and gardens were built.

Basically, “Jardin des Tuileries” means “Tile Garden.”

4. For a short time, the Tuileries Gardens were called by another name.

For a short while around the time of the establishment of Le Consulat (“French Consulate”) started under Napoleon Bonaparte, near the end of the French Revolution, the Tuileries Garden was called Le Jardin National or the National Garden.

Le Jardin National served as a place where holidays and events like revolutionary festivals were held.

In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, an influential and controversial figure of the French Revolution, led a ceremony honoring the “Cult of the Supreme Being” in Le Jardin National.

5. The Tuileries Gardens were originally built as an Italian Renaissance garden.

Catherine de’ Medici, being Italian, hired an Italian architect to design the Tuileries Gardens. She wanted an Italian Renaissance garden.

Bernard de Carnessequi, an architect from Florence, and his team created the first version of the gardens in an enclosed space 500 meters by 300 meters, separated from the new palace by a lane. The gardens were divided by six alleys into rectangular sections that were planted with lawns, flower beds, vineyards, kitchen gardens, and quinconces (clusters of five trees).

The Tuileries Gardens were further adorned with a labyrinth, a grotto, fountains, and images of plants and animals made by Bernard Palissy on tin-glazed pottery.

6. The Tuileres Gardens were overhauled to make them look the way they are today.

The Italian-style Tuileres Gardens were surrounded by walls and decorated with splendid folies. However, in 1664, during the reign of King Louis XIV, he commissioned his famous gardener, André Le Nôtre, to overhaul the Tuileries Gardens.

This re-landscaping gave the gardens their French formal garden style that we know today.

7. André Le Nôtre’s grandfather was the landscape architect who initially designed the garden.

Pierre Le Nôtre was first commissioned by Catherine de’ Medici to landscape the gardens. The initial design was his before the Italian Bernard de Carnessequi took over and created the entire gardens, which were redesigned by Le Nôtre’s grandson André a century later.

Incidentally, André’s father, Jean, also worked as a gardener at the Tuileries Gardens.

8. The idea of the Tuileries Gardens opening to the public was conceived by a famous fairy tale writer.

Famous for creating a new literary genre – the fairy tale genre – during his time, Charles Perrault proposed that the Tuileries Gardens be open to the public. Obviously, King Louis XIV heard him and heeded his request.

Charles Perrault is best known for his fairy tale stories, including “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” and “Puss in Boots.”

9. The Tuileries Gardens were the first ever royal garden to open to the public.

Before 1667, royal gardens anywhere in the world were not accessible to the public. The Tuileries Gardens were no exception. They were covered with walls until they were opened as a public park in 1667, making it the first royal garden in history to open to everyone.

When the Tuileries Gardens became open, they were not even finished yet. Hundreds of laborers were continuously working until the gardens were finally completed five years later.

10. King Louis XIV moved out of the Tuileries Palace, abandoning the gardens for 45 years.

The king at the time the Tuileries Gardens were opened to the public, King Louis XIV, got so frustrated with Parisians going in and out of the gardens so he left the Tuileries-Louvre royal residence and moved to Versailles. There he created an even more impressive garden, leaving the Tuileries Gardens ignored for 45 years.

11. The Tuileries Palace was destroyed in a fire and the site of the former palace became part of the Tuileries Gardens.

In 1871, during a period of war and tumult in France, members of the Paris Commune burned the Tuileries Palace with tar and petroleum, leaving a heap of rubbles in the place.

The ruins remained on the site for more than 11 years until the Third Republic finally decided to clear up the rubbles and incorporated the site of the former palace into the Tuileries Gardens.

12. You can see a wide array of garden sculpture in the Tuileries Gardens.

The garden sculptures date back to the period of King Louis XIV’s. However, many of the classical works you can find there are replicas. If you want to see the originals, you can go and enjoy them inside the Louvre Museum.

13. In 2005, the Tuileries Gardens became an official part of the Louvre Museum.

Then French President François Mitterrand launched the Grand Louvre Project in 1981. In 2005, after almost 2.5 decades since the Grand Louvre Project, the Tuileries Gardens became an official part of the Louvre Museum.