jardin du Palais-Royal

About jardin du Palais-Royal

Jardin du Palais Royal is the formal garden at the centre of the Palais-Royal estate in Paris’s 1st arrondissement. The site began as Cardinal Richelieu’s palace and garden, built beside the Louvre in 1634 by architect Jacques Lemercier. After Richelieu’s death, the property passed to the king and became the Palais-Royal; it later served as a residence of the Orléans family and a political centre during the Regency.

The garden is enclosed by the palace’s arcades and uniform façades. The surrounding galleries were created during Louis-Philippe d’Orléans’s late-18th-century development scheme, and their ground floors still contain shops. The garden also records its literary history: the Centre des monuments nationaux describes Colette and Jean Cocteau’s former residences at the estate, with two paths named for them and poem benches carrying quotations. At the adjacent Cour d’Honneur, the surviving side portals face Daniel Buren’s striped columns, installed after the Galerie d’Orléans was demolished in the interwar period.

Practical details

Full address

2, galerie Montpensier, 75001 Paris, France

Sources

• www.monuments-nationaux.fr
• www.monuments-nationaux.fr

Checked 2026-09-02

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