Quartier du Carrousel
The Quartier du Carrousel was a Parisian district that stretched between what is now the Cour Carrée des Louvre and the former Palais des Tuileries .
It was essentially structured by three streets running in a north-south direction: Rue Fromenteau, Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre and Rue Saint-Nicaise. In the south the Rue des Orties ran alongside the Grande Galerie, in the north today's Rue Saint-Honoré. The traces of the quarter have completely disappeared, only in the naming of various localities and monuments one can still guess the former existence of precisely that district ( Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel , Place du Carrousel, Pont du Carrousel). The quarter was named after the famous Carrousel (equestrian parade), which Louis XIV had organized in front of the Tuileries Palace in 1662.
For a long time the area west of the Louvre had been rural. Only with the erection of the wall, which is commonly attributed to Charles V , did the settlement intensify. With the construction of the Tuileries Palace by Catherine de Medici and the subsequent expansion of the Louvre and the Grande Galerie under Henry IV around 1600, the quarter also became attractive for higher social classes and the nobility - the Chambre bleue of the Marquise de Rambouillet became particularly famous , where famous personalities of the time met.
From Heinrich IV. And his grand desein , there were repeated attempts to demolish large parts of the quarter in order to connect the Louvre core building with the Tuilerie Castle. During the revolution , the guillotine was first placed on the Place du Carrousel , before the Place de la Concorde was finally chosen. In addition, a monument in the form of a pointed column was erected on the same square in memory of Marat.
After the assassination attempt against Napoleon in the Rue Saint-Nicaise on December 24th, 1800, he decided to build the northern wing of the Louvre up to the present Pavillon de Rohan, which at the same time involved extensive demolition work. Ultimately, however, it was Napoleon III. , which connected the Louvre and the Tuileries Castle to the north and removed the last remains of the Quartiers du Carrousel. In the end, only the Hotel de Nantes had withstood the expropriation commission on the wide esplanade.
The subterranean traces of the district were exposed for a short time in the course of archaeological excavations during the reign of Mitterrand .
literature
- Geneviève Bresc-Bautier (ed.): Le quartier du Louvre au XVIIe siècle. Archeology du Grand Louvre . Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-7118-4204-5 ( Les dossiers du Musée du Louvre 59), (Exhibition catalog, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Salle de la Maquette, Aile Sully 15.3. – 31.12. 2001).
- Françoise Brunet-Villatte: Les jardins du Carrousel (Paris). De la campagne à la ville. La formation d'un espace urbain . Sous la direction de Paul VanOssel. Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-7351-0796-5 ( Documents d'archéologie francaise - Archeologie préventive 73).
- Éric Hazan : The Invention of Paris. No step is in vain . Ammann, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-250-10485-X .
- Jacques Hillairet: Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris . 2 volumes. 4th edition. Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1964.