Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 297, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1912 — Famous PALAIS ROYAL Dommed [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Famous PALAIS ROYAL Dommed

HAT place Is this? I have IT I never been through it beThey were passing 1 through the Palais Royal as short cut. The speaker was a New Yorker 'who visits Paris every year and stays two months each time because, although he leaves New York fully determined to study other European capitals each year, the charm of Paris holds him captive and he’ Igrudges the few days he has to give to London to obtain a new outfit of c%:hes. Yet this student 1 and lover of

Paris had never seen the Palais Royal, because It Is living Paris that occupies all his interest and the Palais Royal belongs to the past. An attempt was made this year to bring about the resurrection of the palace by moving the bourse to a new building to be erected in its gardens. The bourse has grown too small for the transactions carried -on there. When it was constructed the amount Of securities in France waß about 12,000,000,000 and the total had grown to 118,000,000,000 In 1899, when two new wings were added to the building. The amount has Increased In the last thirteen years to $24,000,000,000 and seems*likely to continue to Increase, and the corporation of stock brokers complains that the operations of its members are hampered for want of space. A plan was drawn up to build a new stock exchange in the gardens of the Palais Royal, now only used by a few children as a playground. Several small, dingy streets (Montpensler, Beaujolals and Radziwill) were to be swept away to give better access to it and two new avenues were to be built, one from the Avenue de l’Opera

and one between the Council of State offices and the Palais Royal. The president of the stockbrokers' corporation approved of the scheme and for a time it seemed as if it was certain to be put into execution. But the city council voted it down, being unwilling ‘to surrender- an open space and not wishing to make, a radical change in a building with which so much of the country’s history is wrapped up. “This Palais Royal,” said the leader of the opposition to the project, “is to Paris almost what St Mark’s square is to Venice.” But although the plan is for the present scotched, it Is not killed, and it is possible that the powerful inter* ests at work in its favor will overcome the sentimental objections of its opponents. The Palais Royal, now deserted and melancholy, wars for hundreds of years the center of Parisian gayetyT business, fashion, gallantry and life. Its history recalls in its origin that of Hampton court, built by Cardinal %olsey. It was commenced in 1629 by Cardinal Richelieu, who bought the old Rambouillet mansion for $19,000,

and the fields and marshes then surrounding it, spending in all some $200,000. On this site hji. built a palace so splendid that, fearing that the king, Louis XIII, would accuse him of being too luxurious, he made a present of it to the king three years before the building was finished. Louis’ widow, Queen Anne of Austria, took up her residence there on his death with her two sons, XIV and the Duke Qf Anjou. The Ilttle king, then four years old, played in the gardens, where a miniature fort was built for him, with ramparts, bastions, moats and redoubts, all complete. Henrietta of France, made a widow by the execution of her husband, Charles I of England, lived in the palace, and later Philip of Orleans, when regent of France during the minority of Louis XV, occupied it. "In the eighteenth century the northern side was the scene of dealings In stocks, in Law’s wonderful schemes —a foretaste of the future that may await the' palace. In 1789 the gardens were a favorite meeting place for the revolutionists, and Camille Desmoulins preached revolt, standing on a table, on the spot where his statue now is placed. With the directory the paliyje, deserted by politicians, became the haunt of gayety again. Pastry cooks and wine sellers occupied the shops and gallantry held sway there. Under the consulate and first empire the palace was full of gambling houses, as readers of Balzac’s “Peau de Chagrin” will remember. Lansquenet and baccarat were played from morning to night, until Lfluis Philippe closed the gambling houses. _ This act was a deathblow to the gayety centered at the Palais Royal. For years it was noted for good and cheap restaurants, but now even that trade has gone and cheap- jewelry shops, postcard sellers and secondhand dealers carry on the only business that exists there. One corner only retains full life. The Palais Royal theater, celebrated for its farces' of a type peculiar to itself, still brings people to the district