Climbing the 600 steps to the Eiffel Tower's 2nd floor |
On the last morning, with not much time to spare, we decided
to go for a run. While we had seen a few
new corners of Paris this trip, nothing had given me that newly discovered
sense of awe…until this run. We set out
from our Saint Honore apartment dodging people and “merde de chien” (it seems
Parisians don’t clean up after their dogs), and made our way over to Parc Monceau
when what to our wondering eyes did appear but a flock of fellow runners (apparently
a growing sport in France although not to the same numbers of the US) and a
handful of people doing the Parisian version of bootcamp.
As we made our way around the outer circular path, we came
upon an interesting array of monuments – had we stumbled upon some ancient
Roman ruins??? During my travels home I
researched the history of the park – Wikipedia satisfied my curiosity:
The park was established by Phillippe d'Orleans, Duke of Chartres, a cousin of King Louis XVI, fabulously wealthy, and active in
court politics and society. In 1769 he had begun purchasing the land where the
park is located. In 1778, he decided to create a public park, and employed the
writer and painter Louis Carrogis Carmontelle to design the
gardens, which was was finished in 1779. It contained a miniature Egyptian
pyramid, a Roman colonnade, antique statues, a pond of water lilies, a tatar
tent, a farmhouse, a Dutch windmill, a temple of Mars, a minaret, an Italian
vineyard, an enchanted grotto, and "a gothic building serving as a
chemistry laboratory," as described by Carmontelle.
While The Duke was a supporter of the
ideas of the French Revolution, and even voted, as a member
of the Assembly, for the execution of his own cousin, Louis XVI,
it did not save him. He was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793, and the park was nationalized.
After the monarchy was restored, the park
was restored to the family of the Duke. In
1860 the park was purchased by the city, and in August 1861 Parc Monceau became
the first new public park in Paris to be remade by Baron Haussmann as part of the grand transformation of Paris begun by
Emperor Louis Napoleon.
There have been some remarkable events at this site. In 1797, it was the site of the first silk parachute jump, when Andre-Jacque Garnerin jumped from a Montgolfier hot air balloon, landing in the park where a large crowd was gathered. In 1871, following the downfall of Louis
Napoleon, and the subsequent uprising and then crushing of the Paris Commune,
the park was the site of a massacre of Communards by army troops. Claude Monet painted a series of three paintings of the park in the spring of 1876 and two
further paintings in 1878.