Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden is defined by a rigid, symmetrical grid of gravel paths, manicured lime trees, and wide basins that separate the Louvre from the Place de la Concorde. Catherine de Medici commissioned these grounds in fifteen sixty-four to accompany her new palace, modeling the layout on the formal gardens of her native Florence. During the French Revolution, the palace was burned, but the garden survived as a public park, where crowds once gathered to watch Jacques Charles launch his hydrogen balloon in seventeen eighty-three.