The Théâtre des Tuileries was a theatre in the former Tuileries Palace in Paris. It was also known as the Salle des Machines, because of its elaborate stage machinery, designed by the Italian theatre architects Gaspare Vigarani and his two sons, Carlo and Lodovico. Constructed in 1659–1661, it was originally intended for spectacular productions mounted by the court of the young Louis XIV, but in 1763 the theatre was greatly reduced in size and used in turn by the Paris Opera, the Comédie-Française, and the Théâtre de Monsieur. In 1808 Napoleon had a new theatre/ballroom built to the designs of the architects Percier and Fontaine. The Tuileries Palace and the theatre were destroyed by fire on 24 May 1871, during the Paris Commune.
Plan of the Tuileries Palace with the theatre marked in blue (1756)
Plans of the Salle des Machines from Diderot's Encyclopédie (1772)
Long section of the Salle des Machines
The assassination of Jean-Bertrand Féraud in the National Convention, 1795
The Tuileries Palace was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henry IV to Napoleon III, until it was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871.
The Tuileries Palace from the Solférino bridge, between 1858 and 1863 approx.
The Tuileries Palace (bottom) and its garden, in plan engraved by Matthieu Merian in 1615
The Tuileries Palace in the 1600s
The old medieval Louvre (background) and the Tuileries (foreground) linked by the Grande Galerie along the River Seine, in 1615