1.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
2.
Rue de Vaugirard
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Rue de Vaugirard is the longest street inside Paris walls, at 4.3 km. It spans the 6th and 15th arrondissements, Rue de Vaugirard is mostly a one-way street from the Latin Quarter towards the edge of Paris. Traffic flows in both directions between Rue de Rennes and the Place de lOdéon, numbering starts in the Latin Quarter, reaching the 400s by Porte de Versailles. It is one of the longest streets in Paris, Vaugirard came from an old French noun-and-genitive construction val Girard = valley of Girard, after an Abbé Girard, who owned the land over which the road passes. The road appeared in the 15th century, and led from Philip IIs city walls towards the village of Vaugirard and this route was itself based on an old Roman road. A substantial chunk of Line 12 of the Paris Metro follows Rue de Vaugirard, the following stations have entrances on the road, Porte de Versailles Convention Vaugirard Volontaires Pasteur Falguière Saint Placide
3.
Senate (France)
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The Senate is the upper house of the Parliament of France, presided over by a president. Indirectly elected by elected officials, it represents territorial collectivities of the Republic, the Senate enjoys less prominence than the lower house, the directly elected National Assembly, debates in the Senate tend to be less tense and generally receive less media coverage. Frances first experience with a house was under the Directory from 1795 to 1799. With the Restoration in 1814, a new Chamber of Peers was created, at first it contained hereditary peers, but following the July Revolution of 1830, it became a body to which one was appointed for life. The Second Republic returned to a system after 1848, but soon after the establishment of the Second French Empire in 1852. In the Fourth Republic, the Senate was replaced by the Council of the Republic, with the new constitution of the Fifth Republic enforced on 4 October 1958, the older name of Senate was restored. In 2011, the Socialist Party won control of the French Senate for the first time since the foundation of the French Fifth Republic, in 2014, the centre-right Gaullists and its allies won back the control of the Senate. Until September 2004, the Senate had 321 senators, each elected to a nine-year term and that month, the term was reduced to six years, while the number of senators progressively increased to 348 in 2011, in order to reflect the countrys population growth. Senators were elected in every three years, this was also changed to one-half of their number every three years. Senators are elected indirectly by approximately 150,000 officials, including regional councilors, department councilors, mayors, city councilors in large towns, however, 90% of the electors are delegates appointed by councilors. This system introduces a bias in the composition of the Senate favoring rural areas, the Senate has also been accused of being a refuge for politicians that have lost their seats in the National Assembly. The senators elect a President from among their members, the current incumbent is Gérard Larcher. This happened twice for Alain Poher—once at the resignation of Charles de Gaulle, under the Constitution, the Senate has nearly the same powers as the National Assembly. Bills may be submitted by the administration or by either house of Parliament, because both houses may amend the bill, it may take several readings to reach an agreement between the National Assembly and the Senate. This does not happen frequently, usually the two eventually agree on the bill, or the administration decides to withdraw it. The power to pass a vote of censure, or vote of no confidence, is limited, as was the case in the Fourth Republics constitution, new cabinets do not have to receive a vote of confidence. Also, a vote of censure can occur only after 10 percent of the sign a petition, if rejected. If the petition gets the support, a vote of censure must gain an absolute majority of all members
4.
Germain Boffrand
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Germain Boffrand was a French architect. A pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the creators of the precursor to Rococo called the style Régence. His uncle, Philippe Quinault, introduced him to prospective clients among the aristocracy of Paris, in 1709, he was placed in charge of the interior apartments of the Hôtel de Soubise, where he soon succeeded the architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair. None of his early interiors survive, largely replaced by his spectacular Rococo work of the years following 1735, Boffrand was received by the Académie royale darchitecture in 1709. The following year he was among those employed in the additions to the Palais Bourbon, in 1732, he was appointed inspecteur général des ponts et chaussées and produced plans for restructuring Les Halles. He was a participant in the competition for the design of Place Louis XV, named chief architect to the hôpital général in 1724, he constructed in the Île de la Cité a foundling hospital, the Hôpital des Enfants Trouvés. Boffrand also worked for the hospitals at the Salpêtrière, at Bicêtre and he built a series of hôtels particuliers in Paris as speculative business enterprises. Boffrands pavilion of 1712-15 that inaugurated the new quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré was purchased, abroad, Boffrand worked for the Duke of Lorraine, where he was appointed Premier Architecte to Duke Léopold in 1711, but little of significance remains. He also constructed a fountain and a hunt pavilion, Bouchefort, in the gardens of the schloss belonging to the Elector of Bavaria, in 1724 Boffrand worked on site at Würzburg with Balthasar Neumann, who had been consulting him in Paris, on the Prince-Bishops Residenz. His designs were carried out in the suite of rooms. Among the architects trained in his atelier were François Dominique Barreau de Chefdeville, Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Emmanuel Héré de Corny, Boffrands two sons collaborated in the office, both dying young, in 1732 and 1745. Boffrands folio, Livre darchitecture, was published in 1745, there are no surviving caches of his drawings. In January 1745 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Germain Boffrand died in Paris in 1754 at age 86. The following commissions of Boffrand are largely taken from Fiske Kimball, Hôtel Le Brun,49 rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, for Charles II Le Brun, the nephew and heir of the premier peintre du roi Charles Le Brun and a relative of Boffrands. One of the first hôtels particuliers noted and commended by contemporary critics, remodelling of the Hôtel de Mesme. Remodelling of the Hôtel de Livry, Hôtel de Soubise,60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, and the suite of interiors, Boffrands last major work and his masterpiece, for the prince de Rohan and his wife Marie Sophie de Courcillon. Façade of the Convent of Fathers of Mercy,45 rue des Archives, built for the prince de Soubise to provide a suitable sdtreet front opposite his new hôtel. Renovation for Anne Henriette of Bavaria, princess Palatine, widow of the Henri Jules, much of Boffrands decoration survives, including the staircase with its coved cornices filled with scrolls and foliage and rounded corners
5.
Luxembourg Palace
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The Luxembourg Palace is located at 15 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the residence of the regent Marie de Medici. After the Revolution it was refashioned by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building, since 1958 it has been the seat of the French Senate of the Fifth Republic. Immediately west of the palace on the rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President, and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues, after the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de Médicis, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Marie de Médicis desired to make a similar to her native Florences Palazzo Pitti. Marie de Médicis bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, the suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisers, are scattered among museums. Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued, the apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting. The 24 Marie de Medici cycle canvases, a series commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens, were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967, Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne. In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston, duc dOrléans, who called it the Palais dOrléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name. Upon Gastons death, the passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite dOrléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King Louis XIV, in 1694. In 1715, the became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth dOrleans. The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, the Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the radiantly beautiful princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. According to various songs which scurrilously evoked her amours the Lady of the Luxembourg hid several pregnancies. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalised the court, on 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated
6.
6th arrondissement of Paris
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The 6th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, France. Sulpice Church and square, the Pont des Arts and the Jardin du Luxembourg and it is a major locale for art galleries and one of the most fashionable districts of Paris as well as Paris most expensive area. The new Palace turned the neighborhood into a district for French nobility. The land area of the arrondissement is 2.154 km², in 1999, the population was 44,919 inhabitants while the arrondissement provided 43,691 jobs. Toei Animation Europe has its office in the arrondissement. The company, which opened in 2004, serves France, Germany, Italy, Spain, 6th arrondissement travel guide from Wikivoyage
7.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
8.
Marie de' Medici
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Marie de Medici was Queen of France as the second wife of King Henry IV of France, of the House of Bourbon. She was a member of the wealthy and powerful House of Medici, following the assassination of her husband in 1610, which occurred the day after her coronation, she acted as regent for her son, King Louis XIII of France, until he came of age. She was noted for her ceaseless political intrigues at the French court and she was born as Maria at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria. Marie was one of seven children, but only she and her sister Eleonora survived to adulthood, Marie is not a male-line descendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent but from Lorenzo the Elder, a branch of the Medici family sometimes referred to as the cadet branch. She does descend from Lorenzo in the female-line however, through his daughter Lucrezia de Medici, nonetheless this cadet branch produced every Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1537 to 1737, and the kings of France from Louis XIII in 1601 to Louis XVI in 1793. This cadet branch is already 700 years old, beginning with Averardo de Medici in 1320 and flourishes to this day with Louis Alphonse and her daughter, Henrietta Maria was queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I. Henrietta Maria, in turn, was mother of two successors, Charles II and James II. Lorenzo the Magnificents line instead became extinct shortly after the death of Lorenzo in 1492, at the time of his death the Medici Bank was already in bankruptcy. A portrait of Marie as a girl shows her with regular features. Her wavy hair was light brown in colour, and she had honey-brown eyes, the painter was from the school of Santi di Tito. She married Henry IV of France in October 1600 following the annulment of his marriage to Margaret of Valois. The wedding ceremony in Florence, Italy was celebrated with 4,000 guests and lavish entertainments, including examples of the newly invented musical genre of opera and she brought as part of her dowry 600,000 crowns. Her eldest son, the future King Louis XIII, was born at Fontainebleau the following year and her husband was almost 47 at the marriage and had a long succession of mistresses. Dynastic considerations required him to take a second wife, the marriage was successful in producing children, but it was not a happy one. The queen feuded with Henrys mistresses in language that shocked French courtiers, when he failed to do so, and instead married Marie, the result was constant bickering and political intrigues behind the scenes. Catherine referred to Maria as the fat bankers daughter, Henry used Maria for breeding purposes exactly as Henry II had treated Catherine de Medici, although the king could have easily banished his mistress, supporting his queen, he never did so. She, in turn, showed sympathy and support to her husbands banished ex-wife Marguerite de Valois. Marie was crowned Queen of France on 13 May 1610, a day before her husbands death, hours after Henrys assassination, she was confirmed as regent by the Parliament of Paris
9.
Cardinal Richelieu
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Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac, commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman, nobleman, and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616, Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIIIs chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642, he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the kings Chief Minister or First Minister. He sought to consolidate power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong and his chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve his goals. While a powerful figure, events like the Day of the Dupes show that in fact he very much depended on the kings confidence to keep this power. As alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the Collège de Sorbonne, Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts, most notably, he founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet lÉminence rouge, from the red shade of a cardinals clerical dress and this in part allowed the colony to eventually develop into the heartland of Francophone culture in North America. He is also a character in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Born in Paris, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children, at the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy. Thereafter, he began to train for a military career and his private life seems to have been typical of a young officer of the era, in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for gonorrhea. King Henry III had rewarded Richelieus father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the bishopric of Luçon. The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use, they were, however, challenged by clergymen, to protect the important source of revenue, Richelieus mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon. Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk, thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong interests, and threw himself into studying for his new post. In 1606 King Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon, as Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from the Pope. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607, soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer
10.
Palais-Royal
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The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre, the larger inner courtyard, the Cour dHonneur, has since 1986 contained Daniel Burens site-specific art piece Les Deux Plateaux, known as Les Colonnes de Buren. In 1830 the Cour dHonneur was enclosed to the north by what was probably the most famous of Pariss covered arcades, demolished in the 1930s, its flanking rows of columns still stand between the Cour dHonneur and the popular Palais-Royal Gardens. Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629, construction commenced in 1633 and was completed in 1639, upon Richelieus death in 1642 the palace became the property of the King and acquired the new name Palais-Royal. After Louis XIII died the year, it became the home of the Queen Mother Anne of Austria and her young sons Louis XIV and Philippe, duc dAnjou. From 1649, the palace was the residence of the exiled Henrietta Maria and Henrietta Anne Stuart, wife, the two had escaped England in the midst of the English Civil War and were sheltered by Henrietta Marias nephew, King Louis XIV. Henrietta Anne was later married to Louis younger brother, Philippe de France, the following year the new duchesse dOrléans gave birth to a daughter, Marie Louise dOrléans, inside the palace. After their marriage, the became the main residence of the House of Orléans. The Duchess created the gardens of the palace, which were said to be among the most beautiful in Paris. Under the new couple, the Palais-Royal would become the social center of the capital. The court gatherings at the Palais-Royal were famed all around the capital as well as all of France and it was at these parties that the crème de la crème of French society came to see and be seen. Guests included the members of the royal family like the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, the duchesse de Montpensier, the Princes de Condé. Philippes favourites were also frequent visitors, the palace was redecorated and new apartments were created for the maids and staff of the Duchess. After Henrietta Anne died in 1670 the Duke took a wife, the Princess Palatine. Saint-Cloud thus became the residence of her eldest son and the heir to the House of Orléans. For the convenience of the bride, new apartments were built and it was at this time that Philippe commissioned the gallery for his famous Orleans Collection of paintings, which was easily accessible to the public. The architect was Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and the cost of reconstruction was totaled to be 400,000 livres
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