La Fontaine Médicis

The Jardin du Luxembourg was created under Marie de Medici, the Florentine wife of King Henri IV. After his death on May 14, 1610, she wanted to create a home that reminded her of her childhood in Florence, at the Medici Palazzo Pitti and its Boboli Gardens. 

Today, it is one of the greatest places in the entire city to sit and watch the day pass under the quiet plane trees. 

Listen to the story of the creation of the fountain, how it survived the Revolution and Haussmann, and the mythological tales it has to tell. 

For more info and photos, check ClaudineHemingway.com

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Bonjour, bonjour, and welcome to episode 11 of Paris in Bleu, Blanc, Rouge. And today I'm going to tell you the story and the history behind the beautiful Fontaine Medicine that is in the Jardin de Luxembourg. And it is, I think, one of the most beautiful places in the entire city to sit. And it was one of those defining moments of why I had to always stay near it and then live in Paris. And it is just absolutely beautiful. And there's all sorts of twists and turns in the story and a few mythological stories as well that go with it. And be sure to hang out till the end because I'm going to tell you about something I got to see just this past week that I have been trying to see for years, and I got to see it. And it was just absolutely amazing. So make sure you hang out till the end. So let's just jump right in. So the city of Paris is, of course, filled with thousands of stone buildings that line its historic streets and boulevards. In the mid-19th century, under Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Hausman, the city was transformed. The streets were widened, the buildings adopted a unifying design aesthetic, and every neighborhood would have a green oasis in the shadow of its limestone facades. The once large hotel particulares, owned by a singular family, would become multiple apartments, some very small, with little space to gather and relax. In Napoleon III's plan, he wanted a park within a 10-minute walk of every neighborhood. Some are quite small with a singular bench like the Jardin Alice Saunier Seitier on the Rue Visconti, the smallest in Paris. Then there are the larger parks, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Bois de Bologna, and the most beautiful of all, the Jardin de Luxembourg. I first discovered the Left Bang Garden on my first trip to Paris a decade ago. With a few of the photos my grandfather took in the 1970s and 80s, I would walk through the garden looking for the same thing he captured on those early spring and autumn mornings. It was September 20th, 2016, that I first discovered and sat under the historic plain trees of the Fontaine Medici, taking in the ivy swags, cascading water, and dotted sunlight through the leaves. At that very moment I knew I had to return and dare I dream live in Paris. The Jardin de Luxembourg was created under Marie de Medici, the Florentine wife of King Henry IV. After his death on May 14, 1610, she wanted to create a home that would remind her of her childhood home in Florence, the Medici Palazzo Pitti and the Beauvolis Gardens. She purchased the land in 1611, once owned by the Duc de Luxembourg, which seemed far from the walls of the Palais de Louvre. Marie first asked Italian architects to create a palace reminiscent of the Pity. Serving as a regent of France while Louis XIII was too young to rule, her advisors recommended that it wasn't the best idea for the head of France to use foreign designers. In turn, she sent French architects to Florence to soak up everything that they could, then returned to Paris to bring her vision to life. The palace would take quite some time and Marie never saw it fully finished, as she was often sent away from Paris because she was constantly at odds with her son, Louis XIII, and plotting to end Richelieu's power over him. In the end, she lost when Louis sent her away on a quote unquote vacation, which really was an exile. She died in Cologne on July 3rd, 1642, ten months before Louis XIII died. The garden came to life in 1612 under Jacques Boisseau, gardener to Henry IV and Marie, who would have a great influence on the early work of Andre Lenotre, who often gets credit for the garden designs of Paris and Versailles. Keeping with the classic French style of very deliberate placements and adding low box shrubs to create spaces for colored flowers. While the garden even today is heavily influenced on French design, one aspect is very Italian. The fountain, or its first intention, the grotto of Marie de Medici, just east of the palace. In the 16th and 17th century, running water for decorative fountains or even for just water fountains wasn't a high priority. While the city was born in the center of the Seine, capturing the water was a whole different story. Under Henry IV, the Samaritan Pump was built at the Pont Neuf to bring water to the Louvre and the Right Bank, but it didn't have the power to reach Marie's garden. In 1612, the project for what would go by many names, including the Medici Aqueduct, began in the Val de Marne region. Louis XIII laid the first stone on July 17, 1613, but it would take 15 years for the water to flow into the Jardin de Luxembourg. This is partially why the beautiful oasis we call the fountain today was once just the Italian grotto, and the basin we know today was only created in the 1860s. Marie's distant cousin, the former Queen Catherine de Medici, commissioned the Palais de Tuileries in 1564 after the death of her husband, Henry II, on July 10th, 1559. The palace, once considered outside of Paris, included a large garden and a grotto created by Bernard Palaissy, a great naturalist and ceramicist of the 16th century, whose work remains relevant today. Not to be yet done, the next Florentine Medicine wanted her own country estate and grotto, although with her own taste. Marie was able to skirt the rules a bit when asking Florentine garden designer and engineer Thomasau Francini to create a fountain for her. The designer and engineer once worked for her uncle, Ferdinand I of Medicine, and he was brought to Paris by Henry IV in 1599, a year before he ever intended to marry a Medicine himself. Francini and his two brothers moved to France and became French citizens and worked on Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, Saint-Claude, and the Luxembourg, where his engineering of water came in handy. The original fountain sat against a wall that formed the eastern edge of the garden, about 98 feet from its current location. It was aligned with the southern edge of the palace and stretched to what is today the Boulevard Saint-Michel. It was much wider with niches and extended on either side of the current configuration we know and topped with decorative urns and firepots that were able to survive the 18th century revolution. Francini worked with Salmon de Brosse, often identified as Jacques Debrosse, who carried out the work and added more of the Italianette monikers of the frosting or dripping water to just about every surface of the grotto. Tuscan columns that are a bit larger on the bottom than at the top, while the banded columns, that's so typical of Italian style, were reserved for the palace itself. In the very center above the niche, the personal arms of Marie de Medici were added, the left holding the dots or coins of the Medicine family, and the right holding the Florida Leaves reserved for the royal Bourbons. Normally, the Medici side also has large band stripes, and it's unknown if the original relief had that or not since it was destroyed in the revolution. On either side are allegories of the Seine and the Rhone, specifically chosen by Marie. On the left, the water nymph representing the Seine, and on the right a water god of the Rhone, with a cornucopia of produce found along its banks. Both were done by Pierre II Biade. Marie never saw her fountain filled with water, and after her exile it was given to her son Gaston, the Grand Monsieur. It then passed to his daughter, Anne Marie Montpensier, the Grande Mademoiselle, who was once the richest woman in Europe. It then went to her younger sister, Elisabeth, who in turn gave it to Louis XIV. It remained under the crown until the Revolution, when in 1799 it became the seat of the Senate of France and remains so to this day. During the Revolution, the fountain wall was attacked and the royal markings removed. The statues of the Seine and Rhone were badly damaged. The palace itself had been used as a prison during the terror and held Jacques-Louis David behind its lavish walls. At the start of the 19th century, Napoleon ordered the palace and the garden restored. Architect Jean Francois Chalgrin restored the damaged elements with sculptor Claude Ramy bringing the Seine Water Nymph back to life, and Franciscu Doray was tasked with the Rhone. They opted not to recreate the arms of Marie de Medici and added a statue of Venus into the central niche. The largest transformation would take place between 1860 and 1862 under Haussmann and Napoleon III. As they carved through the city, widening its streets, the fountain was directly in its crosshairs. The plan was to destroy it, but a few thousand Parisians took offense and stood their ground. A few tense years of fighting resulted in the entire fountain being taken apart stone by stone and moved. The adjoining walls would not be so lucky or the building it stood against, but I think we won in the end. The architect Alphonse de Guizor led the project as well as the restoration of the palace, the Teatro de Lorentz, and the observatory. You could say that entire area around the garden looks that way because of this man. Once the fountain was reconstructed in its new location, the one we know today, de Guizor, returned the arms of Marie de Medici as well as topping it with the Bourbon crown. It was at this time that the fountain's wildest dreams came true and water flowed from the base into the large basin before it. While the elements dating to Marie returned, new additions were added, rounding out the decoration of the facade. It's hard to miss the statuary in the center of Polyphemus surprising Galateus in the arms of Assis, depicting the mythological story of the Cyclops giant Polyphemus, who's in love with the marine nymph Galateus, whose heart belongs to the Sicilian shepherd Eses. The story has been told in Ovis Metamorphosis and in countless plays and operas. In White Carrer marble, Galatea lies in the arms of Estes, who has his left hand on his panpipes. Perhaps he's about to play her a little tune. Above, Polyphemus in bronze looks down on the lovers. His left hand is reaching for what we can imagine to be a large stone he will remove from Mount Aetna and strike the young shepherd, killing him in his fit of jealousy, or maybe it was a reaction of those panpipes. The beautiful Galateus is devastated and cries and screams out to the gods. Neptune and the water nymphs arrive and bring Assis back to life, but as the river running red at the base of Mount Aetna. Assis would be immortal and Galateus would visit and lie at the water's edge every day for the rest of her life. The river would be named Assis, but it's the modern name Jassy, although it's no longer running red. This story became quite popular and was performed at Versailles at the court of Louis XV with the beautiful Madame de Pompadour, who we've talked about before, playing the lovely Galateus. The piece was created by Auguste Louis Marie Autin in 1866, and the two figures were added on either side. On the left, Phonos, who's the god of the forest and happens to be the father of Assis, holds a pan flute and looking on at the nude couple. On the right, Dianne, the goddess of hunting, and of the moon, and one of my favorites. Today it's hard to imagine the fountain without them, but when it was finished and revealed in 1867, the naked marble couple offended many. It caused one outraged man to throw a bottle of black ink on it. The Medici fountain wasn't the only one on the brink of destruction at the start of the 1860s. Thousands of homes, structures, and fountains were under the wrecking ball of Hausemen, including a small fountain not far from the Jardin de Luxembourg. While under Marie de Medici, an aqueduct was extended and brought to the southern bank of Paris, it was Napoleon Bonaparte who brought water to the people. On May 2nd, 1806, he signed a decree that water should flow day and night at the fountains of Paris. He also added more than 20 fountains, including the fountain of known as the Fontaine de Regarde at the corner of Rue de Regarde. The fountain was built in 1636 and fed from the same aqueduct as the Medici fountain, but was demolished in 1792. Napoleon ordered a new fountain in 1806, and the sculptor Achille Valois was chosen to create a bas relief design for the small structure. Valois had his idea for the budget that he needed, and the city official had their own idea, which included a much smaller number, half of what the artist wanted. Negotiations went on for over a year, and Valois only backed down when he was threatened with rescinding the entire commission and choosing another artist. Valois had already started on the project and gave in and made the 5,375 francs work instead of the 8,742 francs that he had asked for. Valois had was heavily influenced by the Renaissance master Jean Boujon, who created the Fontaine des Ennocent as well as the Louvre of Henry II, and incorporated the same feeling into his bas-relief. Lita and the swan from Greek mythology was a couple adored by many artists since the Renaissance, especially sculptors. At times a scene can be quite risque and not for the younger viewers, but this one keeps it pretty low-key until you know the story. Lita was a beautiful mortal Spartan queen who Zeus saw and wanted. The Greek gods couldn't appear before a mortal in their godlike form, so he had to transform himself into a creature. Zeus chose the elegant swan and appeared before the lovely Lita who was lying on the banks of the Eurta River. She was clearly taken by the sultry swan, and the two had a romantic encounter. Later that same day she also slept with her husband. The story continues on many months later when the lovely Lita gives birth to two large eggs, one of which has a set of twins of Zeus, Helen and Pollux, and the other a set of twins of her husband, King Tendarius, Castor and Clemenestra. Zeus' daughter Helen, later known as Helen of Troy, was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. She's also a picked subject of art by Jacques-Louis David, capturing her in the painting Helen and Paris that's in the Louvre. Her brother Polydus, also known as Pollux, and his half-brother Castor are also the Gemini twins, stars in the sky, and once the namesake of the two elephants in the Jardin des Plants, which didn't have a very storybook ending during the commune. You might want to look it up. Castor, the son of the king and his sister Clemenestra, was remembered for having two husbands and a pension for ending the lives of men who were both mortal but raised with their half-god siblings. A few years ago, Lita was making the rounds of the outraged on the internet when they wanted to cancel the story of a woman attacked by a swan. However, I think we need to keep in mind the entire story and remember that includes a swan, and then she gave birth to two large eggs that came from two different fathers that she had sex with on the same day. Everyone from Leonardo da Vinci to Cezanne have reimagined this scene, and it's even been seen on the runway of Paris in the 2021 Dior show. In the Valois version you see today, the beautiful Lita is depicted with the reeds and tall grasses of the river Eurytas and Zeus as a swan. He lies on her lap, his neck and beak pointing down into the basin below the fountain. The two lovers aren't alone on the edge. Cupid appears to be leaving the scene and putting his arrow back into his quiver as he's clearly not needed at this time. Even the somewhat erotic story of Lita couldn't keep her from the impending destruction of Houseman, thankfully saved by the quick thinking Gabriel Davio, who had the bas relief set aside for another use. In 1862, when the Medici fountain was moved to its new spot, it no longer sat against a wall, and suddenly the perfect spot for Lita was created. It's much smaller than the Medici fountain and sits on the back side that was mostly hidden from view until about two years ago. Executed by Alphonse de Guizard with the help of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Clagmont, the bas relief of Lida is bordered on either side with a Triton and dolphins on the left and an oar with dolphins on the right. Added at the top is a pediment with a laurel wreath and oak leaves, and two water nymphs by Klagman looking down and onto the sexy scene. At the very top, the crown of Marie de Medici is over a plaque marking the two major stages of the fountain in 1620 and 1863, and the artist who brought them to life. The size of the garden has changed over time since the 17th century. Marie's garden has been sliced and diced and changed many times. Under Louis Philippe, the garden grew to what we see today, except for the eastern corner, altered by Housemen. Either way, it's one of the greatest spots in Paris to sit, and it's even been voted one of the most beautiful gardens in the world. Visit on an early Sunday morning just after it opens and walk the beautiful park completely alone. Grab a croissant and a coffee and sit in one of the iconic Luxembourg green chairs under the plain trees of the garden and transport yourself back in time. However, keep an eye out for those randy looking swans. I've never seen a swan in the garden. Lots of ducks. You might still be on alert. So I wanted to share also share a fantastic thing that I got to see last week. So I have been in love with the Church of Saint-Soupe's forever, before I ever came to Paris. It was actually higher on my list to visit. It was right under the Louvre the first time I came, partially because I really loved uh the Da Vinci Code book and then the movie. And I had just looked all this information up about the church and I loved it. And so I wanted to see it. Um, one thing uh about Sansou Peace is it has a very special thing that you could only see four days out of the year, and you have to be extremely lucky because it is it has so many factors that play into this. So on the this time it was a solstice, so it was the first day of each season, and it you have to do this at true noon. So you have to actually look up online and see what that was. So on Friday, March 20th, it was 12:58 p.m. It was true noon. The sun then in inside the church, uh, if you're looking at straight at the altar, you have your back to the organ. If you look to your right, which is the south transept, there is a stained glass window. And if you look to the edge of it, there are a few, um, there's a vertical and a horizontal, and then a lower um little, it just looks kind of like a rectangle. It it's it's actually a metal piece of metal, but you can see it from the ground. And what happens is that at that time, at the true noon, on those four holiday, four days of the year, uh, for the spring and autumn equinox, uh, it is supposed, and also for the solstice, it is supposed to uh hit a little uh glass plate that is in there, and the light is supposed to hit four different spots within the church. And so this is something that's supposed to happen every time I've tried to see this. I have either not been here, um, it's been too cloudy uh and rainy, so there's no sun. Um, the closest I got, I was so excited. Uh last year, one day, and I got close to the church and they were having a funeral. Um, so obviously, you know, I'm not going to interrupt that. It's just been one thing after another. So this time on last Friday, I was like, okay, it's sunny out. It's pretty blue. It's there's barely any clouds in the sky. This might be the lucky day. And when I got to the church, there was actually quite a few people all around the altar. And I was pretty excited, and I got to actually see this. So, what it is, is that um it is a marker that was created going back to 1727, and the parish priest Jean-Paptiste uh de Sergier wanted to ensure the exactitude of the ecclesiastical calendar, particularly Easter, and the exact moment the bell should ring. Easter is the Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox. So the clockmaker Henri Souly was tasked with this project, but he passed away before it was finished, and it was picked up a few years later by Pierre Charles and Claude Le Monnier. And if you look up at the South Transept window that I was telling you about, you'll notice those rectangular plates. Each of those small holes has a glass aperture and an 80-foot focus lens through which at the exact moment when the skies are clear, the sun flows and hits the designated spot. On the winter solstice, the bullseye is in the on the marble genome that is against the wall on the north transept. The summer solstice, it hits the brass plate that's below the window of the south transept. But for years, I have been trying to see this as I said. So on the equinox, it actually hits behind, inside, just inside the altar. And if you peer your head over there, there's kind of two big uh half moons in brass. And then there is a big, huge circle. Now I wasn't even sure what I was going to see. I tried to see one time and I didn't realize like a year or two ago. I didn't realize it had to be true noon. I was in there at noon on the day, and I saw this teeny tiny spot of uh light, and I was like, is this it? I don't even know. But I saw it. So the sun comes through, it comes through that marker, and at about 12 56, it started to appear. And it was literally right on the edge of this beautiful marble uh banister that goes around the altar, and then it started moving. And this circle is, you know. It's probably about the size of a, you know, a French pizza, you know, probably a small pizza in the States. But it literally crawled across it and filled this entire circle, brass circle, covered it in light. And then it started moving off. So it worked. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I have a bunch of videos that I put on my Instagram. So you could uh scroll through. This was on Friday. So scroll back to what I posted on Friday, March 20th. Uh, it was the coolest thing. There was about a dozen or so uh nerds there. And I say that affectionately because I think I'm a complete nerd, but it was really cool. And the lady that was next to me, we were like, oh my god, did you see it? Like, that's amazing. So it was the coolest thing I had been told by um some friends I have that that's their parish church, and they are friends with the priest that they said, oh no, they covered it up years ago, so it doesn't really work. But I saw for myself. So luckily it wasn't winter because it uh for the genome, it's completely covered because they're restoring the paintings of the tap of the transept on all four of them on both sides, and you can't even see it. So it should be done. Um, and we could see if hopefully, um, but I want to see it for every holiday. Um, because that would, or not every holiday, every first day of the seasons, um, it which would be uh pretty cool. So if you're going to be in Paris in the next one, which would be the summer uh solstice, it uh we'll see if it happens. But again, you have to just hope that it is um a clear sky. And when I went in the one time and I was so excited, and then they had the funeral, and literally, you know, here was this, you know, family and uh the priest standing. I couldn't exactly just pop my head over the the railing and and see if this was working. So it was really cool. Uh, but check out the videos I post on my Instagram. I'm gonna see if I could get them onto uh YouTube as well. So if you've uh read Da Vinci Code or watched the movie, he refers to the that the specific phenomenon that uh as part of the meridian line and that's um that the error go markers that go through the city. That's not actually true. It kind of actually goes a different direction um than the meridian line actually goes. But uh, you know, I won't fault Dan Brown for that because I love that book. So definitely come in uh the summer. If you are gonna ever be here on uh the solstices or the equinox, maybe go check it out. And it did it's different when I I already looked up the summer and it's at like 1.52 p.m. is is true noon. So it uh it varies with everyone and it also varies because of the time zone we're in, all these kinds of things. So um, dude, check it out because it was uh it was so cool. It was definitely worth the wait. Um, today, this morning, I also went to go see the opening of the new Matisse exhibit that's at the Grand Palais. Uh just opened today and it goes through July. Fantastic, just great. I went right when it opened and lots of people, so I actually kind of uh hustled ahead a few rooms and then I was basically be able to see the uh last two-thirds of it by myself. And the coolest thing ever was it had his original designs of his uh that he called poly Polynesian Sky and uh I think C. And it was what he m had created, uh it's all you know cut out of paper that went to the Gobelands, and that is what they made the tapestry, and there's two tapestries hanging in Notre Dame right now that are there and probably for another eight or nine years while they're having new ones made. But they it these were this was I was looking right at the original thing he created that was then turned into the tapestries in Notre Dame. So that was like the highlight, the whole thing for me. That was just the greatest. Um, so if you're coming, but I already did have somebody send me a message saying that they were having a really hard time getting tickets online, which sometimes happens if you're not in France. If you have a VPN, try turning on a VPN and and changing a location to Paris or Europe and try again. Um, but something, you know, it was definitely crowded, but it was pretty much all French people at the exhibit. Um, and it's a a huge, it's in a pretty big space. So um you might be okay to just getting your ticket um when you come here as well, because there was lots of people that were buying tickets just on the spot. So that's you know, another this is the best time of the year because all the new exhibits open up and there's some other great ones coming. And I want to share more with you about the renoir. Um, and that's what I was gonna do this week, but then I got too excited about the fountain. So thank you guys so much for listening and check my website for some photos and some more information. And if you're coming to Paris, book a walking tour around the city and uh we'll go visit the garden. There's so much in the garden to see, and it really is uh one of my favorite places. So check it out at ClaudineHemingway.com and I hope to see you soon.