The colonnaded garden Colette watched from her Palais-Royal windows for the last years of her life, and the setting of her 1954 state funeral.
The Jardin du Palais-Royal is a long planted rectangle enclosed by arcades a few steps north of the Louvre, laid out for Cardinal Richelieu in the 1630s and rebuilt in its present form in the 1780s. For most visitors it is a quiet shortcut with fountains, lime allées and rows of shops under the colonnade. For Colette it was the view from the desk.
From her first-floor apartment on the rue de Beaujolais side, she watched the garden through the seasons and made it a recurring subject of her late writing, most directly in Le Fanal bleu (1949). She walked its allées with her neighbor Jean Cocteau before arthritis confined her, and the garden's cats, gardeners and regulars pass through the books of these years.
When Colette died in August 1954, France held a state funeral for her in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal. The garden and its arcades are open to the public today; Daniel Buren's striped columns, Les Deux Plateaux, have stood in the adjoining main court since 1986.
The garden is laid out beside Richelieu's Palais-Cardinal, later the Palais-Royal.
Rebuilt with the surrounding arcades and shops in their present arrangement.
Colette settles overlooking the garden at 9 rue de Beaujolais and makes it her daily view.
Publishes Le Fanal bleu, written from her window on the garden.
France holds Colette's state funeral in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal.
Yes. It is a public garden managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux, open daily and free to enter, with hours that change by season.
Colette lived overlooking it at 9 rue de Beaujolais from 1938 until her death in 1954. She watched it from her window, walked it with Jean Cocteau, and made it the subject of Le Fanal bleu (1949).
Through the arcades on the rue de Montpensier, rue de Valois and rue de Beaujolais sides, and from the main court off the Place du Palais-Royal near the Louvre.
In the courtyard of the Palais-Royal, in August 1954 — the first state funeral France granted to a woman of letters. She was afterward buried at Père-Lachaise.
Les Deux Plateaux, an installation of black-and-white columns by Daniel Buren, placed in the main court of the Palais-Royal in 1986. They stand in the forecourt beside the garden, not in the planted garden itself.
Frequented by · 1938–1954
From her first-floor apartment Colette watched and walked the Palais-Royal garden for the last years of her life; it is the subject of Le Fanal bleu (1949). Her state funeral was held in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal in 1954.
Frequented by · 1929
Frank Groves, a pirate publisher, kept a bookshop in the arcades on the north side of the garden, and Lawrence went there in March 1929 to discuss a Paris edition before changing his mind on the pavement outside. Groves published a pirated edition anyway, printed in Germany; Lawrence learned of it on 15 March. The account places him at the shop rather than in the garden itself, which is why this reads as probable.
Colette's home above the Palais-Royal garden, and the address that made her its dame. She lived here from 1938 until her death in 1954.
Visit the place
The Palais-Royal restaurant Colette favored in her last years, a few doors from her apartment. A brass plaque still marks her seat.
Visit the place
The probable site of the café where Langston Hughes lunched with collector Albert C. Barnes in 1924 — and an open brasserie a visitor can enter today.
Visit the place
A glass-roofed 1820s shopping arcade near the Palais-Royal, and home to the bookshop the City of Paris calls Colette's haunt.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
