page_title: Paris under Napoleon
section_title: The Palais-Royal
hierarchical_section_title: Paris under Napoleon / Leisure / The Palais-Royal
caption_attribution_description: "Promenade de la galerie du Palais-Royal" by Philibert-Louis Debucourt (1755-1832). Aquatint.
context_page_description: First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte moved into the Tuileries Palace on 19 February 1800 and immediately began to re-establish calm and order after the years of uncertainty and terror of the Revolution. He made peace with the Catholic church; masses were held again in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, priests were allowed to wear ecclesiastical clothing again, and churches to ring their bells. To re-establish order in the unruly city, he abolished the elected position of the Mayor of Paris, and replaced it with a Prefect of the Seine and a Prefect of Police, both appointed by him. Each of the twelve arrondissements had its own mayor, but their power was limited to enforcing the decrees of Napoleon's ministers.
  After he crowned himself Emperor on December 2, 1804, Napoleon began a series of projects to make Paris into an imperial capital to rival ancient Rome. He built monuments to French military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the column in Place Vendôme, and the future church of the Madeleine, intended as a temple to military heroes; and began the Arc de Triomphe.
context_section_description: It was almost impossible to walk in the narrow streets of Paris, due to the mud and traffic, and the Champs-Élysées did not yet exist, so upper and middle class Parisians took their promenades on the grand boulevards, in the public and private parks and gardens, and above all in the Palais-Royal. The arcades of the Palais-Royal, as described by the German traveler Berkheim in 1807, contained boutiques with glass show windows displaying jewelry, fabrics, hats, perfumes, boots, dresses, paintings, porcelain, watches, toys, lingerie, and every type of luxury goods. In addition there were offices of doctors, dentists and opticians, bookstores, offices for changing money, and salons for dancing, playing billiards and cards. There were fifteen restaurants and twenty-nine cafes, plus stalls which offered fresh waffles from the oven, sweets, cider and beer. The galleries also offered gambling salons and expensive houses of prostitution. The gallery was busy from the early morning, when people came to read the newspapers and do business, and became especially crowded between five and eight in the evening. At eleven, when the shops closed and the theaters finished, a new crowd arrived, along with several hundred prostitutes, seeking clients. The gates were closed at midnight.
caption: Promenading in the gallery of the Palais-Royal (1798)
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