Our favourite garden is the now state-owned, former royal palace park in the 6th arrondissement du Luxembourg of the same name. The garden is located in the Quartier de l'Odéon and is part of the Palais du Luxembourg, where the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament, meets. The Jardin du Luxembourg was the first place in Paris that enchanted us. During his studies in Tours, my husband often travelled to Paris at top speed on the TGV, where he partied with friends in the ‘luco’. He still likes to tell me about these unforgettable evenings.
Dieser Park liegt dicht beim Paradies / This park is close to paradise
When Erich Kästner wrote these lines in 1928, he captured a timeless truth. A fascinating spectacle of Parisian life unfolds here day after day - a hidden object picture full of stories that immediately captivated us on our first visit.
Even the first steps on the crunching gravel are a giveaway: We are entering a unique world. On one side, nimble tennis players battle for every ball, on the other, newspaper readers sit on benches and explore the world from here.
At the chess tables, players ponder their next move and under the pavilion we discover a group of people immersed in gentle Tai Chi Chuan movements. They slow down time for us too. Further into the park, elderly ladies and gentlemen meet, engrossed in conversation as if they were sharing the world's most secret stories.
But the real heart of the garden beats with the pétanque players of the A-S-J-L club (Association Sportive du Jardin du Luxembourg). Here, like a relic from days gone by, stands an inconspicuous little box - a shrine to the passion for the game. When its drawer opens, it allows a brief glimpse into a mosaic of numbered compartments, each a private treasure trove for the players' polished boules balls. Their faces reflect the pure joy of the game, a timeless enthusiasm that has filled the park with life for generations.
As we continue our walk, we are overtaken by countless joggers to the right and left, dogs barking loudly under the gaze of their owners in their own area.
It is a fulfilment to be able to take your time and linger here, just looking, smiling or dozing on the wonderful chairs. The green and surprisingly heavy seats and loungers are spread throughout the grounds in triplicate with chairs, armchairs and recliners and are very popular - especially on sunny days.
Their history is more interesting than you might think. The steel chair was designed in the 1920s by the Ateliers de la Ville de Paris for the Jardin du Luxembourg, and the chairs have been in the park since 1923. In the past, war widows were allowed to rent out the chairs, but today the approximately 4,500 chairs can be used free of charge.
In 2002, the chair manufacturer Fermob commissioned the designer Frédéric Sofia to redesign the so-called ‘Luxembourg’ chair: he retained the classic design, but wanted to make the chair more ergonomic and lighter than the old model and therefore chose aluminium. Unfortunately, the new chair cannot compete with the original in terms of comfort and quality. Fortunately, the Jardin du Luxembourg only has ‘Senát’ chairs made of steel, which is probably one of the reasons why it is so difficult to steal the chairs.
And so we have developed a magic word: ‘Sénat’ means for us - break! We quickly look for two chairs so that we can put our feet up. The ideal constellation consists of two different chairs: a chair with a sloping backrest to sit comfortably and a chair with a straight backrest to put your feet up. It is quite common for chairs to be moved around or moved to another shady spot. It is therefore common to see ‘wandering chairs’ and happy faces when the ideal spot for the next few hours is found.
Now we open our bags and find an iced champagne, black French olives, salted butter, a fresh baguette and a piece of Comté. Our source for these delicacies is the excellent Épic grocery shop at number 3 rue Mabillon ter in the Marché Saint Germain, about ten minutes' walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg.
We also like to complement our indulgent meal with a 2000 Feuilles or a Tarte Infiniment Vanille from Pierre Hermé, just as close by at 43 rue Saint-Placide. Time slows down in the midst of these delicacies and we feel that this state is probably the greatest relaxation there can be in the middle of a metropolis.
When we then make our way home again, slowly strolling at a new pace, we always pass ‘our carousel’; it not only captures the cheerful, relaxed atmosphere of the Jardin du Luxembourg as a colourful hidden object, but it also touches our very own inner child, so that we want to exclaim blissfully: How beautiful life is!
This is how Rainer Maria Rilke captured it in his poem ‘The Carousel’. The carousel in the Jardin du Luxembourg is still the original carousel that Rilke observed in 1906. And so we stop and gaze at the magical animal figures, a rhythmic up and down: and now and then a white elephant. We never tire of looking at this exotic creature.
One more thing
On one of these typical Parisian spring days, we discover a slightly yellowed piece of paper in a shop window. The handwritten list on it promises nothing less than the recipe for a fulfilled life (in Paris). There are eleven points in total, neatly numbered. The last point - a daily walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg - initially seems to be the least important. Almost like an appendage to the weighty tasks described in the first ten points.
But the longer we think about it, the more we realise that this eleventh point is the key to all the others. The path to a fulfilled life leads through the Jardin du Luxembourg - every day anew. Perhaps it is no coincidence that we found this list just a few steps away from the garden. As if Paris were whispering to us: Take your time. It is there. It's there if you find the right pace.
Recommendation
The official website of the French Senate on the Jardin du Luxembourg is a cornucopia of valuable information on all the wonderful discoveries that we will continue to tell you about in our PARIS MAGIE blog: https://jardin.senat.fr.
Map
Literature
Chartier, Olivier (2022): Le palais et le jardin du Luxembourg : Le Sénat de la République. – Flammarion.
Hervet, Hélène (2018): Le Jardin du Luxembourg: Une promenade dans un jardin familial. – Editions L'Harmattan.
Hustin, Arthur (2016). Le Luxembourg : le palais, le Petit-Luxembourg, le jardin, le musée, les carrières (Date de l'édition originale 1905). – Hachette Livre BnF.
Jardillier, Dominique (2018): Le Jardin du Luxembourg. Promenade historique et littéraire. – RMN Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
Kästner, Erich (2012): Zwischen hier und dort. Reisen mit Erich Kästner. – Atrium Verlag: Zürich.
Maunder, Hilke (2023): Paris (20. Auflage). – Baedeker.
Rilke, Rainer Maria (2012): Gedichte. – Hamburger Lesehefte Verlag (231. Heft).
Soupre, Bernard (2017): Mémoires de chaises au jardin du Luxembourg. – Éditions du Palio.
Soupre, Bernard (2023): Mémoires de Proust au jardin du Luxembourg. – Éditions du Palio.
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