ABSTRACT
The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 transformed the monarchy from an absolutist style to a constitutional one. The new status of the Bourbon king Louis XVI as a national leader, rather than God’s plenipotentiary, required such symbolic measures as the forced abandonment of a century-long royal isolation at Versailles. The court was moved to Paris, where the monarch was expected to live among his people; installed in the previously neglected palace of the Tuileries, situated in the heart of the bustling city. Although the palace had a long history behind it, it was not a return to an earlier form of monarchy but rather a first step in the process of the modern change of royal representation. However, the question of where and how an absolutist-turned-constitutional king should live was not definitely settled. Even a few months before the final abolition of the monarchy in 1791, the National Constituent Assembly still discussed the problem of royal representation in the constitutional state, and even then deputy Bertrand Barère suggested extending the royal palace and transforming it into a new Palais National. 2 For Barère, such an extension would provide the legislative and executive bodies of the new state with duly magnificent headquarters, while also sharing the space with the royal family and their court. Barère hoped that such a palace would have served as a true representation of national sovereignty, contrasting with antidemocratic ‘superstitions surrounding the throne’ that were a traditional driving force behind royal architectural undertakings, and that ‘so often corrupted the hearts of kings and subjugated the minds of the people’. 3
