Palais Royal

The Palais Royal is a palace and garden, north of the Louvre in Paris, and was the home of Cardinal de Richelieu, who ordered its construction in 1629. Richelieu bequeathed the palace (know at that time as Palais Cardinal) to the French Crown, and after the death of Louis XIII, it was the house of the Queen-Mother Anne of Austria, Cardinal Mazarin and the young Louis XIV. After that, it became the seat of the Dukes of Orleans in Paris. Today it houses the Constitutional Council and the Ministry of Culture, and the National Library is at the rear of the garden, boasting a collection of more than 6.000.000 books, documents, maps, and prints.