Ship bows

A new visit to the “Palais Royal”…, but first something about the address of my blog. 

I’m back to my original blogspot address. Some bad experience about a “lost blog” (for a couple of days) a few years ago made me consider using a “domain” and I got, via Google, a www-address, which you have to pay for (not much). This has to be renewed on an annual basis. I have paid, but the www-address can’t be reached: "This domain registration expired on 01/31/2019". I spent a very long moment on the phone with the domain-company (a Google subsidiary) in Arizona. The person was kind, but, sorry, of no help. I have now decided to go back to my original simple blogspot-address – I see no reason to pay for something which doesn’t work – there was a small problem also last year. I hope that my readers will find my new (old) address. I will of course lose a number of readers, who found my blog by looking for "Peter's Paris" and who will now just continue to receive the message that the "registration has expired".  
The link via Facebook could help to find my blog. 

  

Well, coming back to the “Palais Royal” on which I have posted a number of times (see here). The Palais was originally built for the Cardinal Richelieu, who in 1639 could move in … and then there is a long history which I’m not going to retell here.

But, in 1763 there was a fire… and the whole thing had to be rebuilt, with one exception, “La Galérie des Proues” – the bow gallery, now the only part left of the original “palais”. First, one question, why bows? Because Cardinal Richelieu was – also – “grand maître, chef et surintendant général de la navigation et commerce de France », which in a simpler way means that he was – also - the boss of the navy, war and commerce. So, to illustrate this magnificent title the gallery was decorated with ship bows.

I took photos of all the 8 bows … and then I thought – they are all the same.

But, after a closer look, I found out that the bows all had different faces. There has for centuries been a wish to decorate buildings with “mascarons”, in general quite frightening, grotesque… and here we find them again.