Database: Palais-Royal

The Palais-Royal was the nerve center of the Revolution under the auspices its owner Philip, Duke of Orléans, cousing of Louis XVI.

Finding himself in debt, Philippe d'Orléans lined the three arcades with 60 shops which he let out to restore his finances. The galleries were bustling up until two in the morning. It was a non-stop party, and the meeting place for the capital's many crooks, swindlers, old lechers and young debauched.* An unusual time-piece was installed: a small cannon that fired exactly at noon, triggered by the sun itself. -- * Paris really hasn't changed a bit. -- Its regal name was impossible to maintain under the Revolution, and so it became the "Palais Égalité."