luxembourg garden, paris

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Les plus belles fleurs du monde dans le plus beau jardin du monde.
CHARLES PÉGUY, Œuvres en Prose

Located in the 6th Arrondissement, the Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, at 22.5 hectares, is the second largest public park in Paris. The park is the garden of the French Senate, itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. 

These formal gardens, open to only royalty before the French Revolution, now serve as one of Paris's most popular destinations for relaxation.

The garden is largely devoted to a green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and centred on a large octagonal basin of water, with a central jet of water; in it children sail model boats. The garden is famed for its calm atmosphere and contain over 100 statues, monuments, and fountains, scattered throughout the grounds. Surrounding the central green space are about twenty figures of historical French queens and female saints commissioned by Louis-Philippe in 1848.

The gardens are featured prominently in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. It is here that the principal love story of the novel unfolds.